Wikipedia talk:Merge what?

Alternate titles

 * Don't always vote to merge
 * Think before merging

Other suggestions welcome. --BDD (talk) 21:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd stick with Merge What? Because that is the question everyone should ask before voting to merge. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Voting "merge" when the merge target already contains the relevant content
This is a good essay. It speaks to a situation I'm involved in at Talk:Green Day discography. It's the result of an AfD that closed as no consensus primarily because the articles creator & I argued in circles to the consternation of the closing admin, who even himself said "I agree, and so does nearly everyone else, that it should not have a stand-alone article, but the redirect serves a valid navigational purpose". So he's essentially forcing us to go through a Request to Merge even though the merge target (Green Day discography) already contains the only mergeable content. So we're having a discussion to determine whether to merge content A to article B when article B already contains content A. To borrow a term from another editor, this is "process wonkery for the sake of process wonkery".

Since this isn't the first time I've experienced such maddening nonsense from a "merge" closure or request, I suggest the following (or something like it) be added under "Bad merge votes":
 * Don't vote merge without first reviewing both the nominated article and the potential merge target. If there is no relevant content to merge over, or if the target article already contains the relevant content, a vote of "redirect" or "delete" is probably more appropriate.

This is also pretty well covered under "When a merge may not be appropriate" with the Foo/Bar example, but I think it also bears mentioning that uninformed voting is unhelpful and just stalls action. In other words, don't vote merge (or start a merge request) if there's nothing to merge. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:07, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment
I think a lot of people !vote merge when they actually mean redirect. It is kind of a safe !vote, one that is less likely to be met with opposition than a direct redirect one. Maybe this essay should also advise closers to close a discussion as redirect instead of merge if no one has indicated what content should be merged. It could also be a good idea to advise anyone who is looking at working on the backlog to simply redirect articles that do not contain mergable information. AIR corn (talk) 05:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I completely forgot that I commented here three years ago. I might go ahead and make some bold changes, if anyone disagrees with anything just follow the normal procedure. AIR corn (talk) 03:34, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Thoughts
These are in no particular order and I know that some of this is already present in a similar form. I just wanted to get them down somewhere as they came to me. Some of these ideas may fit in this essay, although I am not sure of the structure or order of any of them yet. Most of this is from observations I have made while completing merges after deletion discussions. I welcome comment and other ideas before making significant changes to this essay.


 * Unlike other deletion processes a merge close does result in an immediate effect to the article. Someone still has to complete the merge. Try to make the process as easy as possible for them.
 * The difficulty associated with conducting merges varies. Adding the information to a list or creating a dedicated section from the article is relatively simple. Merging two articles that both cover the same topic can be difficult and time consuming. Is effort of doing the merge going to result in an improved article.
 * Unlike other deletion processes a merge close will have an effect on another article. Think about how the merge will effect the target article, especially if it is a well developed one. If an article consists of a large amount of tables and stats it is unlikely to fit very well in an overview article.
 * Suggesting a target article or articles for the merge is very important. It is not always best to target the parent article as this can often create undue problems. Is there a list or more specific article that will contain the information better.
 * An article with serious problems (non-neutral, poorly sourced, poorly written etc) are not usually solved when merged. In some cases it can end up making the target article significantly worse.
 * Only on very rare occasions can we merge and then delete an article. If anything is merged then it must be redirected to the target article.
 * If you vote for a merge and it is closed as such, consider doing the merge yourself. There is no danger of being involved as consensus has been determined. As you are already familiar with the discussion you should be able to complete it easier than another editor that is cleaning out a backlog. The same applies to the creator of the merged article.
 * Be as specific as possible about what you want to merge. What is salvageable? Should most of the details be moved across or is just a mention of the topic sufficient? Are there particular sentences, paragraphs or sections that you think should be merged? Are there any that definitely should not be?
 * Have an idea where in the target article you think the information will fit. A particular section? Paragraph? Its own section? Mixed through the article?
 * If closing a long discussion as merge it can be helpful to summarise the consensus for how the merge should proceed. Especially if there are varying ideas on the target or information to be merged.
 * If it is not obvious what needs to be merged consider relisting the discussion asking for more specifics or individually pinging the editors for more information. If this is not provided a redirect close might be more appropriate.
 * "Merge relevant information" or "merge selectively" are only marginally more useful than straight "merge" votes if no more details are provided.

I also wanted to check that none are not too controversial and that they reflect the thinking of more editors than just me. AIR corn (talk) 09:11, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Those all sound like worthwhile questions to me. Good thoughts! --BDD (talk) 12:06, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay merged them all in and restructured the essay. Feel free to revert or make changes. AIR corn (talk) 12:03, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

What is the merge mention supposed to look like?
When merging you must say it is a merge and link back to the merged article.

What does this look like? Are we supposed to leave some sort of formatted note in the article text, or is this just asking for an edit summary?Dranorter (talk) 19:17, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There are a few ways to do this, but I find the easiest is to do so in the edit summary. I will typically say "Merge from Article name. For some examples see. The important thing is to keep a record of where the information has come from. If I make a mistake in the link I sometimes make dummy edits so that the information is still there. Hope this helps. AIR corn (talk) 19:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)