Talk:History of vehicle registration plates of Mississippi

Why are there 2 articles on Mississippi license plates? Shouldn't the history article be included in the other? It's not like that one is too long. If anything it's too short. -R. fiend (talk) 17:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought the same thing, but another user and its sockpuppets continue to create separate articles for the pages for all the states. I asked for mediation, but no action has been taken yet. Qqqqqq (talk) 17:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, I agree the articles should be merged. PhilKnight (talk) 16:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No merger! If you look at the articles, they have template boxes for all the states one with just vehicle registration plates and one with history, on the respective articles. Given that a state can issue dozens of types of current license plates, it makes sense to have seperate articles, as most states have been issuing license plates for anywhere from 90 to 100 years. Having the two together can cause for additional complications. Just take a look at one of the more fleshed out plate articles like Vehicle registration plates of Connecticut and History of vehicle registration plates of Connecticut. Both seem to be evolving on two seperate forks and there are a couple others that are doing the same. --Plate King (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see how any of that necessitates separate articles. We create templates to aid articles, we do not create articles because we have templates for them. Almost all of these articles are very short, and even the longer ones are not so long that they require breakout articles. Mot of the current-plate articles particularly are short, and not likely to get any longer. Even in the few cases in which the historical-plate articles are long, combining them with these shorter articles will not add enough information to make them unmanagable. Keeping them all together will also help keep them consistent, preventing them from "evolving on two separate forks", which, to me, doesn't sound like a good thing. In the few cases where these articles are getting excessively long, I do have to wonder how much of the detail included is encyclopedic, and how much is just trivia geared at a few enthusiasts. Some of them risk becoming image galleries full of missing images. -R. fiend (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The articles are growing slowly. These things take time. Having one article for the current plates and one for the history of the plates will cause two to grow. Two forks is a good thing and there will always be some duplication of data, but that is a given. --Plate King (talk) 19:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, when the articles do get too long, perhaps they can be separated then (so far it isn't really happening, and I'm not sure it's going to). In the meantime, there is no need to have (and a good reason to avoid) these breakout articles. -R. fiend (talk) 19:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I like the articles not being the same. This is a good system and should not be messed with. --Ably Weathered (talk) 19:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)