Talk:Upstate New York

Other plausible capitalization issue

Is 'Upstate' capitalized? The article seems to say so, and I can think of comparisons that would support both sides, such as 'mainland China' or 'Upper Egypt', so I assume it comes down to source coverage and consensus, right? Remsense留 19:22, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

• The ngram evidence is pretty conclusive that it should be lowercase. Furthermore, the article is telling us that it is a descriptive term (with no formal boundary) and therefore not a formal name. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:32, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

  Disagree that this is conclusive. You need to examine the usage in each case. The recognised place called Upstate New York is found in upstate New York. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Remsense, I have changed case accordingly but you might like to check. I have to fix a couple of redlinks by moves. There is also "downstate" to fix and I guess a lot of other articles that are overcapped in consequence. Ping Dicklyon if you have nothing to do over the holidays? :) Cinderella157 (talk) 01:51, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

sure thing! Thank you for your input. Remsense留 01:53, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the ngram evidence alone is enough to go on. Before making such a significant change as moving pages, can we do an RfC, and research a bit on what reliable sources use? Anecdotally, I have seen lots of reliable sources use "Upstate New York". Vmanjr (talk) 02:02, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I would be down for this. Remsense留 02:03, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The term is not intrinsically a proper name that would cause us to capitalise it as a matter of course. The article is telling us that it is not a formally defined geopolitical region in the same way as North Dakota (the formal name of a state) rather than north Dakota, being the northern part of Dakota (see also eastern Ukraine). Sure, there may be plenty of instances where one sees it capitalised but (per MOS:CAPS): only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. This is essentially a statistical question to be determined by objectively polling usage in a large number of sources (a representative sample). Ngrams satisfies this. Generally, the alternative is a source war and who can produce the most sources to support their preferred capitalisation. The ngram evidence is quit conclusive with about 5:1 for lowercase (without considering titles of works, business names and like that would increase the proportion capitalised). Given the overwhelming ngram evidence, I cannot see any reasonable case being made for capitalisation. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:05, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree. The n-gram stats are a fair summary of what reliable sources (books) do, and upstate and downstate are generic descriptors. Of course when they're part of the name of an org, that's different; like Upstate New York Property Management in Rochester. Dicklyon (talk) 06:00, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Based on what I'm seeing, scholarly sources tend predominantly to use "upstate New York", while news articles are about 50/50 when used mid-sentence, with more reputable sources leaning towards "upstate New York" and not "Upstate New York". I think that's enough for me to jump on the lowercase train. Vmanjr (talk) 20:08, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Regions like Southern California, Western Massachusetts, and Central Florida are consistently capitalized in Wikipedia. Should Upstate New York be different? AJD (talk) 21:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

There's plausible support in book n-gram stats for Southern California and Central Florida, but should be western Massachusetts and upstate New York. Dicklyon (talk) 05:51, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Partially for curiosity's sake, and potentially adding a thread of reason to ward off the potential nihilism of total deferment to the aggregate consensus of sources: I mostly get the rationale Cinderella157 puts forth for capitalized = proper name vs. uncapitalized = adjective modifying proper name, but there are other dimensions to consider, I reckon.
I edit a lot of China articles, and the term mainland China is used a lot (meaning the territory controlled by the PRC sans Hong Kong and Macau, etc.), and it seems more or less identical as upstate New York in terms of what kind of name it is, if you'll follow me. I would consider both to be proper names because they have specific forms (it's specifically 'upstate', not 'upper' or whatever) with specific meanings, referring to specific areas for specific reasons—but in my mind the reason they are uncapitalized is because they are cultural divisions of a polity, and capitalizing them would make them sound like they are polities in and of themselves, because polities often have similar names, like West Virginia and North Macedonia.
So, by that logic I'd also want to write southern California and central Florida, even though they are meaningfully proper names to me as well—you wouldn't write south California, would you? That'd just sound odd.
(Anyway, that's all just my personal hysteria—this is Wikipedia so we defer to sources for these specific style points, but it's still worth interrogating imo.) Remsense留 06:05, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

