Wikipedia talk:Content forks/Archive 2

Continued from archives
The archives are full of people asking for POVFORK to be changed, with respect to the "deliberately created" scenario.
 * Good forking •  Bad forking (victory declared by someone proposing the (hopefully) ill-fitting analogy of 11 people in a bar)  •  Asking for clarification, where Uncle Ed throws the baby out with the bathwater, according to the common misconception that article content is equivalent to the article. Uncle Ed was later to return to the talk page to complain about the interpretation of the rule he had failed to delineate conclusively in the Bad forks and good spinoffs" section, where he was beat down with ad hominem by FeloniousMonk •  Problematic sentence shows that the wording of POVFORK is so pushy that a desperate plea for sanity was inserted: "Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" is itself based on a POV judgement, do not refer to forks as "POV" — except in extreme cases of repeated vandalism". This is obviously clunky, and presents problems, but the root of the problem is the pushy scenario •  Creating a spinout shows the root of the problem that the pushy scenario attempts to address: pushy editors. We can discuss democracy in Cuba in terms of what aspects of Cuba are democratic and which are not, and create something useful. Or we can argue with someone who wants to say there is no democracy, none ever, definitely not, no, and sink his attempts to say so over and over again and claim victory with a stupid rule. Now, I am the first to admit that making the new article does not always work out, as there are again, pushy editors. But the problem is not the article, and the solution is not a rule that is redundant to WP:POV, it is topic bans based on POV violations. "Provided that all POVs are represented fairly in the new article, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate a controversial aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious" - Uncle Ed. •  Abuse of consensus vs. breaking up a page points out that "On the other hand, it is also possible for editors to abuse "consensus" by maintaining a biased version of an article. Any attempt to add well-referenced opposing points of view might be falsely labeled "POV forks". If the spin-out article conforms to NPOV, then this is not a POV fork." FeloniousMonk beat down this too, with contradiction and ignoring of the central point. •  POV pushing and neutrality:
 * "Sometimes, in an attempt to preserve bias in an article, some Wikipedians will band together to "vote" that a spin-off is a Wikipedia:POV fork, even when it's not." Uncle Ed called a Vote on policy:


 * 1) Winning an AFD vote is not proof that a particular article is a "POV fork".
 * 2) Discussions about this should show how the new article is violates NPOV, and should not be resolved merely by counting votes.
 * 3) Discussion should also show in what way the multiple articles advocate different stances.
 * 4) Deleting a "POV fork" is not automatically the best way to resolve an NPOV dispute.
 * 5) Retooling the articles so that they each are neutral is preferred.
 * ...was rejected 3 to 1. I can't even see how anyone could vote against those points. Point 1 is true, as WP:CCC shows. It is evidence, but not proof of anything other than the current consensus, and even consensus can change. Point 2 is now, and may even have been at the time, part of Articles for deletion, Deletion_process. Points 4 and 5 can be inferred from the fact that POV is not listed as a Deletion#Reasons and it is logical that PoV content can be replaced by neutral wording. • Ownership forking revision proposal has a very good idea on the subject, the best I have seen so far. It makes an interesting point about biased articles whose content is not POV; while such articles can afford the opportunity of debunking the bias, they are more often shorn of such balancing with assertions of UNDUE etc. Separating out the rules for POV for article subjects and article content would be a fine idea, imo. •Comparing a sentence from the guideline cited in Removing sentence which pre-dictates fate of a duplicate article with the current article shows that "deliberately created the fork" was objectionable enough to one editor that it was replaced, and that edit has stood the test of time (altho not of course CCC) •Content forks, POV or otherwise, ... has a lengthy title describing a solution I do not agree with, but agrees with me inasmuch as: "a POV-fork is also a content-fork." and less so with "There is sourced material in the forked article that belongs in the other article", which may or may not be true; that is why there is a link to WP:MERGE in the guideline. But the point stands; POVFORK is an unnecessary merging of POV and FORK. •What forking is is an earlier version of my arguments against POVFORK, and is in some ways better. I went away and did not respond to a discussion about it, which devolved and was dropped.

