Help talk:Merging/Archive 1

General

Some things I've noticed....

• Merging automatically leaves a redirect in place. It doesn't actually; you have to manually create a redirect. Moving automatically creates a redirect.
• How to merge a page seems far too long and detailed. If I was a new Wiki-editor, I would be scared off by the many steps involved. If I was more experienced, I wouldn't need it at all.
• Both sets of instructions suggest that cut & paste is all that's required for a merge. If that was true, then Category:Articles to be merged wouldn't be so gargantuan.
• Good idea about mentioning what to do when the information is already in the target article. -- Joyous 04:43, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)...

• I've made changes per your first point. You are correct about the second and third, but I'm not sure how to word that. I'll think on it, or feel free to do it yourself. Thanks! Radiant_* 10:02, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

I hope my gentle warning about striving for "correctness" is considered a propos in the section "why to merge". "If that fails: Under no circumstances move or rename a page by copy/pasting its content." The "why not" needs to be explained. --Wetman 4 July 2005 06:23 (UTC)

Shortcut

I've decided that WP:MM would be a good shortcut. You have 24 hours to revert my change if you don't like it! Alphax ^τεχ 01:59, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Merge template use question

Is it possible to have the merge template point to the exact section of the talk page here the merge discussion is taking place? If the talk page, for example, has a section "== Merge ==" is there a way to make the notice template link to that section of the talk page (URL for talk page#section)?  — [Unsigned comment added by Calicocat (talk • contribs) 09:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC).]

Yes, you could just add #Merge to the link in the template. -- Beland 03:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Time scales

Is there a recommended minimum time between proposing a merge (by adding {{merge}} to both pages) and actually performing the merge? Or should editors just be bold and merge articles (if they are capable) instead of proposing the merge in the first place? --Scott Davis ^Talk 04:40, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Usually articles that need merging are relatively neglected, and being bold is just fine. If the articles have a long edit history or activity on the talk page, I recommend leaving at least a day or two, to see if anyone else comments. Your changes are relatively easy to undo by reverting the affected articles. Putting in the time and effort to do a merge also says something about how much you care about the change. And sometimes people may also have fears about the process, but in the end like what comes out the other end. But radically changing a page that people care about tends to upset them, so, it's up to you whether you think anyone does care about the page, and how blantantly it needs merging. It might be useful to ask first if people could disagree on whether A should merge into B, or vice versa. -- Beland 07:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Redirecting from a misspelling

I have just typed the query "define:grammer" into google. This brought up the wikipedia entry for grammar. Surely the practice of redirecting to an article from a misspelling of its title is harmful? It seems conceptually wrong that looking up a topic under a misspelling should (almost) silently redirect to the correct spelling. I believe that the approach taken by google's "did you mean?" feature is superior. The error is conveniently correctable via a click on a hyperlinked suggestion, but does require an acknowledgement from the person who made the error.  — [Unsigned comment added by 80.177.11.190 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC).]

In many respects Wikipedia's search facility is not very good. But what's this got to do with moving and merging pages? Ewlyahoocom 17:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Merger as deletion

This page seems to contemplate a genuine merger, after which all or virtually all the information that was in the source article is in the merged or target article. Currently, however, there's a proposal to merge Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination into the main bio article for Harriet Miers. (Bush nominated Miers for this position, but, partway through the process, she withdrew as a nominee because of the evident strength of the opposition.) No one is suggesting that the bio should describe this particular incident at the same level of detail as the current Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination article does. Instead, the idea is, as one supporter expressed it: "Most of the information in here could be edited down in length significantly while still leaving the pertinent details, leading to a nice mergeable section." (Talk:Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination#Merge?)

It seems to me that what's really being proposed here is the deletion of the source article, on the grounds that, because the nomination failed, it doesn't need its own article. In that respect, it's similar to the current suggestion that we don't need a separate article on Fitzmas because it's just one aspect of the Plame affair, and the latter article can handle it. The difference is that Fitzmas is being handled through an AfD entry: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fitzmas. When a proposed merger doesn't involve two different terms for the same thing or the like, and when it instead contemplates deletion of the source article (leaving only a redirect) and the loss of some of the information now in the source article, is a mere "merger" discussion on the article's talk page the proper procedure? I think that something like the Miers proposal should go through AfD. If there's a consensus to that effect, then we can edit this project page accordingly. JamesMLane 19:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikiquette

Hi, so far I have initiated and complted merges on about 30 articles or so. However, I've run into minor irritants such as ppl. not taking a look at the talk; not understanding what exactly the tags do and how to proceed with a merger. These people are not clueless newbies - at least one of them is an admin and another has won barnstars. I think a brief note on Wikiquette for merges on this project page shd help. I hv penned most of it already. Shall I be bold and update the project page? --Gurubrahma 12:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I am always eager to learn the best way to go about things around here and your experience with these issues should be shared with others. Go ahead and update the project page.--Commander Keane 13:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Yah, me too (AOL!). Personally (POV), my thought is merging is very useful, as it collects like information together, making it more accessible and making things more informative. However, I've encountered resistance in some cases, where people do not want what I consider related articles merged, because there are differences. For example, see Talk:BASIC-PLUS. Some discussion of protocol would be useful, I think. Also, discussion on "When not to merge?". --DragonHawk 15:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Merge of article with history into article with ~no history

I wrote FALSE. Then I found that I hadn't looked for the article hard enough beforehand and False programming language already exists.

