Category talk:Articles to be merged/Archive 1

TOC
Perhaps rather than moving 200 at a time, links to beginning letters (and numbers) would work better? Moogle 05:00, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to add which articles are being merged with which ones, thus possibly clarifying the reasoning and whatnot. Clarkefreak 18:00, 15 Feb 2005 (CST)


 * Someone has since added the TOC template. -- Beland 18:35, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

New template format
How can we mark which ones have been done? FreplySpang (talk) 00:50, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Here, I guess. We might have to waive that "no editing comments" thing, though.Brendan62442 03:09, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Finished?
Just wondering: How will we know when we are done updating the new template on all of the pages? --Dmcdevit 04:10, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * All articles have been converted now, I think. -- Beland 22:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Footer: TOC/Next 200
I notice the TOC table has a link to go back to the "top" but it's not very helpful as it already IS at the top. Another TOC table and possibly another page turner (next 200, etc) at the bottom of that long list of articles would be really helpful. Unfortunately, I don't have the privs to edit it in. I assume one of the administrators might--could one of you guys please add that in? Or where can I go to request it? 17:56, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

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 * I agree, would be very useful. Orange Goblin 18:35, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

merge instructions
The "how to merge" instructions are pretty confusing. What is the purpose of moving the merged article to /history1? Do we really want to then change that page to be a redirect? It seems to me that simply changing the merged article into a redirect and remarking on the talk page of the destination article would allow access to the history, and not involve creating double redirects, etc. Is there a problem with that I'm not seeing? Simplifying these instructions would probably help get participation. &mdash; brighterorange  (talk) 20:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * User:Gyrofrog just improved the instructions greatly (thanks!), but I still don't understand the purpose of the move to /history1. Any ideas? &mdash; brighterorange  (talk) 22:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, Brighterorange. Our merge instructions have been merged and consolidated, and the whole /history1 business has been squeezed out. I actually make merge remarks in the edit comments of both articles, so if you look at the history of either, you will know to cross-reference the other. -- Beland 02:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * That's what I do, too. Great, I'm glad to see this process streamlined, and I withdraw my complaints. &mdash; brighterorange  (talk) 03:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Disputed merges
It would be handy if disputed merges were removed from this page. 138.88.179.138 02:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I moved Template:MergeDisputed to Category:Articles with disputed merge proposals. Articles in this category will move to the new subcategory the next time they are edited.  (Yes, this is a bug.) If you want to force them to move, doing an edit that makes no changes (a "null edit") will work, and will not show up in the edit history. -- Beland 03:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * They should all have been null edited by now; I had Pearle poke them. Enjoy, Beland 04:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Merging categories
The instructions are to use cfr for merging categories, but the template's text is specifically for renaming categories, which is not at all the same thing. A template for moving categories needs to be created. —Michael Z. 2006-01-18 08:41 Z 


 * I've fixed this by referencing the correct template. Kcordina 09:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Archived comments

 * Archive 1

Sort by date?
I am proposing that a bot sorts this category into subcategory by date at Wikipedia talk:Maintenance. Please coment on the proposal--Rayc 21:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Merger of classical Homoeopathy
Kindly dont merge Classical Homoeopathy article to Homoeopathy. Classical Homoeopathy have a separate identity, which should be mentained. User:Dbbajpai1945@sify.com
 * This sort of comment is best left on a talk page of one of the articles. -- Beland 22:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Square brackets or not?
'Category:Articles to be merged' states:, , (Please note that you should not use square brackets around PAGENAME.) but the destination of the link under 'merged' in the shown templates, 'Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages', after showing the same as above but without mentioning brackets, states: If you are proposing that many pages be merged into one page, (...), so use. Funny. All four templates should better have an identical PAGENAME syntax, the 'multiplemergefrom' should also occur in 'Category:Articles to be merged'. — SomeHuman 2006-08-11 23:58

