Talk:New York City/Archive 4

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Crime

Sorry, but the phrasing on the Sicilian Mafia is a little inaccurate. Please refer to the article, Arnold Rothstein. The Mafia was created when Rothstein died, and then the major initial figures "inherited" many of Rothstein's various nefarious enterprises. THAT was how the Mafia originated and gained its power. A common urban myth, but one that is not accurate. allie 14:19, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Reference

I'd like to add The Encyclopedia of New York, considered THE reference book on the city, with permission. It was published by Yale Univ. Press & New York Historical Society with funding from the NEA and just about every foundation in Manhattan. It's a great reference book. Also: If anyone has any questions about a particular subject...feel free to ask me & I'll be happy to look it up in the reference, as well. allie 14:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good choice. We actually have an entry on it at The Encyclopedia of New York City. I've used it quite a bit in numerous articles as a reference. -- Decumanus 23:31, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
Thanks, Decumanus. What about Robert Moses? There's a brief mention of him that infers that Moses did his best to make the City less traffic-oriented (which is true) but he failed (right again). However, it never explains who Moses is, or why he was important. While the phrasing of the sentence can be easily fixed without going into long sub-tangent, the book is seminal, as well.
Also, I do wish that someone would look at that website I referred to: www.newyorksnapshots.com for photographs. I used his photographic time line already in the 9/11 website to show the decline of the WTC over time. It's pretty spectacular. He's already agreed to give us any photos we need for Wikipedia, and it's worth the look see. Best Regards allie 13:28, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for finding that site. Why not go ahead and take and use the photos from it that you think are relevant and put them on the appropriate pages, if you have the time? Moncrief 18:55, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Hello user using 69.135.212.3, 69.135.213.232, Dodgymechanic

I would like to discuss a couple of points regarding your recent edits. Please remember Hinduism is a religion, India is a country. Many Indians are not Hindus, and a considerable number of Hindus are not Indians. New York has many residents of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi origin, all countries in South Asia. I suppose we could list all countries where New Yorkers have roots, but that list would look suspiciouslly like List of countries. It's arbitrary on how many to list, but please don't confuse religions with countries or ethnic groups. Judaism is also a religion, while Jews (at least for the purposes of Wikipedia) are an ethnic group.

More imprortant, please do not say that the silly stereotype that all New Yorkers are jerks is true without evidence, whatever that would be. And if you want to discuss racism in the city, please treat it seriously, and not as something New Yorkers are supposedly 'proud' of along with pollution etc.--Pharos 04:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Strange occurrence after rollback

After rolling back an edit, the "Diff" page does not reflect the reality of how the page was changed. It looks from the "Diff" between the versions that somehow I deleted much of the article, when in fact it's all there. If someone sees that the rollback has deleted anything important, please note that - but I don't think it's the case. Still, I can't figure out why the "Diff" page looks like it does, with so much yellow (when all of it is still in the article). Moncrief 10:53, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

I found the same, after other editing as well. It seems to occur since version 1.4 was introduced. Immediately after saving a page, the last or last but one version is often missing from the history list. It takes a few minutes before the list is complete.

Sister Cities?

I've been thinking we should delete the section titled 'Sister Cities," since I'm not even sure what the purpose of that list is supposed to be. Exactly how is Budapest a sister city to New York? I think we can all agree that the list is entirely subjective and arbitrary. And if no one objects, I think I'll delete that section in a few weeks. johnleonard--Johnleonard 14:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I didn't add the list, but I think these are the official sister cities, which are in cooperative relationships with New York City. The person who added Newark obviously meant it in another way.--Pharos 17:12, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

-Oh ok. Well I still don't really see the ultimate point of it, but I guess it should be left there for anyone who's interested.--Jleon 17:25, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • FWIW, they're the same as what is known as "twin towns" in Europe. Niteowlneils 18:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • It's a formal concept, described at Town twinning (see also the Sister Cities International website). It's not hugely important but it might as well stay in. On the other hand, Newark is not a formal sister city of NYC. I see no purpose in the paragraph about Newark except to get in the gratuitous shot that "Newark is only a microcosm" of NYC. I'm removing that paragraph. JamesMLane 10:03, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Citation for "global cities"

This[1] supports my recent rollback. Niteowlneils 18:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Museums list

Hello all. I think the list of museums here is in a very sorry state of affairs, as most of the listings just lead to dead links. Over the next few weeks I'll be working on improving things a bit, and I was hoping some of you could help me out with this effort. Namely, I think it would be a good idea to have at least a provisional article set up for each of the museums listed. --Jleon 14:17, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

format?

