Talk:12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (1 year)

Merge discussion
12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (3 years) should be merged here to reconcile the confusing overlap between the two articles (which lack hatnotes between them). It looks like this article at the base name concerns the initial regiment that served in the east, but was mustered out in 1862, even though the article says it served until 1865. The number was then re-used later in 1862 for a unit that served in the west, which is the 3 year article. Unlike other cases where unnecessarily separate articles have been written about the same exact unit based on enlistment terms (and I have proposed merges for some already), these two articles actually do detail separate units, so could be kept separate, though it would also be easy to combine them into a single article and detail the separate history. There was previously rough consensus for a merge back in 2013, but it looks like the merge never actually happened. If kept separate, I think the 1861-1862 version should be moved to something like 12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (Eastern Theater) and then the later western version either made the primary topic or moved to 12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (Western Theater) and the base term made into a disambiguation page, but I still lean toward having everything in one article will be less confusing and more useful to readers than having separate articles that need disambiguation. In any case, something needs to be done to clean up the confusion here. Mdewman6 (talk) 02:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Support merging to this article. These two articles overlap for the 1862-65 period and both are not that long.  These can be readily covered in one article, imo. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:21, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose; as far as I can tell these are completely unrelated units aside from the name. I'm frankly not convinced that amalgamating two subjects with a name-only connection will lead to anything besides confusion.  Hog Farm Talk 21:59, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * , well, having two articles is clearly confusing, even to the editors of these articles, given the lack of disambiguation and the article at the base name implying that the regiment formed in 1861 served the entire war, which it did not, so I am not convinced keeping them separate will result in less confusion. To me, a single article with the history all laid out correctly and chronologically with appropriate sections will result in less confusion. But if kept separate, do you have a suggestion for disambiguation? I'm not crazy about my eastern/western suggestion, though I believe it's better than enlistment period (the article currently at the base name was moved from (1 year) parenthetical disambiguation). Another alternative would be "(1861–1862)" and "(1862–1865)". In any case, if kept separate, it looks like the base name should be a dab page (no primary topic). Mdewman6 (talk) 22:40, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * - Looking at the history, I think the confusion is because of the attempted merge. When the 1-year unit was created, it looked like this under the title 12th Regiment Indiana Infantry (1 year) (which was the prevalent naming style for ACW units until somewhere around mid-2020 I think, when they were moved to [Ordinal] [State] [Branch] Regiment). In August 2013, 's botched merge is what led to the confusion, where they moved the short-lived one to the base title, and improperly amalgamated the two without clearly distinguishing between two entities related in name alone.  The only time we should be lumping things related in name alone onto a single page is when creating set-index articles, which is not appropriate here; as we have seen with the results of the 2013 merge that lumping together just makes a confusing mess.  Given that the 1861 unit never engaged in combat, I think the 1862-1865 unit is clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and should go at the base title, with the short-lived unit at 12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (1861) or something like that. There were a number of Confederate units in the war (especially Missouri and Arkansas) that shared number designations for a time (such as 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Confederate) but 11th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Confederate) was for a time known as the 8th) and they are generally dabbed by their commander's name, but Union naming practices were different, so I don't think that's a great solution here. Hog Farm Talk 23:08, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * , okay, unless there is any other input over the next week or so, I'll close this discussion, move the 3 year article to the base name, and move this article to 12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (1861–1862), (or perhaps I should stick with the prevailing disambiguation and use 12th Indiana Infantry Regiment (1 year)? Though many of these articles have been merged, or I have proposed for merging, if they represent the same unit) with appropriate redirects, and make the text and dates accurate for each unit. I'll look back though the history and see if it makes any sense to simply restore to an earlier version prior to the moves. Mdewman6 (talk) 02:43, 19 February 2022 (UTC)