Even if this does not get attention to the subject now, I hope that it will preserve the history of the discussion. Anarchangel (talk) 00:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "...deliberately created...": It is pointless to argue the intentions of the article creator, mostly because there is never any firm evidence of it, but also because the article subject is either valid or invalid whatever the reasons for creating it. FORK and NPOV are the rules to apply; POVFORK is erroneous in some of its focus and redundant in the rest. Anarchangel (talk) 02:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

"Split" versus "fork"
POV fork is typically taking the content of one article (the whole) and reproducing it in another article from an alternate point of view (the whole or parts of the whole also appearing elsewhere in a new POV suit). What is not addressed is taking content which belongs together as subject matter (the whole) and POV-dissecting it into separate pieces (the parts) so that the aggregation of the parts is now << than the whole and the whole itself has been POV-eviscerated. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 14:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Basic concepts of/introduction to
There is an AfD discussion on Basic concepts of quantum mechanics that is exploring the limits of allowable content forking. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Commonsense idea: Userspace subpages are very helpful
We all know that there are people who just want to write without interference. Think of them as "columnists" -- people who strive for NPOV despite having opinions- but still admit their work has not yet withstood peer scrutiny yet.

Some authors prefer a massively-collaborative workflow-- one that can often be interrupted by software-caused edit conflicts. Other authors are more comfortable with the traditional journalistic style-- a single author submits a work to the community for review, edits, and alteration.

WP:Openness is a big problem facing us all. If nobody uses Wikipedia in ten years, we are failures. We need to rethink things. Whether userspace forks are "welcome" is something we have to consider--  while 2001 users were content with common space, 2012 users expect to have a 'reserved space' for their own views. Our inability meet that social compact may be an element in our user loss. --HectorMoffet (talk) 10:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Issues with this guideline?
With recent events, like Personal life of Jennifer Lopez and Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, I wonder if there is something wrong with this guideline. If not, then shall this guideline need an expansion, like a mention of content about a living person? --George Ho (talk) 02:43, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Axis occupation of Vojvodina#RfC:Is this article subject notable, and if so, is it an acceptable fork of existing articles?
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Axis occupation of Vojvodina. Peacemaker67 (talk) 10:16, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Is transclusion considered a type of content forking?
Recently, User:Flyer22 has asked me to revert several article transclusions that I have made, and has described my edits as an unacceptable type of content forking, despite the fact that transclusion is not mentioned in this article at all. Is it acceptable to transclude parts of one article into other articles, as long as no content is directly copied and pasted from one article to another? (As I understand it, "content forking" refers to the creation of multiple versions of the same page, whereas transclusion creates a single version of an article and automatically mirrors that version across multiple articles). Jarble (talk) 22:12, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * See here for the main discussion I had with Jarble about this. To summarize my objections with regard to this matter, he was copying articles in their entirety in sections of other articles, using "Main article" or "See also" in those sections to point readers to those articles as though they offer anything different than what the sections do, and he was achieving this copying by using articles as templates. He doesn't consider this inappropriate WP:Content forking because he was not directly copying the content into articles. It's clearly the type of transclusion he was doing that was the problem. Flyer22 (talk) 22:22, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * And I didn't ask Jarble to revert; he offered to do so, and did so (for example, here and here), because even he (as shown in those edit summaries) seemed to realize that he had created massive redundancy and presumably didn't want to cause any more trouble for himself or for others. Flyer22 (talk) 22:29, 9 June 2013 (UTC)


 * and It's an idea that has crossed many editors' minds, and has been experimented with before, over the years.
 * The problems are very briefly mentioned at WP:SYNC (part of the WP:Summary style guideline), but it gets more complicated and problematic than that. TL;DR: It's best to write each article so that it can stand-alone, and write a separate brief synopsis topped with a main or See also tag for any article that needs a summary. Transcluding whole articles is more trouble than it's worth, particularly causing difficulty in tracking diffs or discovering changes, and confusing neweditors. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 22:37, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for weighing in, Quiddity. At the time of your reply, I had just got through stating that, given the low activity of this talk page (and its main page), we weren't likely to get any replies about this here...or at least any time soon here. I was obviously wrong. Flyer22 (talk) 22:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Confusing
Under article spinouts: "so it is more appropriate to break that section out as a separate section and just have a summary in the main article."