Why is this located at New York City and not New York, New York? Every other city and town in the United States list the state, both in other cases where the state name is implicit (Oregon City, Oregon, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, etc.) and in other major cities where one might expect people to know its location (Washington, D.C., Seattle, Washington). Is there a reason this city is exempt from the rule? Sarge Baldy 20:22, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:New York City/Archive 2 (title of article) -- Decumanus 22:58, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

"The unrivaled cultural and entertainment capital of the western world"

I've changed that line to "the unrivaled cultural and entertainment capital of the Western Hemisphere". London and Paris are part of the western world, and certainly rival NYC for the title "cultural and entertainment capital". --Angr 07:22, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

But London is also in the Western Hemisphere... Eugene van der Pijll 17:28, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It would be unfair to call NY the "unrivalled" cultural capital of the Western Hemisphere. London, Edinburgh and Los Angeles could all lay claim to that rather overly prestigious (is arrogant the right word?) title, and all of them have both the cultural quantity (numbers of art galleries, film studios, theatres and museums) and the unique and cohesive cultural character, style and identity to be called cultural capitals in their own right. As culture itself is a subjectively perceived concept, it is unfair to assert one city's supremacy over at least four others (within the Western Hemisphere) that, while not as large in population, certainly have cultural "scenes" just as lively as New York's. And I haven't even been to Chicago, San Fransisco, New Orleans, Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, or Havana, all of which are reputed to possess a distinctive and thriving cultural scene. Whilst it is perhaps unwise to be drawn into a debate over the merits of individual cities, it might be better to at least temporarily suspend the accolade. 82.32.83.19 20:45, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

-- Excuse me,82.32.83.19, but London and Edinburgh are not in the Western Hemisphere (note the hotlink for your own perusal). Los Angeles and Chicago are certainly important cities, but they don't even come close to having NYC's collection of "museums, galleries, and performance venues" sited in the intro. Of course other cities can be called "cultural capitals" in a general sense, but none of them rival NYC by any conceivable measure. --Jleon 21:28, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Point taken about "western hemisphere", but...

You still assume that the only valid criterion for being a "cultural capital" is quantity of cultural attractions. As you can't quantify exactly what constitutes "culture" outside of that found in a petri dish (note the hotlink for your own perusal), it is not really in the neutral spirit of Wikipedia to call NYC the cultural/entertainment capital of the Western Hemisphere, and it is certainly not unrivaled. Don't forget Rio or San Fransisco, not to mention Montreal or Philadelphia. You are excused.82.32.83.19 18:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

New York is certainly objectively much more of a cultural capital than San Francisco, Philadelphia or Montreal. To say otherwise indicates that you don't understand New York very well. Also, is there a reason why you aren't signing your posts? Is it due to a lack of knowledge about how to do so? Moncrief 00:52, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
Even geniuses forget sometimes (to answer the more petty of your criticisms). You can't treat New York's cultural eminence as unrivalled and retain objectivity. Many consider New York as..., possibly even New York is widely viewed as..., but not New York is... - that's barefaced Wikipropaganda. And don't think I didn't notice how you sneakily skirted round Rio's excellent claim in an attempt to straw-man the validity of my arguments. 82.32.83.19 18:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Dispute over population and city limits

I couldn't help but notice the recent back and forth over two figures stated in the intro. Between using 8 million or 8.1 million people for the population, and between 309 and 322 square miles for the city limits. Personally I think either set of numbers is within an acceptable level of accuracy. For the population, the figure of 8 million is a good even number that reflects the 2000 census. On the other hand, the 8.1 million reflects the 2003 census estimates (according to the census website it was 8,085,742 in 2003). Of course the population of NYC is usually considered to be vastly undercounted by the census, it would probably be inappropriate for us to put in unofficial counts such as 8.2 or 8.3 million on sheer conjecture. As for the square mileage of the five boroughs, 309 or 311 are usually used as the official number, however I have seen the 322 number in some other sources. I believe the discrepency is due to the question of how much of the marshland in Jamaica Bay should you consider to be actual land? Either way, I think both numbers can be considered reasonable estimates. --Jleon 14:24, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maybe, but let's hear it first from someone other than an anon editor who alters the figures without comment or reference. Postdlf 14:37, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Why not just give both the 2000 census and 2003 census estimate in exact numbers (as we do for most other US cities)? The Census, by the way [2] gives 303.3 sq. miles as the land area of New York. john k 16:49, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

