I love Top Five and Top 10 lists, but I’m resolving in 2015 to duck any ranking that contains the word “Cities.’’ They’ve gotten way out of hand.

The last straw came New Year’s Eve when I clicked on a Huffington Post Twitter teaser: “5 U.S. Cities That Will Have Their ‘Moments’ in 2015.”

Pittsburghers have become suckers for stuff like this. Last year, our city popped up on almost as many lists as “½ gal. milk’’ and “rye bread.’’ We were the third-best city for an active lifestyle (behind Omaha, Neb., and Portland, Ore.?), the 11th-best city for veterans and the “most livable’’ in the continental U.S. We were even named the city with the greatest tree canopy, finally settling countless barroom arguments coast to coast.

Naturally, I figured the Huff Post would have Pittsburgh in its top five up-and-coming tourist traps. We’re sure building enough hotels. But, no, this top five named St. Petersburg, Fla.; Kansas City, Mo.; Salt Lake City; Bentonville, Ark.; and Bend, Ore.

Bentonville and Bend? Seriously?

The story says Bentonville, best known as Wal-Mart’s headquarters, has an impressive art museum with works by the likes of Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper, plus more than three miles of nature trails. OK, but Pittsburgh has all that and more. Other cities do, too. It’s hard to conceive of many saying, “Hey, honey, forget the beach. We have to figure out how to get to the northwest corner of Arkansas this year!”

As for Bend, I’m sure it is a friendly mountain town with great craft beer, as the story says, but neither mountains nor beer are all that hard to find in these United States, praise St. Arnulf of Metz, patron saint of brewing.

Be that as it may, by Friday afternoon, more than 11,000 people had “liked’’ this ranking on Facebook. I expect nearly all of them were from St. Petersburg, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Bentonville or Bend. Today, somewhere in cyberspace, there will be another ranking somewhere, and residents of other cities can try patting themselves on the back with one hand while tweeting out their hometown pride with the other.

Boosters love these stories, but do they matter to anyone else?

That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m interested in the answer. We are forever pointing to good publicity, and we get it fairly frequently, saying it’s good for Pittsburgh. Be that a sweeping panoramic shot of the Golden Triangle during a playoff game at Heinz Field or Bruce Willis zooming his police boat down an uncharacteristically blue Ohio River in “Striking Distance,’’ you can find someone arguing that this will somehow equate to a civic boost.

So I’ll ask two questions.

Is there anyone out there who moved to Pittsburgh, or is at least visiting this weekend, because of something seen in a newspaper, magazine, movie, TV show or Internet ranking? (Reading that there’s a game on doesn’t count.)

Is there any Pittsburgher who made a special trip someplace else solely on such a basis?

I know it can happen. Movies such as “Field of Dreams,’’ “A Christmas Story” and “Dirty Dancing’’ have brought tourism to highly unlikely places. Despite all the movies that have been filmed in Pittsburgh, I can’t think of any that have cast a similar spell. Even that epic five-minute-plus montage of the city’s cinematic moments on YouTube, “Pittsburgh: The Movie,’’ and its 377,000 views — I’d bet about 375,000 of those views are from people who either grew up here or live here now.

So, please, if anyone living here can persuasively trace his or her presence to a media moment, particularly a ranking of some kind, let me know. My email address is in italics at the bottom of the column, and snail mail can be sent to my attention at 34 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

I don’t expect much mail, but I’m hoping to be proved wrong. I just spent about 650 words arguing that rankings and the like are all but worthless. If that’s true, we might not be able to livable with ourselves ever again.

Brian O’Neill: boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947

First Published: January 4, 2015, 5:00 a.m.