It says "separate section" but then refers to Summary Style, which would suggest a separate article. Anyone know which it's suppose to be? Separate section or article? CorporateM (Talk) 12:22, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Obligatory thread - making POVFORK less anti-AGF
This is an apparently obligatory thread requested via revert to my edit by. Does anyone object/agree with my edit, and if so, please explain why. -- slakr \ talk / 10:15, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Like I stated I would, I alerted WP:Manual of Style to this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * hmm... *scratches head* ...the MOS people? Does it have application to them somehow? I mean, I could be missing something, but it would of course help if I knew why you, personally, objected to the edit and felt the need to revert it (apart from it just being an edit to a guideline). Do you feel it doesn't clearly reflect consensus or something? -- slakr \ talk / 17:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Forking is related to WP:Manual of Style, and I couldn't think of a better and more appropriate place to get various comments on this matter. But, alas, none of them have weighed in here on this matter yet. As for your edit, I personally dislike when one editor significantly changes a longstanding guideline or policy without discussion, especially if the change is spurred on by some recent Wikipedia experience the editor had and he or she is looking to make the guideline or policy conform to his or her personal view. Such changes are usually reverted, as it is in this case. What benefit is there to your change? Flyer22 (talk) 19:15, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Changes to guidelines don't inherently require a discussion beforehand, but WP:VPP is probably the better venue for canvassing this. I'd have thought to post something there had I felt that this changed the guideline in a controversial or truly significant way (I would still like to know why you feel it does, though). What benefit is there? Apart from eliminating the redundant, confusing sorta-sentence starting with, "Instead, apply Wikipedia's policy that requires a," simply read the edit and its summary again. The change encourages harmony with the assumption of good faith guideline so that a fork that someone believes violates the neutral point of view policy can be discussed and consensus built without it becoming a referendum on the motivations of the forker(s) and a difficult-to-actually-prove accusation of bad faith, thereby also reducing veiled personal attacks, as it encourages commenting on the content instead of the contributor.  On a related note, I find it's a good rule of thumb to assume good faith and comment on the content&mdash;not the contributor's possible motives or bias&mdash;when a credible editor makes a change to a guideline, too. -- slakr  \ talk / 04:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Significantly changing a longstanding Wikipedia policy or guideline without discussion is not something I believe in, especially when it concerns a policy (though I know that Wikipedia:Content forking is a guideline), as is obvious by my above commentary. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines should be based on WP:Consensus, as even the "Changes to guidelines don't inherently require a discussion beforehand" link you showcased reflects, and that there is no objection to an edit does not always equate to "WP:Consensus"; sometimes such changes are accidentally overlooked. I suggest directing people at WP:VPP to weigh in on this matter. As for a "good rule of thumb [being] to assume good faith and comment on the content&mdash;not the contributor's possible motives or bias," I've seen enough cases where an editor is in a content dispute and then comes to a policy or guideline and changes it to suit their argument in that content dispute; so, yes, their motives and bias are relevant in those cases. I'm not stating that something like that is what brought on your desired change to this guideline; I'm only stating why motives and bias very much matter to me when it comes to changing policies and guidelines. Flyer22 (talk) 20:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Notability standards for WP:SPLIT
I have started a discussion about notability standards for WP:SPLITs at Wikipedia_talk:Notability.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:40, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

jghcjchggf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.115.227.146 (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Template POV fork
This is my first time seeing a POV forked template, any feedback there would be appreciated since TFD is usually a pretty inactive place.AioftheStorm (talk) 17:24, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Examples?
Some examples, could be hypothetical, of improper content forking would be useful. I'm still not sure when an article could be considered a legitimate spin-off piece and when this is to be avoided. Liz Read! Talk! 15:36, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * What do you think about Hebrew Bible, Tanakh and Old Testament? Cesiumfrog (talk) 22:45, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Several large POV forks were recently created. Should we merge them?
The content of these sections is largely identical, with some minor variation:
 * Genocide of indigenous peoples
 * Russian conquest of Siberia
 * Indigenous peoples of Siberia