On first principles, I would not capitalise Southern California or Central Florida since they are descriptive noun phrases (ie the southern part of California). Unfortunately, people's views of what is or is not a proper noun varies significantly, mainly because education tends to treat the subject somewhat simplistically. For this reason, the MOS has chosen to rely on empirical evidence rather than a priori rules. Evidence of usage clearly supports Southern California and a case could be made for Central Florida. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:32, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I know this is WP:NOTAFORUM and this is purely for my own curiosity, but in your mind what distinguishes a proper noun from a descriptive phrase in this context? They feel semantically identical in their function. Remsense留 07:34, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

On first principles, I would capitalise a polity: so Western Australia but eastern Australia. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:47, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

On first principles, I wouldn't cap west Texas, my home region, nor northern New Mexico, my wife's. Yet the majority of sources do cap West Texas, but not northern New Mexico. Not consistently, though, so WP defaults to lowercase per MOS:CAPS. These are descriptions, not names. Western Australia and Northern Territories and South Australia are names. Dicklyon (talk) 04:46, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

On reviewing the stats, I agree that Central Florida ought to be downcased, too. Dicklyon (talk) 04:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

It can vary for other reasons in unusual cases. E.g., "northern New Mexico" as simply a loosely defined geographical area is not a proper name, just a descriptor. But Northern New Mexico is often treated as a capitalized proper name of another sort, culturally/anthropologically/sociologically: a discrete Hispanic cultural zone with a unique history due to long-term isolation between the Spanish Conquest and the coming of the railroads, which has produced distinct religious traditions, cuisine, Spanish-language dialect, etc. But that Northern New Mexico is not a place you can drive through or build a house in; it's a traditional and later analytical social construct. I'm extremely skeptical anything like that applies to upstate New York, west Texas, central Florida, etc. Why "Northern California" and "Southern California" get capitalized in this manner is a good question. The longer there's a continguous "Western culture" history of a place, the more likely regional terms are to be treated as proper names, even if they do not conform to political boundaries. E.g. various regions of England and Scotland. If you tried to down-case the Scottish Highlands or the West Country (or its containing South West [of] England, you'd be shouted out of the room. Cf. also the Camargue and French Riviera, Italian Riviera, etc., which do not correspond to civil divisions (or to historical kingdoms/duchies, etc.). Ultimately, this stuff seems pretty arbitrary, and we have little to go on but whether something is overwhelmingly capitalized in independent English-language sources. For every argument that can be advanced that something "is" a proper name for [insert reason here], someone else has an [insert other reason here] to argue against it, because all these "is of identity or predication" arguments about the term proper name are making Proper name (philosophy) claims which have not only been argued about inconclusively for centuries, they have no connection to capitalization in the first place (e.g. under most philosophy definitions, every named disease, species, doctrine, method, theory, etc., etc., is a proper name unless the name is purely descriptive). What determines Proper name (linguistics) treatment as something to capitalize is primarily just convention (and even when something is clearly a proper name under every definition, it is not necessarily capitalized anyway, e.g. k.d. lang and, increasingly lowercased, the internet). We spend too much time arguing about such matters with OR and POV, instead of just following MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, it can vary. On checking, there is an abundance of assertions out there (ignoring WP:RS) that Upstate New York, a cultural place, is not simply found by looking in upstate New York. Upstate New York is in upstate New York, but lots of upstate New York (especially the west) is not accepted (by some) as part of Upstate New York.

MOS aficionados should avoid erring by writing oversimplified rules. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support—so West Virginia, but west Mississippi. "Upstate" is not a proper name. Tony (talk) 00:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not very clear what the "Support" is supporting. Based on the second sentence, I think it's supporting lowercase for "upstate". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• Support lower case for "upstate". I live in New York and have spent vacations upstate, and would be surprised to see the upper case usage. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:52, 24 August 2024 (UTC)