I think I've correctly determined that FALSE should be the correct article title (see Talk:FALSE). However, I'm not certain about merging, because False programming language has about twenty history, and FALSE has almost none.

Should I not worry about this and go ahead and merge, or is there some other procedure when the target has no particular history? I could merge into False programming language and then do a page move. Would this be better?

I've already written the merge and just need to figure out where to put it now. -Ethan (talk) 04:54, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

This what I would do: Merge (ie manually copy/paste/edit) the info from FALSE into False programming language. Then move False programming language to FALSE. This way no usuful edit history will be lost. You will need an admin (I'll do it if you like) to make the move, since FALSE will need to be deleted. So, once you have added your material to False programming language put something like "merged in my info from FALSE" in the edit summary and I'll make the move.--Commander Keane 06:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I've done this and would much appreciate you deleting FALSE and moving False programming language.

Can this be done without modifying the FALSE talk page? That is, not deleting it along with FALSE and overwriting it with the (nonexistent) False programming language talk page?

Thanks for your help. -Ethan (talk) 06:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Copy-paste the contents of FALSE talk page into the False programming language talk page, problem solved. --Gurubrahma 16:27, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

What happens after pages are merged

There is no mention of what happens to pages that have been merged. I assume that when I merge List of Susquehanna River bridges with List of bridges over the Susquehanna River that one article should be deleted, but how should I tag it? Cacophony 04:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe the standard is to make the mergefrom page a redirect rather than delete it (see WP:MM). I have done that now. See List of bridges over the Susquehanna River now. Cheers and happy new year. Lbbzman 04:20, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Does a redirect affect Talk? When Family crest is merged into Crest (heraldry), does Talk:Family crest remain independent? —Tamfang 19:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

question

what happens if the merge proposal is only discussed among people on only on the article that is going to remain. and the people who worked on the article that is going to disapear don't get their opinions heard? Isn't that unilateral? The case I'm talking about it's like a large country absorbing a small one without even hearing its oppinion? what can I do?

And even worst, they are trying to merge the small article to then have it sized. the whole purpose of the small one is to give more sourced info about something that, written on the big article would need to be short, but on his own could provide usefull info to people looking to know more details on the matter. Symilar to the "Merger as deletion" Harriet Miers case, just 3 sections above.

Thanks beforehand --T for Trouble-maker 08:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

hey!!!!!!! throw me a bone here! anyone? --T for Trouble-maker 08:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If you don't get a response here, you could ask on the Help desk. Just about every question gets a quick answer there. --Teratornis 14:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyone want to back me up?

Talk:Angle Township, Minnesota - this covers the same exact geographical area as Northwest Angle. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 22:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Page history

Could someone explain how the procedure for merging does not delete the page history.

• Open the source and destination pages in two separate windows.
• Cut/paste the source page into the destination page.
• Add "#REDIRECT PAGENAME" to the source page.

If I do this it surely makes it hard to find the page history as one whole chunk will have appeared from one user? Rex the first 22:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The redirect page can still be accessed and its history can still be viewed. However, as you say, it would make it hard to find the page history at one glance. This is hopefully resolved by the usage of edit summaries, where we can mention merge completed or some such thing so that it gives an indication to the viewer that there is more history than what meets the eye. -- Gurubrahma 11:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Moving age limit?

It seems my "account is too new" for me to move an article. Exactly how long do I have to wait? If there is a specific interval, can this number be posted somewhere?  — [Unsigned comment added by Lenoxus (talk • contribs) 15:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC).] - anon

Age of the user's account is a bit of an obscure trust metric, but I think it must have been introduced to tackle some particularly troublesome page moving vandalism by people creating new accounts. Don't know what the actual limit is. Maybe it's deliberately not clear.