Also, there are several duplicated paragraphs in these sections:
 * Criticism of Wikipedia
 * Reliability of Wikipedia. Jarble (talk) 22:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Multiple paragraphs about hydroelectricity have also been duplicated: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarble (talk • contribs)
 * Renewable_energy_debate
 * Hydroelectricity
 * Hello Jarble, thank you for posting this here. I would support you with this effort, and it should be sooner than later, it is hard to merge articles, once each copy had a life of its own. &mdash; Sebastian 07:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Jarble and SebastianHelm (Sebastian), articles sharing one or more paragraphs is normal and accepted on Wikipedia; Jarble, you know this, and the Related articles section of the WP:Content fork guideline is clear about this. Duplicate paragraphs do not make content fork violations unless there are articles that are pretty much the same thing and have duplicated paragraphs. Flyer22 (talk) 07:17, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Flyer22, I admit that I did not check the facts and compare the articles; I just assumed they were just wholesale forked. This was rash, and I'm sorry for that. &mdash; Sebastian 07:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The Magneto/Magneto (generator) fork
-especially Wikipedians versed in our Fork policy. What kind of fork is the Magneto/Magneto (generator) fork? Chrisrus (talk) 18:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * That is not what an RfC is designed for, read WP:RFC for more. More importantly, there already is an RfC involving this over here, let's not fork the conversation too. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:FORUMSHOPPING springs to mind too. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:48, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forks
 The article seems to make the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forks as follows: What about the NOT COVERED quadrant? I feel an uncondensed copy of text introduces the same problems, whether it is copied to an article of its own or to a section within another article. Can we clarify that in this guideline? &mdash; Sebastian 07:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I addressed this in the section above. Sections are not yet explicitly covered in the WP:Content fork guideline because it is perfectly acceptable for articles to share one or more paragraphs, especially if WP:Copying within Wikipedia is followed. By what the WP:Copying within Wikipedia and WP:Summary style guidelines state, Wikipedia accepts and/or encourages such copying. The Related articles section of the WP:Content fork guideline addresses the fact that "distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another."


 * Since this page does not get a lot of traffic/does not have a lot of WP:Watchers, I will alert Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style to this discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 07:29, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Alerted. Flyer22 (talk) 07:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, according to Copying within Wikipedia this seems OK within reason. I can see the advantage of having two essentially identical sections, Foo and Discoveries (or whatever). I can also see the disadvantage as it's two identical sections to maintain. Eventually they are going to fall out of sync and that's not excellent. Using main with a short summary in one of the articles is often better IMO, if it makes sense. Probaly depends on the individual case and/or how the individual editor likes to do things. Herostratus (talk) 11:51, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we have WP:SUMMARY for a reason. Discoveries would use summary format, and use to link the bulk of the material at Foo, and do likewise to other articles on discoveries covered in summary at the Discoveries article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:18, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Counter-Vandalism Unit/Tools
The text of this page was directly copied and pasted from another list of counter-vandalism tools. Should both of these pages be merged? Jarble (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Double negative

 * "Note that meeting one of the descriptions listed here does not mean that something is not a content fork – only that it is not necessarily a content fork."

