Talk:Retentions in the British construction industry

A fact from Retentions in the British construction industry appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 December 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the use of retentions in the British construction industry, which is now commonplace, had its origins in the Railway Mania of the 1840s?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2019/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Retentions in the British construction industry.

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Ring-Fenced?[edit]

The article refers to ring-fenced 3 times, but without any explanation of the term or link to an explanation. Searching for the term on Wiki gets only some form of assigned taxes, which doesn't seem to apply directly. While this term might be known to people in the British construction industry, it should be explained for other Wiki readers. T bonham (talk) 02:54, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly this is an WP:ENGVAR thing? It is in fairly common use in the UK generally (in my experience at least) and Collins dictionary lists the term. I've provided clarification at the first mention in the article, thanks - Dumelow (talk) 08:28, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to merge with Retainage[edit]

I propose that this page be merged with Retainage into a new page perhaps called Retainage and Retentions. It appears that these two pages primarily cover the same concept from two different perspectives (one from the US and one from the UK), and it might be better to merge the pages to encourage a worldwide view on the topic.

I have outlined a possible way the two pages would be merged into a new page at this sandbox page of mine - User:Thunderstorm008/sandbox/rr.

Pinging major editors and page creators for the pages:

@Dumelow, ORoukeLaw, and Ariannathayer:

Thunderstorm008 (talk · contributions) 18:59, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted Thunderstorm008. I only have experience of the British use and had no idea that in the US the practice was known as "retainage". No objection to a merger of the two articles, though I think my preference would be for them to co-exist as separate articles offering more detail underneath an umbrella "retentions and retainage" article detailing the practice generally around the world. This top-level article would be formed of a simplified summary of the two existing articles plus the "Use in other countries" section of this article. Let me know what you think, happy to work on this with you - Dumelow (talk) 08:12, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support merge as originally proposed; the articles are short enough and that there is no need to having them separate. There can also be some consolidation of the material, as many (or even most) of the advantages and problems are shared. Draft structure provided by Thunderstorm008 looks fine. Klbrain (talk) 10:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merger complete.

Also happy if there's a subsequent page move to the joint title, but I think that on balance its simpler and just as clear to stick with the single-word title; retention appears early enough in the lede that its hard to miss. Klbrain (talk) 13:11, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]