Merge by Month
I've begun implementing Merge-by-month categories, in a manner similar to Category:Cleanup by month and Category:Articles that need to be wikified. You can see full links on the Category page (expect some templates to be created within the next day or so). I don't think this is a controversial issue, and this has already been requested and approved for bot use, but I just want to bring up the topic here as I begin. Feel free to comment, question, or criticize. alpha Chimp (talk) 06:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, if you want to stop Alphachimpbot at any time, just post a message on his talk page. alpha Chimp (talk) 06:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is great, thanks for doing it. phoebe 04:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It appears that some of the sub-pages of that category have been deleted. In the last few days I've come across a few pages that I've "fixed" the bot-created date stamp to its "proper" date (the date it was actually proposed).  Now all but January, October, and the huge September are there (but many of the links still have the proper months included).  The ones I noticed were still there, but just a few hours later (meaning right now), they're gone. Is this a glitch or is there some reason the ones from June and August were deleted? Or were they all "taken care of" since then and I just happened to add the template change after they were deleted? Thanks. Radagast83 18:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh....i had them tagged for speedy deletion. I've been going through the old merge by month categories and cleaning them out - so merging when a merge was agreed on and removing tags when the merge was oppossed. I thought...they were automatically generated by the template. So i figured i'd tag them for deletion once i emptied the categories. But yes, the deleted categories were all empty when i tagged them. --`/aksha 03:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:MERGE redirect
The "WP:MERGE" shortcut redirects to this category. Shouldn't it instead redirect to WP:MM? If not, could the Category page include a link to WP:MM? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There already is a link to WP:MM on the category page in the 'see also' section. I would keep the redirect it as it is. Garion96 (talk) 11:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Want to merge articles - Need guidance
I have been considering this merge and redirect for a couple of weeks now, but a current problem on the article that will be redirected made me decide I'd better learn now how to proceed. I have already posted to the talk page concerning my belief that a merge of articles would be a logical and beneficial step. Of course, I want to give all interested parties a chance to contribute to the discussion, so I need to know --> If I submit a request on the Category page here, how many days or weeks will it be before a decision is made? Any things I need to know that I can't read of either of these two pages? Thank you. -I am Kiwi 15:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If you tag the two articles needing to be merged with the merge template headers, then anyone who reads the article will be aware a merge is to be planned. Also, when you tag articles as being needing of a merge, you can write in the edit summary that you're proposing a merge. This will also alert people who have the articles on their watchlists but do not actually check the article regularly.
 * If a discussion is started, then the merging shouldn't be done until consensus is reached in the discussion (or not done at all if it turns out that the consensus is to not merge). Otherwise, i'd say give it a week or two and if no one comments, then there's probably no one opposing. --`/aksha 06:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Streamlining suggestion
Why don't we borrow from the QFD format, and make a Articles for Merging section, where the discussions for merging two articles. This would especially simplify the merger discussions that end up on two different pages.--Vercalos 23:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone even watching this page?--Vercalos 21:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, i am. I just didn't have anything to say about this. What exactly is the QFD format? And why exactly do we need it? I spent some time a few weeks ago carrying out old merges, and i didn't find it all that difficult to just look at the talk pages of both articles to decide whether or not people objected to the merge. --`/aksha 02:41, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, the actual problem is that merging is a difficult process that usually takes some amount of knowledge in the subject, which is why this category is so back-logged. &mdash; brighterorange  (talk) 05:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I've noticed, after doing some myself, that many merges really aren't all that hard to do. Although some are. I don't suppose something like a "merge by topic" would work? So sort out merge requests by topic (e.g. "mathematics", "fiction"...etc)? Or would that just take way too much work to do? --`/aksha 07:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It'd probably be a lot of work, but it'd also probably be worth it. Where do you suggest this sort of thing?  Personally, I'd leave the current categories in place, then add specific categoties as subcategories.  That way, people could still see the whole list at once, but also look at sections specific to what they know.  Maybe we could even include a MERGE RATING SCALE(not shouting, just can't see very well, so having trouble counting apostrophes), that would rate the difficulty of merging the respective articles(Merging a singe paragraph into an article wouldn't be difficult, but merging two similar articles might be..).--Vercalos 00:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Well...a few weeks ago, i went through the "merge by month" categories and tried to clean out the oldest ones. And most of them really weren't that hard to do - IIRC, i only encountered three where i decided to just leave since i didn't have enough background knowledge in the area. So perhaps a specific tag and category for "difficult merges" would be appropriate?
 * As for merge by subject...well, the easiest way would be to introduce a new variable into all the merge tag templates, so when someone adds a merge tag, they'll have to choose a category, and the article automatically gets sorted (kind of how we use the one-letter code in the AfD tag to sort them). Old merge articles will still be unsorted, but the new ones would get sorted into categories by subject.
 * Just a thought, is there a wikiproject responsible for cleaning out backlogs like this? --`/aksha 01:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that most pages aren't that hard to do in most cases and I think a list of difficult merges, or merges requiring expert attention is a brilliant idea, and that would probably be the most important list to categorize by subject (i mean, an "expert" isn't an expert in everything...) So now, does anyone know how to impliment that?  Thanks!  Avraham 02:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Please clarify this page
Hi there. I hope someone reads this. I have basically no meta-wiki skills so I don't know how I would impliment this but it would be extremely helpful if there were a place to look at all the articles to be merged in one list, either sorted by date, by subject, or not sorted at all. I thought there used to be a page like that but I can't find it. Anyway, can someone please let me know if there is such a page, or if not, how to make it or refer it to someone who can? Thanks! Avraham 02:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. You could browse around, or have a look at [http--tools.wikimedia.de-~interiot-cgi-bin-queries-en_to_be_merged]. I'm sure you'll find something to merge :) xCentaur | ☎  08:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for a bot to update the merge progress timeline
Hi all. I've been interested in clearing the backlog here since yesterday (which is when I came across it). Currently, I'm involving myself with clearing Ganeshbot's merge backlog. I've been thinking that it'd be nice to have a bot update the merge progress timeline once a day. Very similar to the functioning of User:CbmBOT. I was thinking of proposing it, but thought I'd try to gain some consensus here first. What say? Btw, I updated the merge progress timeline today, manually. --  aJCfreak  y A k 14:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds great. Updating the merge tamplates is extremely tedious and time consuming, and having it update automagically, even once a week would be awesome. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 15:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines for Article Merge/Redirect
Hi,Could some one clarify the basic rules for page redirect since I could no find any guidelines on how, within what period and with who’s involvement a page can be redirected. My question concerns the following type of case: A new article is created and on the same day it is proposed for deletion. After the deletion discussion outcome is not in favour of deletion the same instigators that attempted AfD insert almost immediately page redirect and merge to another article thus removing the article from Wikipedia visibility. A so called majority vote decision for redirect/merge was achieved among the original instigators for AfD within less a day of discussion on the article talk page (in this way minimising possible involvement by other editors) What is the normal time for discussions on a page redirect and should that be done by uninvolved editors? Thank you for the clarification. --Hittit (talk) 04:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)