This double negative (with a positive) is confusing and frankly, I don't know what it is intended to mean? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:22, 28 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that took me a couple of tries as well. I tried being bold and just went ahead and changed it. Does that work? – Robin Hood  (talk)  01:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes thanks Cinderella157 (talk) 05:34, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Content fork or POV fork?
There are many articles about music, music history, different musical styles, etc. However, there are no articles about women in music. Would "Women and music" be a content fork or an impermissible POV fork? OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 03:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "Women and music" would not be a good idea for WP:AND. There is, for instance, List of female composers. Women in music might work as an article title. Female musician might sound odd, and might be too narrow if you want to include music historians, Cosima Wagner, etc. – and after all there's already a Category:Women in music
 * Some condiderations:
 * It's hard to write very general articles, so think twice: probably a draft stage would be a good idea, until the article has some balance and basic coverage (even before launching such article as a stub in mainspace).
 * Gender-exclusive topics are sensitive matter, like e.g. sexual orientation-exclusive topics. Compare LGBT writers in the Dutch-language area: this shows it can be done but, for instance, there may be some sensitivity that WP:BLP musicians don't want to be pinned down on their gender (like in the example article on the LGBT writers "In the 21st century LGBT writers became less concerned with their LGBT status, being a good author is their primary concern"). Similar: Women authors not wanting to be pinned down on their gender in Wikipedia, and creating a large fuss about it: http://www.dailydot.com/society/wikipedia-sexism-problem-sue-gardner/ – tread cautiously.
 * Writing articles on subtopics such as Woman composer before writing a more general article in WP:Summary style might be a good idea too.
 * --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I remember the issue over female authors, now that you reminded me. There were concerns that women authors shouldn't be put into a separate category for female novelists, as I recall. What do you mean when you say it's hard to write general articles? Is it because editors protest at the generalizations that end up being made whenever a very broad topic is discussed? I agree with you that gender-exclusive topics are a sensitive matter. OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 00:53, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Re. "it's hard to write general articles" – I was thinking for instance about this (late stage of a discussion where we still can't get sorted out how the "general" article should be written). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Summary sections?
BullRangifer, why did you add summary section information with this and this edit? I think it will likely confuse matters for editors. As you know, we already have a WP:Summary style page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:29, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for asking. You may want to take a look at the "finished" product of my recent edits. It may make more sense. I added the "sections" wording because the articles are not summaries, the sections are. The previous content and heading was a bit confusing, at least to me, and I work with these all the time. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:55, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Part of the confusion came from the main guideline itself. We don't have "summary articles", so I fixed it there as well. A "summary-style" article is a different animal, as made clear in my edits here. -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:04, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

"Parent" article or "meta-article"?
Here are some examples of "summary style" meta-articles where many or most sections are summaries of more detailed subarticles:


 * Film
 * Physics
 * United States

Would it be better to call them "parent" articles? -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

example of acceptable forking
maybe append the sentence "...as an article grows, editors often create summary-style spin-offs or new, linked article for related material. This is acceptable, and often encouraged, as a way of making articles clearer and easier to manage." with: "an example of this is separate filmography articles for actors whose lists of associated film roles and TV appearances are too numerous to include in the article" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.246.77.14 (talk) 06:28, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Is there a reason you think that example ought to be included? Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 13:19, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Just for clarity in the lead. It's a common feature of that type of article, where forking routinely occurs when a table within an article becomes too long or complex to be displayed as part of the body. There are similar examples later on in this guide, but it might be good to let the reader, right from the start of the guide, have a clear and good idea in mind of an acceptable example (one which they may have already encountered) to contrast against the inadvisable examples later on. (EDAHAM is previous IP 58.246.77.14 - was not logged in, sorry)Edaham (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd oppose that change. Having something like a filmography spinout from an article about an actor is common and it's covered in this essay. However, that's one example out of many given and I don't think the lede should provide the one example as you suggest. I'd prefer a sentence that quickly mentions several examples. If you have a better suggestion I'd be willing to discuss. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 05:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * ok will think about that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edaham (talk • contribs)
 * "...as an article grows, editors often create summary-style spin-offs or new, linked article for related material. This is acceptable, and often encouraged, as a way of making articles clearer and easier to manage. Examples of this might be the cuisine of a particular region forking from an article about the region in general, a filmography forking from an article about an actor or director or a sub-genere of an article on an aspect of culture such as a musical style" How about this - bearing in mind that the purpose of the sentence is to get the idea out there early in this style guide that some types of forking are encouraged and even required in order to make the information more wieldy.Edaham (talk) 05:52, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with what you describe. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 14:35, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I have made the edit with a minor alteration. I also corrected a typo.

