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Wikipedia:Merging

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This page is a how-to guide detailing a practice or process on the English Wikipedia.

Shortcut: WP:MERGE

A merger is a non-automated process by which the content of two pages is united on one page.

Rationale

There are several good reasons to merge a page:

1. Duplicate – There are two or more pages on exactly the same subject and having the same scope.
2. Overlap – There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability.
3. Text – If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic. For instance, parents or children of a celebrity who are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity, and can be merged there.
4. Context – If a short article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it. For instance, minor characters from works of fiction are generally covered in a "List of characters in <work>", and can be merged there; see also WP:FICT.

Merging should not be considered if

1. The resulting article is too long or "clunky"
2. The separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross linked) articles
3. The topics are discrete subjects and deserve their own articles even though they may be short

Merging—regardless of the amount of information kept—should always leave a redirect or, in some cases, a disambiguation page in place. This is often needed to allow proper attribution through the edit history for the page the merged text came from. Superfluous redirects do not harm anything, and can be helpful in finding articles, e.g. from alternative names.

You may find that some or all of the information to be merged is already in the destination page. That is fine; you can feel free to delete the redundant information and only add the new stuff. If there is no information to be added to the destination page, you can simply redirect the other page there, but please make this clear in the edit summary.

How to merge pages

Pages to merge

• Current pages tagged for merging can be found at Category:Articles to be merged and Category:Merge by month lists pages that have been tagged for merging on a particular month (tagging was begun in September 2006).
• Wikipedia:Proposed mergers has a list of pages that are proposed to be merged, with discussion and explanation (this is an optional step; all of these articles should have merger tags as well).

List of merge templates

Merge requested:

• Template:Merge
• Template:Mergeto
• Template:Mergefrom

Merge in process:

• Template:Merging
• Template:Mergingfrom

Merge completed:

• Template:Merged-to
• Template:Merged-from
• Template:Copied
• Template:R from merge

Miscellaneous:

• Template:Cleanup-combine
• Template:Integrate

See also

• Wikipedia:Article size
• Wikipedia:How to fix cut-and-paste moves
• Wikipedia:Splitting
• Help:Moving a page
• Wikipedia:Articles for merging, a proposal