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RfC: Use of superlatives

Should unsubstantiated superlatives in the lead, such as:

  1. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture and tech, entertainment and media, academics and scientific output, and the arts and fashion.
  2. ...and is sometimes described as the world's most important city and the capital of the world.
  3. ..the most economically powerful city in the world.

be removed from the article? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:38, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

I've taken the liberty of numbering the above claims for easier reference.
  1. This one seems like it is probably accurately descriptive, though will require excellent sourcing (as in multiple very high-quality sources for each sub-claim).
  2. Delete with prejudice. This is WP:PEACOCK nonsense, verging on meaningless, for many readers probably offensive, and serves no encyclopedic purpose at all. Even if elements of it can be attributed to various sources, it should be removed as opinionated and promotional blather. To the extent it could be separated into two claims, the first is too subjective to be meaningful ("important" in what way, to whom?), while the second just seems calculated to piss off everyone from outside New York.
  3. This may or may not be reliably sourceable to some extent, but also appears to be too vague and subjective to be encyclopedically meaningful. "Economically powerful" can have a wide range of meanings, which one is intended here is not clear, it is unlikely that multiple sources making a claim along these lines have the same definition in mind (yet only one source saying something like this would be insufficient), and for most senses of that phrase it would be something very difficult to reliably prove. It would be better to replace this third claim with something(s) concrete, such as one or more comparative measures that are typically used for such matters (I'm not an expert in metropolitan ecomonics, but am thinking along the lines of "whatever the city equivalent of GDP might be").
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:52, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
I think multiple very high-quality sources is a salient point. It seems much more common now that journalists are referencing Wikipedia, and then Wikipedia references these journalists' articles. That said, "the world's most important city and the capital of the world" is utter subjectivity and should be nuked. Seasider53 (talk) 11:23, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
while 'the world's most important city' is definitely subjective, 'capital of the world' is less so.
new york is the HQ of the United Nations; further more, the concept of a caput mundi is the reason behind that phrase's use, and has a number of sources relating that concept to NYC daruda (talk) 17:27, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
I don't think the phrase has any use to the impression; just specific claims should be enough, including the already mentioned HQ of the UN. We shouldn't be taking care of the definition. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:53, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
sorry, but i didn't quite get this comment daruda (talk) 19:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
"Capital of the world" has basically no use being in these article when we already cite the specific claims. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
capital of the world has been part of this article all the way back since 2001, when the article was created. soo...? daruda (talk) 19:38, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
How is that relevant? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:42, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
'no use being in the article' is a rather dubious claim considering the very long precedent for that phrase to be used in this article daruda (talk) 19:44, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
This is the way it has always been is one of the weakest arguments you can present. Seasider53 (talk) 23:29, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Nope. While it obviously needs a source to back it up(which it has), a long history of a term being used to describe something is a rather clear reason as to why that term does have a use in this article daruda (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
la la la, I cannot hear you, la la la - CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
And why is it acceptable for you not to hear them? Castncoot (talk) 22:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
Because they did not make an attempt to understand what is being said above. A specific phrase being used for a long time on Wikipedia does not mean it should remain in the article. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
New York was chosen as the location of the UNHQ because “'People were coming from all over to live in peace and harmony,' the New York Times reported at that time", seemingly not for it being a finance center and whatnot. Seasider53 (talk) 18:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that the city is considered by many to be Rome's heir as caput mundi, and the world's most important international body being headquartered here just furthers that argument daruda (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
A contemporary New York Times article is a weak reference—too close too the events and euphoria natural to a country that had vastly expanded its industrial base while suffering no mass destruction and civilian deaths, emerging as the first world superpower. Plus Rockefeller donated the land in the center of an undamaged city, New York City. Scholarly histories and journals are required. Eighty years has provided perspective. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 00:21, 29 April 2024 (UTC) —
It's slightly peripheral, core Midtown not starting till 3rd Avenue (several hundred meters away). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
considered by many is not encyclopedic, and would be considered by many not to be capital of the world. "New York City is the capital of the world" is pure chauvinism. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 23:26, 28 April 2024 —
More to the point, the world doesn't have any official capital, so such a claim would be subjective at best (not to mention the WP:WEASEL wording). Epicgenius (talk) 18:27, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
If there are good sources supporting this. It should stay. UN HQ is in New York, so there is merit to the statement that it is considered the world's capital. A solution I can think of is this: We write New York City is considered by many as the "world's capital". Regarding
1.New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture and tech, entertainment and media, academics and scientific output, and the arts and fashion. This is undeniable and true. NYC is a very important city in these realms in the US which is very important in this in the world. It makes sense.
3...the most economically powerful city in the world. If a good source prooves this and this is true than it's true and should be kept. O.maximov (talk) 12:50, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
+1 Graham (talk) 06:05, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