Is an alternative display of identical material content forking?
If content which is acceptable in the original article is displayed in another article by way of transclusion, is that content forking? If so, why? &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 04:39, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I am assuming here that no-one considers multiple transclusion of a list such as a navbox to be content forking. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 15:33, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Deliberateness is irrelevant
It seems to me that the only relevance for "deliberateness" of a redundant content fork is for possible user warnings or sanctions; it is entirely irrelevant as to how the content should be dealt with. Old: "Wikipedia's principle of assume good faith should be kept in mind here. If you suspect a content fork, give the creator of a duplicate article the benefit of the doubt. Check with people who watch the respective articles and participate in talk page discussions to see if the fork was deliberate. If the content fork was unjustified, the more recent article should be merged back into the main article." The relation between "deliberate" and "unjustified" is murky, and it's not clear what the guideline is even implying here.

Real-world example: Information centre hypothesis was created by an editor who was not able to find Communal roosting, per their talk page comment. This is a deliberate, neutral, unawares, redundant content fork of section #The information center hypothesis (ICH) at Communal roosting. In my opinion it's an unjustified, redundant fork which should be merged, but for reasons having entirely to do with article sizes and the similarity of topics and content, not whether it was deliberate or not. (To be discussed on its talk page; this is merely an illustration for the purposes of this guideline wording topic.)

Changing "deliberate" to "justified" and removing most of the first two sentences is more accurate and leaves out irrelevancies. New (diff):"If you suspect a content fork, check with people who watch the respective articles and participate in talk page discussions to see if the fork was justified. If the content fork was unjustified, the more recent article should be merged back into the main article." The word "deliberate" should have no part of it. Mathglot (talk) 22:57, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * , I agree with the logic regarding justified and deliberate. The intention of the fork creator should have no bearing on how the content is managed, however the article with the better title for the combined content could be a better target for a merge, regardless of seniority. Sometimes a new title to express the scope of a merge is better than either original. The route may be more convenient to merge the new article into the old one if the old one's history is complex, then rename, though I don't know how one deals with the talk page in such a case. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 15:46, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Forking within articles?
I reverted 's bold edit that removed the phrase from the introduction. Flyer22 Reborn failed to disclose her involvement in a discussion elsewhere involving this very guideline, as policy recommends. Beyond that procedural snafu, I think it's logical to include some mention of content forking within articles; the essay WP:CRITS discourages "sections within an article dedicated to negative criticisms", implying that these are a type of in-article content fork. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:05, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Whatever the involvement in discussions elsewhere, the removal was correct, this guideline does not cover different opinions within a single article (which are WP:NPOV domain, and related guidance such as WP:CRITICISM). So I reverted to the version without that phrase. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:21, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with the removal. The statement makes no sense, and what an essay says does not matter at all: This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays...only represent minority viewpoints. Not being covered lower fails WP:LEAD. Yes, I was also at that discussion, but note that WP:PGBOLD says not disclosing may be seen as gaming the system (emphasis added). And she fully disclosed at the discussion. So I think this assumption of bad faith was unwarranted. -Crossroads- (talk) 13:47, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't quite follow you. Are you saying that point-of-view forks, covered on this page, are not within the WP:NPOV domain? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:05, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * All content is WP:NPOV domain, sure, but different guidance pages are about different aspects. "Passages within articles" not being domain of the content forking guidance, means one should refer to the general policy, unless some other aspect, treated on another guidance page applies. WP:CRITICISM being an essay, going to the policy is always good advice. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2019 (UTC)