--Well, I think we should refrain from making the first section too confusing. The term "over 8 million" is perfectly adequate for whatever the exact population might be at the moment. Thats interesting about the square mileage though. I suppose 309 is a happy medium between 322 and 303? Perhaps we could go more into length about the population numbers in the Demographic section.--Jleon 16:55, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Header picture

I think a Statue of Liberty pic should be the 1st pic in the article. The pic is more colorful than the midtown pic, and the Statue of Liberty is an international symbol of NYC. WhisperToMe 01:27, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

-- I happen to dislike that picture because it was taken on an unusually hazy day and makes it look like Lower Manhattan is perpetually shrouded in smog. Also, there is another picture of Lower Manhattan just a few paragraphs below it, so there is some redundancy there. Thirdly, a skyline shot from the harbor is something any coastal city can replicate, while the midtown picture shows the uniqueness of development and land-use in NYC. Anyway, maybe we should open this up to others to chime in and see if theres a common consensus that can be reached. Maybe the solution is to find some new pictures altogether. --Jleon 14:07, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not every city has the Statue of Liberty.

The reason that picture was used is because Mav wanted a pic of the skyline in front, while I wanted a pic of the most famous symbol of the city in front. Both of us decided to use a picture that has both of them. Maybe what I could do is simply a full picture of the statue of liberty. WhisperToMe 18:12, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ok, Why don't we try a full picture of the statue of liberty above the picture of midtown?

  • I think the current Liberty picture is good because at least isn't completely Manhattanocentric, shows two icons of the Statue of Liberty and the Lower Manhattan skyline, and Upper New York Bay which borders three boroughs.--Pharos 18:32, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

-- Well, I came up with one possible compromise. Don't forget that in the midtown picture, you can also see a good portion of Queens and even parts of the Bronx, so I think its even less Manhattan-centric than the other. I just feel the brown cloud hanging over the other picture is very unsightly and inaccurate, but if its what everybody else wants, I could go with it.--Jleon 19:13, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Wildy Innaccurate!!!!

According to History..............

Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European man to find Manhattan Island when he visited......................

http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/verrazzano.html

The French Speaking Belgians called Hugenots were the very first Europeans to settle on Manhattan Island and the area.

The Dutch followed later.............

Falsehoods like this is why I am writing an article all about Wikipedia's distorted truths....................

SD

"Wildy Innaccurate!!!!"? ... "Falsehoods"? Interesting that you are claiming to write a "tell-all" article about Wikipedia's "distorted truths" rather than discuss these issues on the appropriate talk page. You make assertions but no connections to "falsehoods" in the articles. You give no citation about the Hugenots. And, of course, you could grace us with a real username instead of an anonymous IP and actually try putting "truth" in the articles.
I don't know where you would be submitting this article, but you will be deceiving those who read it if you don't describe the nature of the Wikipedia, that anyone (including you) can edit it, that those who would post lies or distortions are balanced by those who seek them out and attempt to portray them accurately. Your rant suggests that some Ubermeister controls the content to present a distorted picture. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:50, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
To the anon: what you mentioned is indeed largely covered in this and other articles. Certainly it is well accepted established that Verrazzano was the first European to enter the Upper Bay. However, according to his journal accounts, Verrazzano anchored in the Narrows (where he received a group of Lenape canoes) but did not put ashore on Manhattan. He describes the harbor asa "lake", and does not describe Manhattan in any particular detail in his journals, and certainly did not know it was an island itself. The first European to put ashore on Manhattan was almost certainly Hudson in 1609. The first Europeans to set up a long-term encampment on the island (or anywhere within the present five boroughs) were the expedition of Adriaen Block in 1610, sailing for the Dutch East India Company. The first true European residents of the island were the company garrisson personnel at Fort Amsterdam on the island's tip. The Huguenots (Walloons) you spoke of--yes they were the first family settlers. The first Walloon wave in 1625 were essentiall company employees, brought in to raise food for the company garrison on Manhattan and upriver at Fort Orange (but they were certainy preceded by the garrisson itself). Manhattan was not of strategic importance to the company, so much of the cleared area was given over to cattle grazing (the Walloon families) to feed the company personnel. -- Decumanus 23:06, 2005 Feb 9 (UTC)