It's not a big hurdle though. If you're a new user who is interested in moving pages, you'll just have to suggest the move on the talk page or at Wikipedia:Requested moves, so that somebody else does it. If you are not a new wikipedia user, well then what are you doing with a shiney new user account? -- Nojer2 13:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Help with disputed merge

What should I do with Sanguinarian and Vampire lifestyle? The pages have similar content and a few people have sniping back and forth over it. I'd like to call it a draw and simply remove the tag, but I sense that this will only cause more problems. I've proposed a whole new page, but I doubt that will go over well? Is there a good way to break this stalemate? --Kerowyn 02:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Mergers

I think the information and link about the Proposed Mergers page could be more prominent.--Larrybob 02:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Template wording

"It has been suggested that this article or section", but all of the explanatory text is specific to merging whole pages, not sections. It's unclear what the procedure is to merge just a section. I did see something about a specific 'section merge' template once, but danged if I can find it now. Is there a different page for this? --Kickstart70·Talk 01:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Stale Merge Requests

When should a merge request be removed from a page when there has been little input or only negative input? Is it the responsibility of the requesting party to monitor the article or can anyone remove the request after a certain length of time? Ande B 01:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

If there's only a "little input" then I'd suspect it's because no one objects but everyone's too lazy or apathetic about the page to bother merging it. In which case I don't really see why you'd want to remove the merge tag. Ewlyahoocom 07:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The old "scream or die" approach, eh? Well, the one I was looking at has been there since last September and the only response has been, as I said, a negative one: "Don't Merge." I take a different view of lack of responsiveness, though. I would expect that low or no response indicates only that there are low hit rates on the pages by active contributors. Most people who read these pages don't participate in editing them and may not realize that they can voice an opinion or are reluctant to participate. After looking at a few other pages with much speedier merge requests, I'm thinking that 7 months is long enough to wait for opinions. But thanks for your thoughts, you seem to have observed lots of apathy! Ande B 07:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I've seen a lot of use of the merge template, seemingly in situations where nobody really cares either way, and the person originally slapping the merge template on there, did not make any supporting discussion post explaining it. The result is an a rather ugly intrusive merge message, but no action or even discussion taking place to resolve it.

I'd suggest that people should discuss a proposed merge on the talk page (possibly linking from the other talk page) before using the template. If nobody responds to the discussed proposal after a certain length of time, then we slap on the ugly merge message to grab people's attention. You might also want to do this if you suspect that only one side of an arguement is being represented. Again people should leave this for a suitable length of time. But if the final result is that nobody has responded to the initial proposal, then any individual editor could reasonably decide to either do the merge, or not. If you decide not, then you should remove the ugly template, and say you've done so on the talk page. Note that if two pages should exist separately then there should be some links between the two within the text, indicating how the concepts relate, so you may want to put those in place.

I'd also suggest that if somebody has slapped on the merge label without explaining it on the talk page, then any individual editor could reasonably remove it immediately on the basis that it is not a proper merge proposal. If people do this boldly, then we'll cut down the number of 'stale' merge labels. -- Nojer2 13:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll admit I'm "guilty" of this. I like to disambiguate links, so I wind up hitting a lot of pages. If I notice some pages are the same (or mostly the same, or have sections that are the same but don't reference each other, etc.) I'll stick merge tags on them -- but since I'm primarily dab'ing links, I don't spend a lot of time on it. It's generated some complaints so lately I've taken to just adding a link in a See also section. The downside is that it doesn't really convey the fact that there's 2 or more (mostly) duplicated articles/sections/whatever that should actually be merged or otherwise rectified e.g. Muhammad Ali's seizure of power and Fraser campaign; InVersion (Band) and InVersion; etc. The upside is that this avoids the trouble and the possibility of tag being removed. I figure if anyone really cares about the article (beyond complaining about the merge tag) they might notice the duplication and fix it. Ewlyahoocom 19:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Images for 'mergeto' and 'mergefrom'

I think these two images should be switched. The 'mergeto' image has an arrow which points towards the the diamond, the diamond being closer to the center of the page than the arrow, which implies in a glance that another article is being merged into the aforementioned page. The 'mergefrom' image has the same problem the other way around. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Noohgodno (talk • contribs) 04:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC).

Maybe we could use an image like at [[1]]? With changes to the sizes of the icons changes to represent "over here" and "over there" (in a 3-D perspective kind of way)? Ewlyahoocom 19:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, I created the arrow/diamond images. They've have been in use here since June, and they've been adopted by numerous languages' Wikipedias (among other Wikimedia and non-Wikimedia wikis). They've become recognizable (even inspiring other wiki images) and I feel that it would be illogical to alter such a well-established setup.