 * To repeat what I stated here, I was not not gaming the system. That piece should never have been there, like I stated on the aforementioned article's talk page. During my edit summary, I thought about pointing to that article and stating that someone was wrongly arguing for a misplaced addition at this guideline, but I decided against it. Simply removing it was all that was needed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:27, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Add to nutshell?
The nutshell currently only talks about bad content forks, but doesn't address acceptable content forks. I'd like to run the idea by you guys of changing the nutshell from this:

To this:

Thoughts? Thanks. – Novem Linguae (talk) 14:07, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The "However, spinning out sections of a large article into child articles is fine" refers rather to the WP:Summary style guidance, so I would not add that to the nutshell of the content forking guidance. Each guidance its own (clearly defined) topic seems best. This one is about avoiding content forks, the other one is only one (of many) methods to do it the right way. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:59, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:REDUNDANTFORK issue; comments requested
The Geologic mapping of Georgia (U.S. state) includes the entirety of Geology of Georgia (U.S. state) duplicated as part of its text. Another user has reverted my attempts to remove/merge that content back and I'd like some outside comment. If you care, please discuss it here. Thanks. —  AjaxSmack 00:50, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Article titled Female (gender)
Comments are requested at Articles for deletion/Female (gender). This is posted here because a major question is whether it is POVFORK/CFORK. Crossroads -talk- 01:09, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes; it would be helpful to have participants in the discussion who understand that a POVFORK or CFORK is something other than content they don't like. Newimpartial (talk) 01:18, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Jeffery McDonald case
I was there on that date with the PMI section of the CID, and cannot believe so many commits on this case by people that were no there and have not a clue of what happened there. captain Jeffery McDonald is guilty. All there others who disbelieves need to read the evidence and not listen to idle gossip that people make up. 38.132.134.128 (talk) 23:29, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

SPINOFF vs SPLIT vs SPINOUT
An editor claims that Content forking never moves any content to a new article or otherwise results in any change to the 'parent' article: "Splitting an article moves some of the original text of the article into the child article. Spinning off an article leaves the parent article unchanged."

Who agrees or disagrees with this claim? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)


 * (I don't know how well watched this page is, so I'm pinging some of its (few) active editors: Quercus solaris, Pbsouthwood, Chris troutman.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the claim might be true but should not be. Using O. J. Simpson robbery case as an example from the guideline, the material was created in September 2007 out of whole cloth and was not spun-out of O. J. Simpson. If the former story were legitimately spun-out of the latter biography then the parent absolutely would change. Evidence is found in the history for Harry Potter of material removed into other child articles and I am sure other examples could be found. If content in the parent article is becoming UNDUE, it makes sense a SPINOUT to child article would alter the parent article. Wikipedia has fetishized the raw number of articles so I think many an editor lacks the patience to develop content in a parent article and then SPINOUT, preferring the walled-garden of an independent article to truly fork. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 22:20, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Chris troutman, so (in your opinion):
 * If editors are doing everything correctly, then a spin out should result in the parent article.
 * Merely creating an article about a sub-topic is not a spin out.
 * Do you think there is a material difference between what a WP:SPLIT, a WP:SPINOUT, and a WP:SPINOFF is, or are these all basically the same thing with slightly different emphases (i.e., copyrights for SPLIT, neutrality for SPINOFF, article size for SPINOUT)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)