I think that there should be a balance of "good" and "bad" superlatives; so perhaps the latter should be added. Does NYC have, for example, the highest murder rate per capita, or the highest incidence of corruption, or the greatest total value of narcotic deals? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:10, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Murder per capita: Absolutely not. It's likely poorer than USA or a village of two killed by a non-resident if non-cities count. The largest US city with less murder per capita than NYC had 6 times less capita, there's a city with a MLB team with 19 times more murder per capita and there's even at least one US city with more murders not per capita.
Most corruption: At least not per capita that's for sure. How would you even quantify that? Is the most corrupt 150 human village on Earth cleaner than if NYC averaged 150/8,800,000ths as bad but had more than 8,800,000/150ths as many people and if that village had one more unpunished slap without due process then how many % did its 2023 corruption increase by?
Drug money: I dunno, maybe? Maybe not? This could only be estimated. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
They're only examples of the sort of thing we might consider including, I didn't say that these were true facts that had to be added. WP:V applies, always. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:55, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:False balance, we should probably only include things that are widely covered. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
I thought so just making sure no one gets the wrong idea. There's actually multiple US cities with a bigger raw murder count in 2023 and we're under 400 compared to 2,245 murders 1990 and 3,255 2001 if 9/11 counts. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:42, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
I think that there should be a balance of "good" and "bad" superlatives - oppose this and any edits premised on this logic in the strongest possible terms; it is textbook WP:FALSEBALANCE. It is possible that there are negative aspects that are equally significant which we need to cover; but it is completely inappropriate to insist that negative and positive aspects be balanced equally without regard to coverage. When coverage is largely positive, our article ought to be so as well (and vice-versa when it is negative.) Also, all three of the possible examples you gave are wrong. NYC's crime rate is low compared to other big cities and it doesn't even make the list of cities by drug use. Corruption is more vaguely-defined, so I'm not totally sure what that means, but Chicago is apparently king here. --Aquillion (talk) 04:23, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
@Aquillion: Re all three of the possible examples you gave are wrong - did you read my reply of 18:55, 28 April 2024 (UTC)? I never said that they were correct: indeed, in my post of 13:10, 28 April 2024 (UTC), I asked the question Does NYC have, for example, the .... --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:44, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Editorially, I agree the tone and weight regarding superlatives should to be better. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:18, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
The first set of superlatives should be kept if properly sourced (many articles on major cities contain similar sourced superlatives describing a city's strengths). The second can go.
The third should be reworded to perhaps mention that NYC has the largest metropolitan economy by GDP. RyanAl6 (talk) 15:36, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Ryan and McCandlish. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:47, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
  • I see no issue with 1 as long as there is high quality sourcing per SMcCandlish. 2 and 3 however should be removed. The statements made in 2 and 3 are either opinions, imprecise or just incorrect. TarnishedPathtalk 00:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    might. you can't possibly use such strong language as 'should' in such a contested debate daruda (talk) 15:16, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    Because you are assuming that NYC is the best in everything. It's not. And it's offensive to other people not living the US by discrediting their achievement in respective fields, giving rise to the NYC's notorious reputation of being arrogant and high-minded. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:32, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    what in the world are you on about? new york is always going to be stratospheric in several aspects based upon its sheer size? is that not obvious? daruda (talk) 16:52, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    Cacti: look at the London page: "As one of the world's major global cities, London exerts a strong influence on world art, entertainment, fashion, commerce and finance, education, health care, media, science and technology, tourism, transport, and communications." What exactly does "strong" mean, especially in a fading and increasingly irrelevant post-Brexit London? This NYC article on the other hand is far more objectively written, it simply talks about the city whose most pertinent superlative of all is literally its number of superlatives. I don't believe in trying to artificially downgrade the tone just to seem more modest or humble, as that opens up a Pandora's box. Just tell the story like it is, and source it properly. It just is what it is. And I'm not native to any place near New York. Castncoot (talk) 17:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    We all agree that we can keep something like claim #1. "Global center" is as equally vague as "strong influence" and can stay. It's things like the other two we're concerned about. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:42, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    "A global center" is just that, it's not saying "the" global center. No reason to overthink things. There is an exceptionalism to NYC that makes this article the most searched city article on Wikipedia, by a longshot (over second-place London). This exceptionalism needs to be reflected in the article in the most reliably sourced way possible. Superlatives don't need to be removed, but they should be sharply qualified. I myself simply only happened to accidentally stumble upon this discussion, and it appears that other long-term editors of this article including User:Alansohn, User:Keystone18, User:Epicgenius, User:Oknazevad, User:Mj and User:Jleon weren't invited either. Castncoot (talk) 18:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    (pinged) Thanks for the notification. I'm going to avoid commenting in depth to avoid the appearance that I was canvassed. However, here are some brief thoughts:
  • I see that NYC is sometimes ranked as a global city, so maybe that can be mentioned if there are sufficient reliable secondary sources.
  • I would remove any claims that aren't very well sourced. Statements 2 and 3 are superlative claims and can be disputed in some contexts. (I especially question number 2, as anyone can say that their city is the best. However, 3 is also concerning: while NYC is very important from the standpoint of US finance, London is sometimes considered more important in terms of international finance. Actually, the two switch places in rankings all the time.)
– Epicgenius (talk) 18:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
