Talk:Ōmetsuke

Merge question

See corollary thread at Talk:Metsuke#Merge question.

To me, this seems an obvious issue -- not something to be ignored.

The material and sources in the articles about the metsuke and the ōmetsuke are largely duplicative; however, the incorporated lists of bakumatsu period metsuke and the ōmetsuke are quite different.

The bakufu structured these similar intelligence-gathering groups in a complementary manner, but their activities and reporting structures were kept separate by design. Moreover, when the bakufu was faced with the need for selecting men for ad hoc detached service, there must have been good and sufficient reasons why some were chosen from the metsuke and others were drawn from the ōmetsuke. Without more, I think that there appears to be good cause to suspect that the differences in these sets of mid-level officials have a substance which argues for them to be kept as separate Wikipedia articles.

At this point, I'm prepared to assume that the reasons why the Tokugawa shogunate continued to maintain these officials in distinctly separate categories has likely significance. For this reason, I think the Wikipeida articles should remain separated, at least for the time being.

As either or both articles develop over the coming months, other editors may be in a position to introduce relevant information which could be critical to any decision about merging these articles.

Maybe it may make sense to re-visit this issue at some point in late 2008? --Tenmei (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

At this point, I can see only one reason for preserving these as two distinct articles -- so that the blue-colored links will be maintained in Template:Tokugawa Organization Chart and Template:Tokugawa officials. That seems like a slim rationale; but there you have it. --Tenmei (talk) 01:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)