Wikipedia:Merging

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This is an information page. It is neither an encyclopedia article nor one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

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A merge or merger is the process of uniting two or more pages into a single page. It is done by copying some or all content from the source page(s) into the destination page and then replacing the source page with a redirect to the destination page.

Any editor can perform a merge. No permission or discussion is needed if you think the merge is uncontroversial; just do it! Otherwise, the merge should be first proposed and discussed, as detailed below. When performing a merge, remember to attribute copied content, as required by Wikipedia's copyright license. At minimum, this means including Merged content from [[SOURCEPAGE]] in your edit summaries. See how to merge below for details.

There are several good reasons to merge pages:

1. Duplicate: There are two or more pages on the same subject and with the same scope, also known as redundant content forks. If the content fork was unjustified, the article created more recently should be merged into the older one. If a duplicate article was created recently, it may also be a candidate for A10 speedy deletion.
2. Overlap: There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap and might be WP:REDUNDANT. Remember, Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept. For example, "flammable" and "non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on flammability.
3. Short text: If a page is very short (consisting of perhaps only one or two sentences) and is, in your opinion as editor, unlikely to be expanded within a "reasonable" (unspecified) amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it into a page on a broader topic.
4. Context: Some topics that are independently notable are best covered in the same article in order to better serve reader understanding. For example, if a short article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it.
5. Insufficient notability: Some topics may not reach the general notability guidelines, or more specific criteria, so merging is an alternative to deletion. While this can also be implemented through the articles for deletion process, merging directly may be more efficient. For example, parents or children of a celebrity who themselves are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity.

Merging should be avoided if:

1. the resulting article would be too long or "clunky";
2. the separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross-linked) articles;
3. the pages are category or templates, which should be discussed at Categories for discussion and Templates for discussion respectively.

If the need for a merge is obvious, editors are encouraged to be bold and simply do it themselves. While bold merges may be reverted entirely, the process and the discussion after the revert results in better articles. Young or short articles and stubs that only differ in wording should be merged immediately. Longer articles that have been separate for a long time are usually discussed first, especially if they are about controversial topics. If the merge is difficult to perform or is potentially controversial, you may open a discussion following the instructions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.

In Articles for deletion discussions, editors may suggest that the articles nominated for deletion be merged to an appropriate article as an alternative to deletion. If there is a rough consensus for a merge at the end of a deletion discussion, the following template is placed at the top of the nominated article:

{{Afd-merge to|destination article|debate name|debate closure date}}

Similarly, this template is placed on the destination article's talk page:

{{Afd-merge from|nominated article|debate name|debate closure date}}

This informs users involved in those pages that content is to be merged as a result of a deletion discussion. It is the involved editors' job, not necessarily the closing editors' job, to perform the merge. Proceed in the manner described above.

• Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers is a noticeboard for discussions about merging articles
• Category:Articles proposed for merging lists pages that have been tagged for merging but haven't reached consensus
• Category:Articles with consensus to merge lists pages with discussions closed with consensus to merge.
• WikiProject Merge was used to coordinate the clearing of the merge backlog.

Jump to a random article from the active mergers backlog!

   Merge a random article!

• Wikipedia:Splitting
• Wikipedia:Moving a page
• Wikipedia:Section move
• Wikipedia:Content forks, on duplicated content in acceptable and unacceptable cases
• Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia, more details on copyright issues
• Wikipedia:Merge and delete, on deleting the source page instead of redirecting
• Wikipedia:History merging, if they have not been edited in parallel, some merged articles may also be history merged
• Wikipedia:Articles for merging, a failed proposal for a different discussion process