The issue of whether to swap the mergeto and mergefrom icons was raised in the beginning. Various people preferred one arrangement or the other, but no one was able to cite a compelling argument that either was better. There was no consensus, so we retained the original assignments (and it certainly would be confusing to change them now). Any rationale is arbitrary, but it was noted that the red item (which is brighter, and therefore stands out more) represents the page on which the tag is located. Also, the English language is read left–right; by that standard, the aforementioned page is represented by the first item seen. —David Levy 19:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, hey, don't get me wrong, I like the tags and I've used them a lot but, for whatever reason, I'm finding that some editors are almost reflexively resistant to them. I was just thinking that if they looked a little...I don't know..."friendlier"?...they might be better received. Ewlyahoocom 01:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that editors are objecting to the tags on the basis of the icons contained therein. —David Levy 21:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Really? I, on the other hand, am continually surprised at how much significance people attach to these kinds of seemingly minor details -- even when they don't know that they're doing it. I don't have a ready reference for angled shapes versus rounded or other kinds of shapes, but I'll see if I can dig something up. Ewlyahoocom 06:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not one to brag, but my icons have generated a highly positive response, and they've been adopted for this purpose by editors in numerous countries. I don't believe that the icons significantly affect the attitudes with which the tags are received, but they do help to identify the tags' nature (which I've even been told by several individuals with visual impairments), and most people seem to like them. —David Levy 06:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

GFDL satisfaction

Wouldn't doing a copy and paste merge erase the edit history of the article being merged, and therefore violate the GFDL? What distinguishes that from a copy and paste move? TheProject 15:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I think nothing except that it is less common. I think merges done with very good edit summaries including links to source and target article should be fine, though - a good edit summary in the target article can point to the source article authors, while a good edit summary in the source article can help to avoid it getting deleted. Kusma (討論) 15:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

In that case it would seem to me that the edit history of the source article should be copied to the talk page of the target article, much like our policy of GFDL compliance for transwiking articles. (To me, it seems that if all we need is a link to the source article authors, then copy and paste moves would be perfectly acceptable as long as they linked back to the source article.) TheProject 15:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that for transwikied articles, we delete them here, and so the edit history needs to be kept in some other way. I am not a copyright expert, though. But I don't think I violate GFDL when I translate a page from the German Wikipedia here and only make a note of that instead of listing all authors of the page I translated on the talk page. If I do violate the GFDL by that, then probably 1/3 of Wikipedia violates the GFDL. Kusma (討論) 15:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Then what's the problem with a copy and paste move, as long as we link back to the source article? TheProject 16:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Cross-namespace moves

I added a subsection on moving pages between namespaces. Basically, I said that moving a page inadvertently placed in the wrong namespace was fine, but that other than that, such moves should be discussed. Furthermore, I said that it's "strongly recommended" that moving a page from the article space to elsewhere be done through the deletion process (preferably AfD) as such a move, once done, will effectively allow the page to be deleted. Mangojuice^talk 19:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposing Mergers On Deserted Topics?

There are two pages which I wish to merge and I have as such proposed it on both pages. However, it just so happens that both pages are quite deserted. That is, very few people visit it. So, is it still neccessary for me to propose the merger or just perform the merger anyway?--Ariedartin 04:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk page merge?

In 2001 there was a cut-and paste move of Last Supper to The Last Supper where the discussion page was not moved. Today, article history was restored from the cut-and paste and the article was moved back to its original location at Last Supper. However, there are two discussion pages ([2] from 2001 and [3] from 2006). There always used to be two discussion pages but now it became a problem because after the move the old one is associated with the article. It seems the discussion pages need to be merged because they are concerning the same article, but I don't know the procedure here, so some help would be appreciated. S Sepp 01:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No official consensus

What do you do when you propose a move and only one person contributes to the discussion, opposing it? You then pose a counter-argument, but noone else votes. There is no official consensus since there is one supporting and one opposing, but it seems very clear that there should be merge. This has happened to my proposal to merge Evening Out With Your Girlfriend into Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend (discussion). I've put a bunch of work into defending my point (including constructing the merge in my sandbox) and I don't want the merge to fall through because of a lack of interest. I've even let the discussion run for over a week. Should I just go through with the merge, contact the opposing voter, what? —Akrabbim^talk 21:18, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If this old issue still matters, you could ask it again on WP:HD, where many experienced editors respond to most questions within a few hours. --Teratornis 14:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Merger of Netscape Communications Corporation into Netscape

I think the articles Netscape Communications Corporation and Netscape (web browser) should be merged into the Netscape article, which will result in an article focusing on the ex-corporation and the browsers it used to make.

Both articles contain a wealth of useful, well-organized information and the merged article would probably pass on references. After the merger takes place, I will Peer Review the merged article hoping to make it a Good Article. I have already sent Netscape for Peer Review, but I was told to wait until the merger took place.

I have posted on the article's talk page, but so far no one is discussing the proposed merger, and no action seems to be taking place. Therefore, I am posting here hoping that someone can discuss the proposed merger and help me with the proccess of merging the article and sending it for Peer Review to make it a Good Article.

Thanks for reading. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Page Move

In trying to revert a page-move vandal I made a typo and moved it here by accident. Once the speedy goes through, please move back to Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages Dbinder (talk) 22:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)