London's probably still more important for some subsets of finance like ship insurance, maybe at least some commodoities and New York's more important for others like stocks. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
Agreed, but you could probably go further and say that London is more important in the insurance field as a whole. (In the field of finance, that is actually one of the things London is very well known for.) – Epicgenius (talk) 01:56, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
That's their thing. We're better at banking. The Midwest at grains. We suck at health insurance headquarters, better at life insurance. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:07, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
  • If you search any search engine, you'll find many more references to New York being the financual capital of the world than London, and New York's financial supremacy has only to continued to widen over London since Brexit. Castncoot (talk) 06:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    Banking and stocks are very important to Earth's economy, and NY will gain on London for at least a few more years. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:06, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    I don't see what your point is or how it relates to my comment. So far, we all agree to just qualify stuff if possible. Nobody agreed on removing all of them. I encourage you to read the rest of the discussion if you haven't done so yet. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:07, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    Your points are well appreciated, thank you. Castncoot (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
    I think it would be much better if these claims being established with concrete numbers/figures. For instance, in terms of cultural impact, you can cite a research paper detailing how NYC affect the globalization trend around the world. The main issue I have here is that these claims are unsubstantiated and does not have further clarification on its meaning. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    @Castncoot, WP:OTHERCONTENT is never a good argument. If you think the London lede is problematic, go start a discussion about changing it there. In the meantime we can have a discussion about how to improve the lede of New York City here. TarnishedPathtalk 12:57, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
    If sources support this, then it can be shown. American or not, NYC is NYC. NYSE, NASDAQ, JP Morgan... much of the world's most powerful finance related firms and institutions sit in the city. If sources show that the most influential city in financial terms in America and in turn the world is New York City, it should be kept. O.maximov (talk) 11:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
  • All three of these are well-cited, reflect large swaths of the article, and are central to the city's notability and should therefore be kept. It is possible that they could be rewritten or replaced somehow but that would require a specific proposal; I would strenuously oppose simply removing them. Note that the third one is already attributed, which you left out; the fact that it has been called these things is genuinely important, because it is frequently and widely discussed in that way in a manner that is central to its notability and significance, ie. these are not obscure things that someone said once, but core aspects of the manner in which the city generally comes up on a global level. --Aquillion (talk) 04:23, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    • Very well stated. You just the hammered the nail on the head. Compromising the integrity of the article and its reliably sourced statements, and diluting the facts to come across as politically correct, jeopardizes the entire integrity of Wikipedia itself. Why even bother having this article or even this encyclopedia then? Castncoot (talk) 06:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    THANK YOU daruda (talk) 11:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    Just for "capital of the world":
    1. The first source comes from a book that cites it as the financial capital of the world.
    2. The second source, from the NYT but maybe that's irrelevant, narrates NY's journey to become the host city for the UN HQ, and only calls it the "global capital" in that respect. This can at most be a slight mention after the claim that NYC hosts the UN HQ with a cause-and-effect conjunction. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    Also, the capital of the world should be in Cairo because the pyramids are the landing site for aliens. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    what? I don't think even RSes say stuff like that. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:09, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    What I try to imply here is that saying a place is the "capital of the world" is very absurd and goes against our promotional, neutral point of view, and dare I say conflict of interest guidelines. The sole reason why it is still present in the article is because editors from the NYC insist that this phrase should remain in the article. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    Not all of us. As one of these aforementioned NYC editors, I'm actually arguing against it. Epicgenius (talk) 16:55, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    Also, I think that Kearney claims, which cite both "most important city" and "most economically powerful", should be attributed as Kearney (consulting firm) is a management consulting firm. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
    That "...and is sometimes described as the world's most important city and the capital of the world." may be well cited is irrelevant. It's a mere opinion and it's also factually incorrect. New York City is demonstrably not the capital of the world, because no such thing exists. TarnishedPathtalk 13:03, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I think there are varying levels here. For 1, I think the sources overwhelmingly concur that New York City is indeed an important hub for those things, similar to how we say that Los Angeles is an important site in the history of film and can certainly back that up with reliable sources. 2 is more superlative puffery, and I'd probably get rid of that stuff. There is no single capital of the world, so the fact that it's "sometimes" described as those things (by whom?) is probably trivially correct, in that it has "sometimes" been called those things, but that's the exact reason we shouldn't use weasel wording like that. For "most economically powerful city", that's a bit of a fuzzy and subjective term (and one could make a reasonable case that in terms of power to impact the world's economies, that's actually Washington, DC); I would prefer replacing it with a statement that it has the highest GDP of any city in the world, which is clearly verifiable. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Agree, especially regarding by whom (it is sometimes called Gotham by uhm someone, too) and the better way is to reliably demonstrate things, not pontificate about them. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:23, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Probably not, no. It's accurate and there are enough RS to back them up, so I don't think we should remove them. A Socialist Trans Girl 07:27, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Close?