Point of information: SD surely stands for User:Supercool Dude, who was active for a short while but grew upset when some of his contributions were not appreciated by some fellow users. I'm sure he wasn't trying to be anonymous, but just isn't signing in anymore.--Pharos 01:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Media and the Arts

I think the section on Communications and Media arguably should be refiled under the preceding section about Tourism, Recreation, and the Arts. Maybe not the TV News and Newspapers section, but the Film section probably should be moved. I didn't want to make a major change without some Talk first. I'm also planning on a section about the Music Industry. Kaisershatner 16:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

-- Kaisershatner, I think the additions you made today are great, and I could definitely go for the idea of consolidating those sections. If we did, though, I think we should probably put the list of Newspapers & Magazines onto a separate page. Right now this list only features Papers and Mags specifically about NY; but if it were a separate list, we could also include all of the magazines published in the city that are distributed nationally. The Times Square picture would also work very nicely if the section on TV studios was placed directly above the entry on the Theater distrcit.--Jleon 16:45, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


UN Headquarters was in Flushing, Queens

UN has always met in NYC - though Security Council also was in Nassau

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/F/FlushingU1S1.asp http://www.queenscourier.com/spclissue/israel/united.htm http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2004/webArticles/060304_RalphBunche.asp http://www.qgazette.com/news/2003/0625/Feature_Stories/003.html http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs741a,0,7354306.story?coll=ny-lihistory-navigation http://www.what-where.info/usny_queens_museum_of_art.htm

Please edit accordingly--JimWae 05:06, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

--Edit what accordingly? The UN may have met in different places, but those places never had the "headquaters" of the UN. I appreciate your research on this, but by your standards we should also mention San Francisco in the intro. The current HQ is the only complex of buildings that has ever served as the permanent HQ of the UN. --Jleon 05:37, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Permanent being the key word. SF was the founding convention, never the HQ. Flushing was the temporary HQ for the first meeting until the move to Manhattan (city does not refer only to Manhattan, right?) It is silly to say the city became the HQ in 1951 when the city has ALWAYS been the HQ.--JimWae 05:41, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, though it's mostly an argument over semantics: "HQ" as a base of operations, as opposed to a physical "HQ" as a complex of buildings. Maybe we should do away with a mention of the year to avoid the misunderstanding? --Jleon 05:52, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--Ok JimWae, I added the word "permenent" to distinguish it from the "temporary" HQ in Flushing, although I think the whole thing was a bit unnecessary. --Jleon 06:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---I think it is more important to NYers (& a matter of some pride) that the HQ has always been in the city - and that way the year is not needed at all. The way it is we are dangling about where it was the first few years -hardly any NYers even know --JimWae 06:16, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

-- Dangling about? You have a very interesting way of looking at this. Why don't we leave it the way it is in the intro, and mention this distinction in the 'History' section? That way we're both happy. --Jleon 06:26, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

-- There you go JimWae, I added a mention of the Flushing temp HQ in the "history" section, and the intro has the word "permanent" for the current HQ to distinguish the two even further. I hope this resolves the issue, it was very interesting point you made though. --Jleon 06:36, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Jewish community

The article says, "New York City is also home to the nation's largest community of American Jews...." I'm sure that's true, but at one point I thought I read that it wasn't just limited to Americans; New York was described as "the world's largest Jewish city", meaning that more Jews live in NYC than in any other city in the world. Does anyone know whether that's true? JamesMLane 09:37, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

-- I think you're almost certainly right. NYC must have more Jews than any other city in the world, as opposed to simply more than any other in the U.S. If you look at the table titled "Geographic population of Jews" in the article "Jews", (assuming its accurate, altough the count for Russia seems rather bizarre) you'll see that this really must be the case. --Jleon 14:10, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The website of the World Jewish Congress estimated the Jewish pop. of NYC at 1.9 million, I think in 1991; this would make it the largest population of Jews in a single city in the entire world. The subdivisions of Russia found at that site include total populations of less than a million in Russia and Ukraine, which I'm guessing are the biggest. I'll double check on this. The Jewish population of Israel is 4.7 million but distributed among many different cities. Kaisershatner 02:06, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