 * My thoughts so far (not having been immersed in whatever backstory led to this seeking of clarification) are that the outcome, namely, a certain structure for the resulting set of articles, is a unifying theme common to all of them. Perhaps people may be arguing about whether there are several processes that can lead to that outcome, and they want to enforce a standard definition of the name for each of those processes. That's fine if so. All of these processes generate at least some change to the parent article, even if it is small, such as a "main" link at the top of a section, or a "see the list of whatevers for more information" type of link. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:38, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Quercus solaris, this is about Template:Talkspin. Its author is trying to convince me that bold splits are okay, but bold spinoffs are not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I have also created a few top/higher level articles based on the collected summaries of the set of more detailed articles. Wikipedia tends to have little top-down design, and not a lot of structural pre-planning so all of these things come up occasionally. Almost all of my work is on uncontroversial technical topics where it probably does not matter what one call the results of a split. Another thing that bothers me slightly is that in my experience, shortcuts tend to get used by gatekeepers as bludgeons against inexperienced editors as a substitute for rational discussion and explanation of the actual problem, but like I am not up to speed on this and may be jumping to conclusions. If a new article is created about something covered in an existing article, in more detail, then there should normally be a summary section in the original article, with a hatlink to the new article, but maybe there are circumstances where this does not apply. Offhand I cannot think of any, but there are more things in heaven and earth and Wikipedia than can be usefully covered by a manual of style. Making unnecessarily rigid rules often leads to disputes when the exceptions come up, and some nitpicking wikilawyer does not have the imagination to recognise the exception, or willfully misinterprets it to serve some illegitimate agenda. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 17:42, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , So far I am failing to see the point in these different descriptions of a split, and my first impression is that they are unnecessary instruction creep, but I am willing to consider reasonable arguments either way. I have done a lot of splitting, as articles get bigger and particularly when sections get big enough to be split out and stand alone. I did not even know there were "spinouts" and "spinoffs", and have not yet worked out what the difference is supposed to be. I look upon them all as "splits", more jargon is probably unhelpful, and makes Wikipedia harder to edit for new editors.
 * @Pbsouthwood, I'm thinking that they all the same thing, too, and that we've duplicated a lot of information. I wonder how much of this could be replaced by a sentence like "See Splitting for advice on how to do this". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , I don't know, possibly all? I have not spent much time analysing it, but it is rather confusing at first read. I thought spinout is what happens when one loses control of a vehicle... I often refer to Splitting, and have not usually felt the need for more opinions on the matter. Cheers &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 01:33, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems these terms are also Wall Street jargon. I do not think that new or even established editors should be expected to be familiar with them in Wikipedia article content forking context. Labeling a thing does not explain it, specially when the label is not very clearly defined, and it may not be clear why, or even if, it applies. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 05:08, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Spinning off an article leaves the parent article unchanged. A spin off will take some content, and expands it. A spin off that takes nothing would be better called a tangent. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:03, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * SPINOUT vs SPINOFF? What’s the difference?  In English I don’t think there is, with the two being ENGVARiations of the same meaning.
 * I think a split means a major removal of detail, like 20-40% of the article. A spin off/out happens when a growing small section is not squarely in the theme of the article, and more detail would de-focus the article. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:58, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That makes some sense. Whether it is necessary or useful to go that far into the detail is debatable. Either it is a split, and some content is removed from the original to the new article or it isn't. Both are acceptable ways of starting a new article. Both should be linked from the old article and summarised there where relevant. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:29, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess a "spinoff" may leave the original article unchanged, if it already has a suitable summary section, and no-one bothers to add a hatnote link, but I cannot think of a case where this should happen.&middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:43, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Based on these discussions, I suggest that we add this text to the top of Content forking:
 * "A "spin off" is when editors WP:SPLIT one or more existing sections of an article to a subarticle, leaving behind a link to the new subarticle and a summary of its text."
 * Would it be helpful to include examples? Condom and History of condoms as well as Michael Jackson and Death of Michael Jackson are spin offs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I think this proliferation of jargon is unhelpful, but if we are stuck with it, it should be clearly and unambiguously defined. If defined sufficiently clearly, does it need examples? Conversely, if it needs examples, is it clearly defined? Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 19:15, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Also "Merely creating an article on a related subject is not automatically a spinoff." Examples of that would include Train and individual train stations or specific models of train engines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey, all:
 * I started to make these changes earlier, walked away for a bit, and decided that the bigger problem was that we needed to Avoid instruction creep. I have shortened the section substantially, and I think it could probably be cut even further.  Above the ====Caution==== subsection, the only thing that really needs to be said is that article splits to promote a POV are bad, but article splits to maintain NPOV everywhere are good, with links to the pages on splitting.
 * I hope that you will agree that this is an improvement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 9 December 2022 (UTC)