Can we close this? The mentioned statements have been heavily edited since this RfC's opening, and all this is doing now is generating confusion when we kinda have a consensus already. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:57, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Apparent error

Near the end of the New York City article there is a picture of the Manhattan skyline taken from New Jersey and dated in 2018. When I looked for the new World Trade Center Tower, I realized that someone made an error because the picture shows the Twin Towers which were attacked on September 11, 2001.y Mmavroidis (talk) 09:18, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

What's the file name when you click on the pic? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:20, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
The picture is at the end of the Architecture section and has been changed to one dated 2020. The new picture correctly shows the new One World Trade Center Tower. The error has been fixed. Mmavroidis (talk) 20:07, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
What's in picture 1 but not picture 2 that looks like the Twin Towers? They both have new World Trade Center and no Twin Towers. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:42, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

POV

Why’re you pointing out homosexual people culture but not heterosexual people culture? Don’t be one sided. 2603:6011:840E:FF1A:556C:CDCB:CD0D:493F (talk) 09:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

What exactly is heterosexual culture? Anything that isn't LGBT?
I see you made an account just to make this troll comment. Hij802 (talk) 00:55, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

How are you calculating population density?

None of the given populations (city/urban/metro) divided by the given area give you the density that you are reporting. If this is some sort of average, who's calculating it and where are you getting it from? 2604:3D08:5B80:B70:7B4B:B05A:3702:FA12 (talk) 23:18, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. Land/water mix-up. 2604:3D08:5B80:B70:7B4B:B05A:3702:FA12 (talk) 00:46, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
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