Tweaked this a little; I think we can make a bolder statement of what makes NYC an incomparable city. I also think the UN reference might need to be dropped down. Compared to all of the rest of that stuff, it's the weakest link (in my opinion). Hope my changes aren't thought to be horrible. Kaisershatner 01:59, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reorganization

OK, so here is my time to discuss the large reorganisation I made. I have protected this page for the moment to prevent User:Jleon and I from starting a revert war, which would serve no purpose, plus would put us well above the 3RR. I re-organised this page because frankly, there are large sections that consist mostly of lists of other lists. There should be a centralised location for all of these, which is why I created at Template:NYC topics. Also, this page is 62k at the moment, after I trimmed it down from 69k. This is double the preferred size, but granted New York City is a large topic. However, the images in this article needed serious re-organisation. They bled itno other sections, and were not always germane to where they were. The skyscraper images are frankly huge, while other images are small. I'm willing to look for a compromise, but a large and general revert is not such a compromise. For reference, this is the article before I began to edit it, and [3] this is the article after. Páll 06:48, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)


--Does it make any sense for Páll (aka PZFUN), with no previous presence on the article OR discussion page, to go and delete viturally the entire section on NYC Gov't, resize a dozen pictures to an enormous 300 pixels, and reorganize vast sections of the article with no discussion, and then block the page from editing as soon as someone tries to undo any of the thoughtless changes he made? This is the worst action I've ever seen anyone take to a major article like this. --Jleon 07:03, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this makes sense. No article is owned by anyone and anyone can go in and do large changes as they see fit. A talk page notice about this is of course a courtesy but not policy. I'm also going to ask you to Assume good faith as Pàll is a respected editor with many FA's behind him. Inter\Echo 11:54, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The point of an article like this is to cover the general subjects and then to direct people to the subarticles where they are discusssed in greater detail. This article is twice this size of the preferred size of a Wikipedia article, and larger than almost any other I've seen. I removed content from the government section because it already existed on the Government of New York City page. Páll 07:10, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I would look at his previous work (helping get many South Africa-related articles featured) before attacking him and saying his work is horrible. Assume good faith, for he is a good editor with Wikipedia's best interests at heart. Thank you. Mike H 07:07, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes - I also do not like left-justified images, and images that bleed into other sections are never good. I agree with Mike H and PZFUN. ugen64 07:17, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Whatever happened to being bold? The edits weren't exactly based on controversial content. Then let's discuss changes regarding layout - making such accusations aren't helpful. Dysprosia 07:45, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Reading your response Jleon I can see why a temporary protection is in order. Please remember to keep a cool head about this. No one owns an article, each persons input is valid. A temporary protection while a rewrite is discussed seems very prudent to me.  ALKIVAR™ 08:33, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is best policy with large articles like this to, where possible, split sections off to other articles and leave summaries of the transferred content, as can be seen in country articles like United States and Australia. Protections are appropriate where there is a content dispute and the changes are being discussed. - Mark 11:32, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Agreed with that policy; I recently did that for New York City Subway. The only problem is that then it can't become a featured article because it doesn't need sources as it simply summarizes the sub-articles. --SPUI (talk) 11:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Belgium is a featured article, despite having summaries with links to main articles. Or was it made a featured article before the citation prerequisite was set in stone?? - Mark 13:39, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--If you look at wiki's statistics page you'll see the NYC article is among the most heavily viewed articles, and it is also extremely active in terms of the number of editors. If everyone did what Páll did there would just be absolute chaos. Many of the changes he made have a long history throughout this discussion page which he paid no heed to at all. The bottom line is that this article was evolving very nicely through compromise and debate until all of this happened. --Jleon 16:05, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I will quote from Wikipedia:Ownership of articles:
First, there's control of the article. Some contributors feel very possessive about articles they have donated to this project. Some go so far as to defend them against all intruders.
Well, it's one thing to take an interest in an article that you maintain on your watchlist. Maybe you really are an expert or you just care about the topic a lot. But when this watchfulness crosses a certain line, then you're overdoing it.
You can't stop everyone in the world from editing "your" prose, once you've posted it to Wikipedia. As each edit page clearly states:
All contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License (see Wikipedia:Copyrights for details). If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it. [emphasis added].
If you did not want what you wrote to edited, why did you submit it? At the moment, you have not said that any of my edits were wrong, merely that I did not discuss them or that I should not have made them because I do not edit often on this page. That is not at all what Wikipedia is about, and any article that is developing at 69k is NOT developing very nicely. Páll 21:03, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--I'm NOT being protective of my own contributions, in fact, I had absolutely nothing to do with writing the section on NYC Gov't. This was one section that everyone else just left alone because it was very well done. I HAVE stated that some of your edits were wrong, primarily in your use of the photos. The photos look rediculous now.--Jleon 23:43, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

