Help talk:Merging/Archive 1

message: 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)
thread_title:  Shortcut 

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

message: Is there a recommended minimum time between proposing a merge (by adding  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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Time scales 

message: 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 .]
: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)
thread_title:  Redirecting from a misspelling 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Merger as deletion 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Wikiquette 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  What happens after pages are merged 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  question 

message: 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)
thread_title: Anyone want to back me up?

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Page history

message: 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 .] - 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)
thread_title:  Moving age limit? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Help with disputed merge 

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

message: "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)
thread_title:  Template wording 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  GFDL satisfaction 

message: 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.  Mangojuicetalk 19:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cross-namespace moves

message: 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)
thread_title:  Proposing Mergers On Deserted Topics? 

message: 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 ( from 2001 and  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)
thread_title:  Talk page merge?

message: 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? —Akrabbimtalk 21:18, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  No ''official'' consensus 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Merger of [[Netscape Communications Corporation]] into [[Netscape]] 

message: 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)
thread_title: Page Move