All I care about is that the Statue of Liberty must be up at the top of the article in some shape or form in the end. WhisperToMe 16:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree about the statue of liberty, although I think the photo of the Statue of Liberty with downtown Manhattan in the background is a much better image than the one of JUST the Statue of Liberty. Its much more descriptive. Páll 21:03, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

-I think we can all agree on a few things: (1) while not strictly required, a little warning or discussion of a major reorg. via the Talk page goes a long way to preventing conflict (I learned this the hard way when I shredded and rebuilt Lebanese Civil War without warning the main contributors). I can therefore sympathize with User:Jleon being surprised at the sudden changes, and even though bold editing is good, there's no harm in some discussion either (note my own comment under the opening para, I changed the opening para dramatically but I noted this on the talk page in case it became hugely controversial). (2) With or without warning, Páll made some changes that are probably appropriate (we don't need a partial list of all the newspapers, or a partial list of all the companies, or a partial list of the airports...etc.) and if the content is basically preserved in the subarticles then reverting may not be necessary. A list of lists is not a good article. (3) The Statue of Liberty should be more prominent; it is a major symbol of the USA and of New York City.

Finally, although not all of the cityscape images were section-specific, in my opinion it was nice to see so many different views of the city from different time periods and angles. I happen to think it was visually interesting. I look forward to the un-freezing of this article as it was really making a lot of positive progress. Kaisershatner 19:34, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Generally comment: In my opinion, it would be nice to see a little more diversity evolve in the images. It is very heavy on skyscrapers, and extremely Manhattan-centric. In fact, last time I checked, there's not a single picture that is not primarily of Manhattan (ok, I checked and saw Yankee Stadium. That's one for other boroughs). This is a good (and legitimate) representation of how New York appears to visitors and tourists, but the selection, in my opinion, presents a limited view of the broader intimate New York as it appears to residents . In that regard, the picture of the South Ferry subway platform is awesome. That's New York to me, much more than multiple images of the Empire State Building. The difficulty, I realize, is that many people have taken picture of skyscrapers, and deciding among them, let alone the new ones people will add, would not be an easy process. -- Decumanus 19:47, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)
I agree, the images are a bit odd. For example, there are much better places to photograph in the Lower East Side/East Village than that odd street corner. Besides, that's a new development and doesn't even show the typical housing in the area. A photograph of 9th Street or Orchard Street would be much, much, much better. Páll 21:03, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There is something about your tone and attitude, Pali, that is just so counterproductive. I'm not sure if you're new to Wikipedia or not, but I hope you can figure out a way to work with people here without causing these disturbances. If you don't like the photographs on this page, please feel free to take some of your own. I'm sure there are some potential ones that could be "much, much, much better" (three "much"s, huh?), but they don't currently exist in Wikipedia-world, so you'll need to take them. We've made do with what we have. This page has been evolving for a long time. There is a certain ettiqute to making major changes to articles that you have not followed, and I understand where some people's frustrations is coming from. Moncrief 06:39, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • I think Páll's changes do come off as being a bit belligerant and illconceived. The section on government is very important, not to be trimmed down to an after thought. Also what's with all the huge pictures? A jumbo-sized pic just to show taxi cabs? Come on. The article just looks embarassing now, as does the edit-block.--Moocher 20:59, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The point of an article like this is to provide general information and then to link to articles that go into further detail. The government section was trimmed because Government of New York City said the exact same thing. There's no need to go into detail about everything if someone who was really interested in learning about the details of New York City governance could just click onto a fully developed article about it. Páll 21:03, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Some comments from --JimWae 21:40, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC):
    • Much of this "reorganization" ignored recent changes.
Which recent changes did it ignore?
    • The article does focus on Manhattan a lot - especially the photos - Perhaps some photos belong just in Manhattan article with a PROMINENT link at top of NYC page
      • I have added Manhattan to New York disambig page
    • Article says those from NY but not from NYC do not refer to themselves as New Yorkers - are they New Yorkites or are they stateless?
I disagree with whomever said that people from NY but not NYC do not refer to themselves as New Yorkers. Mostly I'd imagine that people who are talking within New York State would say I'm from "upstate" or "the city," while outside of New York people would say "I'm from New York City" or "New York State".
  • I think many do refer to themselves as New Yorkers - even Long Islanders
    • The article length is less a concern than it used to be. 32 kB length is less a concern to Wikipedia than it used to be.
It is less of a concern, however 69k is outrageous. It clearly puts it in the top 98th percentile for article size for not much gain.
    • The recreation section focuses on SPECTATOR sports
    • If breaking up into sub-articles is going to affect "featured article" status, then I say NO
That's not correct at all. There are four country articles that are featured articles that do that exact thing: South Africa, Belgium, India, and Cambodia. Furthermore, another city article that is a featured article does the same thing: Johannesburg.
  • If so, then OK.
    • Because so many changes were made & they did not use the latest version, it was nearly impossible to see the differences without taking a hour. Should have been more piecemeal -- with comments in Talk

I would really love to hear which recent changes I ignored. Páll 21:55, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Everything I did yesterday, I had to redo --JimWae 22:10, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)
  • JimWae is right, who cares if the article is more than 32k? Its perfectly fitting for it to be in the top 98th percentile if its a lagre topic in scope and one of the most frequently viewed articles. If it can't become "featured" becasue of this than so be it, its more important for it to be a comprehensive article. Even at its largest its still less than a ten minute read. --Moocher 23:34, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--Also Páll, why on earth did you put the paragraph about the city's portrayal on film and television under the heading "Printed Media"? I think this is just one more example of how carried away you got. I mean we're talking about an article that was being actively edited by dozens of people, with dozens of edits often happening in a single day, but somehow you just know better than rest of us. Also, I don't know what your fear is of left-justified pictures, but please don't impose that on the rest of us. It had already been discussed that the best way to have the intro set up is with a photo of Midtown AND a photo of the Statue of Liberty. The left-justified pics are a great way to make an article more visually interesting. The article looks really terrible right now, and its a real shame we can't go in to make improvements to it. --Jleon 00:51, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you stopped the personal attacks. They are unwarranted, and quite rude. Instead of telling me what a bad editor I am, why don't you actually make constructive criticism so that we can unblock the page. The only content I removed was repetitious information on the government, and I moved some lists to a table. Can you please tell me what you object to, instead of telling me that I am terrible? It appears that only you and Moocher have any issues with any of the edits I made, and many other editors seem to think that you are over-reacting. You do not own this article. Páll 03:08, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--I think I was perfectly specific in my remarks above as to what I object to, and you didn't even address the issues I brought up. --Jleon 13:36, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

All right. It's clearly a conflict of interests here with both sides arguing what the other did is either wrong or unethical. So I'd like to know what Jleon is going to do when this article gets unprotected. Are you just going to revert all the changes, with Páll reverting you again? That serves no purpose whatsoever, so we need to find a compromise. Disregarding my own opinion about the changes Páll did, what do you guys think should be actually done about it? Will Jleon reinstate the partial lists into the article? As you can see, the picture I am paiting will get us absolutely nowhere.

  1. I'd like assume that Be bold and [[Assume good faith have been read and understood by all.
  2. We're going to assume that everyone has paid particular interest to article ownership.
  3. Everybody is agreeing that a revert war is pointless.
  4. Go read Wikipedia: Featured Articles and especially have a look at other FA's that is about cities/countries.
  • Some wants pictures to be both left and right aligned, while others want them all right aligned. Can we reach a compromise by saying for example that if there are more than 1 picture in a section, they will be evenly distributed between left and right align?
  • Lists or partial lists do not really belong in an article if they can be moved to a subarticle. There should be as little clutter as possible.
  • Article length is not really an issue anymore but 69kb is too long. In a FA process, I highly doubt it would get support from anyone being this long. So what can be done about it?

Chip in with other suggestions you may have to reach a compromise. I have only asked a few questions which everyone should answer and discuss in a civil manner. Proceed. Inter\Echo 12:19, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--Very nice points Inter, I definetly have no plans of engaging in any wholesale reverting of Páll's work, however there are a few changes I would like to make immediately, such as scaling down a few of the pictures from 300 pixels and restoring the Statue of Liberty to the intro alongside the pic of Midtown. Most of Páll's structural changes I have no problem with, however, some of the lists he deleted were not recreated on separate pages, so I'd like to create those (i.e.- a page for the TV Studios list). As for the rule about left and right justified pics being evenly distributed through any given section, I think its a great idea. So that's basically it, I think these are compromises that Páll can certainly agree to.--Jleon 13:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--Inter, thanks for your summary and redirect of this debate. As a wikipedia who is primarily a copyeditor, I will address your point about length. There are plenty of paragraphs, including ones that I contributed, that can be more concise. (Do we need data on median family AND median household income? Immigration is addressed under history, demographics, and culture. I will do my best to condense where possible. Kaisershatner 13:55, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fantastic! I would like to see a reply by Páll about the suggested change of some of the pictures aswell as the Statue of Liberty being moved up top. The lists should be created if they were not and forked off the main article as a compromise as Jleon said. Paragraphs can be rewritten to be concise and I will leave you guys to figure out the details about that. This article, when trimmed and agreed upon by everyone (including Páll), can be put up again for FA maybe? Inter\Echo 17:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Inter, thanks so much for you help with this argument. I'm really not dead-set against left/right images, I think it looks more professional to have them on the right, but if there are instances where they fit on the left, then I am all for it. However, the one caveat with that is that if there are many images, they start to clutter the text if they alternate so often that the text gets squeezed between them, so it is something to really think about to maintain the images on one side. The one thing that I am dubious about is putting the Statue of Liberty in the introparagraph. I think it looks unprofessional to have the introparagraph squeezed to the right between two images, and I can say from experience that it will not pass FAC with that, because there was a huge argument over having just one image in the introparagraph on South Africa, which I eventually lost and the image was moved. One other think about the removal of lists: I am attemping to gather them all together on a template under See also. The template can be edited here: Template:NYC topics because I think having this very very very long list of lists at the bottom is just as bad as having them in the centre of the article.

In light of this compromise, I would advice you guys to edit the introparagraph first as Jleon intends, then as what Páll intends, post the 2 diffs here and discuss them. In my experience with FAC (which admittedly isn't that great, I worked a bit on the South Africa article) if something clutters up the text in any way, people will oppose quickly. So I would look at both versions and decide what looks best. Its easier to judge better when you actually see it, rather than just talk about it.
The template for the lists is fine, as long as the contents of the lists are in there somewhere as Jleon wanted. Inter\Echo 18:55, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I also agree that article size isn't technically an issue anymore, but I also could not get South Africa to be a FA when it was 44k, I can only imagine how many peopple will object to 69k. The thing that I have always thought to be true about large articles like this is that they need to summarise content that is explained in greater detail on sub articles, or else they will baloon to 140k monstrosities. I hope we can come to an agreement. Páll 18:40, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure this is doable, as Kaisershatner has already said, the information can be more concise so to trim the article down. I'd suggest to do it gradually, section by section. When one of you tries to condense the information, do it, then refer to the section you did it in on this talk page for discussion. There's nothing better than people working together on bettering eachothers edits. I'm pretty sure it is doable to get the article size down to 32-35k and pass FAC with flying colors. Inter\Echo 18:55, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--I'm actually open to not including the Statue of Liberty in the intro, so long as the pic of Midtown is not replaced with that brown-hued pic of NY Harbor. However, the stand alone picture of the statue should be included as close to the top of the article as possible. Also there is a redundancy between the satellite pic of NYC and satellite pic of NY at night. We should replace the night picture with a picture of City Hall since it is on the Gov't section. I actually have one that's ready to be uploaded. So when does the block get lifted? --Jleon 19:56, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)