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Wikipedia:WikiProject Merge

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WP:PMG

Articles proposed for merging
Subtotals
August 20264
September 202682
Undated articles0
Welcome to
WikiProject Merge

Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving the merging process. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the merge process. If you would like to help, please join the project, inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list below.

The main project focus at this time is reducing the articles proposed for merging backlog!

Scope

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WikiProject Merge needs your help! Jump to a random article with consensus to merge!
   Merge a random article!
Jump to a random article with consensus to merge!
   Merge a random article!

Categories

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To display all subcategories click on the "►":
To display all subcategories click on the "►":

Tagged articles

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Help contribute. Become a member!
edit 

Guidelines

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

Nominating articles for merging

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Any editor can perform a merge. If merging is obviously needed and is not controversial, editors are encouraged to be bold and simply do it themselves by following the merging instructions. You do not need anyone's permission or prior discussion to proceed, especially if the merge satisfies one or more of the reasons to merge articles. While bold merges may be reverted entirely, the process and the discussion after the revert often result in better articles. However, if there is an open AfD discussion for the article—whether it is for merging or otherwise—you should refrain from performing a merge until the discussion is closed.

If you have reason to believe that merging an article is controversial, nominate it for merging at AfD. If you want to nominate more than one article for merging into one or more destination articles, you can do so in the same nomination! The main reason that the merge backlog includes hundreds of articles is because the people who support the merge neglect to undertake this final step. Any editor, including the editor who originally proposed the merge, is permitted to perform a merge in accordance with consensus, as merging articles does not require intervention from an administrator.

While young or short articles and stubs that only differ in wording should be boldly merged immediately, long and well-developed articles that concern controversial topics are often discussed first. If you want to first gauge whether there is opposition to a potential merge or want to hear other editors' opinions before nominating the article, you can seek input through standard consensus-building venues, such as the destination article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion.

Reasons to merge articles

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There are several good reasons to merge articles:

  1. Duplicate: There are two or more articles 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 articles on related subjects that have a large overlap and might be redundant. 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 an article is short and, in your opinion as editor, is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it into the article on the 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, it should be merged into the broader article.
  5. Insufficient notability: Articles about non-notable topics can have content which if added to another article would make that article better. 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.

Procedure

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To avoid manually making many repetitive and time-consuming edits, it is recommended to install the easy-merge script before proceeding; the instructions below will also explain when and how to use it. When performing a merge, remember to attribute copied content as required by copyright; at minimum, this means including a wikilink to the source article in your edit summaries, as described below. To merge two articles, follow these steps:

  1. Copy all or some of the content from the source article and paste it in an appropriate location at the destination article. (If the merge is very large and will take you a long time to fully clean up, you can let other editors know by placing the {{In use}} notice atop the destination article.) Then, immediately publish your edit, even if it duplicates some parts or it looks messy. In your edit summary, include a link to the source article and to the AfD discussion (unless this is a bold merge): 
    [[H:M|Merged content]] from [[SOURCE ARTICLE]]; see its history for [[WP:CWW|attribution]].
  2. Do any necessary rearranging and copy editing ideally in a second edit, to simplify attribution. In this edit, also remove any leftover templates from the destination article, like {{Being merged from}} or {{In use}}.
  3. Blank the source article whose content was just merged and replace it with a redirect
    • To do this more quickly, install the easy-merge script and reload the source article. Then, click the "easy-merge" link in the "Tools" section of your sidebar, enter the name of the destination article or section, and keep this option enabled:
      Redirect this page to the target page
    If you want to enable other options, read the optional step 5 below before clicking Submit.
    • To do it manually instead, replace everything in the source article with: 
      #REDIRECT [[DESTINATION ARTICLE]]

{{R cat|
{{R from merge}}
}}
      or, if you merged the content to a section: 
      #REDIRECT [[DESTINATION ARTICLE#SECTION NAME]]

{{R cat|
{{R from merge}}
{{R to section}}
}}
      Then publish your changes using an edit summary such as: [[H:M|Merged content]] to [[DESTINATION ARTICLE]].

And that's it! You've successfully merged two articles!

Optional steps

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These additional steps are not necessary nor required:

  1. If the source article has a talk page, reconcile the talk page banners. Move any previously added {{Merged-from}} and {{Copied}} templates to the destination's talk page and copy the various {{WikiProject}} templates to the destination. If the merge was discussed at AfD but you are merging it to a different destination than the one selected by the closer, remove the {{Afd-merge from}} template from the talk page of the destination selected by the closer.
  2. Tag the talk pages with the relevant notices for posterity.
    1. If the merge was not discussed at Articles for deletion (for example if it's a bold merge or if it was discussed elsewhere), you can optionally note that the merge has taken place by adding a tag to the articles' talk pages:
      • This action is performed automatically when using the easy-merge script; simply enable these two options and click Submit:
          Add {{merged-from}} to talk page of target page
          Add {{merged-to}} to talk page of this page
      • To do it manually, place {{Merged-from|SOURCE ARTICLE|September 2026}} atop the destination's talk page and {{Merged-to|DESTINATION ARTICLE|September 2026}} atop the source's talk page.[a]
    2. However, if the merge was discussed at AfD and the {{Afd-merge from}} template is already on the destination's talk page, do not add another banner to the destination's talk page. However, you can optionally add a tag to the source article's talk page:
      • If you are using the easy-merge script, simply keep this option disabled:
          Add {{merged-from}} to talk page of target page
        You can optionally enable the other one, and then click Submit.
      • To do it manually, place {{Merged-to|DESTINATION ARTICLE|September 2026}} atop the source's talk page.
  3. Check whether you have moved any non-free files to the destination article. In the rare cases where there are any, the article mentioned in the rationale should be updated to the destination article's per the non-free content criteria. You can recognise non-free files from their file descriptions, as they have a red copyright icon and a non-free use rationale (a summary box with Non-free use rationale in the title, or a Fair use section: see these examples).
  4. Fix any double redirects found at Special:WhatLinksHere. There are a few bots that do this automatically, but it may take a few hours.

If you've performed these optional steps, there's nothing else you can possibly do, besides improving the article further or merging another article!

When the merge is a result of a formal discussion at Articles for deletion, editors should not add a new banner to the destination's talk page or change the existing one (see the optional step 5b above). These notices are usually added automatically by the closer and are updated automatically by AnomieBOT several hours after the merge is complete (example diff). These templates inform users involved in those pages that content is to be merged as a result of an AfD discussion. Note that it is any editors' job, not necessarily the closing editors' job, to perform the merge. If these templates have been changed, removed, or if they are not already on the talk pages, you can optionally place this atop the source article's talk page:

{{Afd-merge to |DESTINATION ARTICLE |discuss=AFDDISCUSSION |date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} }}

Similarly, you can place this template atop the destination's talk page:

{{Afd-merge from |SOURCE ARTICLE |discuss=AFDDISCUSSION |date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} }}

Merging pages in non-article namespaces

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Pages in certain other namespaces can also be merged, usually also on a bold basis, but merging on a consensus basis relies on different venues. For most non-article namespaces, the counterpart to AfD is MfD; unlike the former, it does not accept merge nominations, though a deletion discussion can yield "merge" as an alternative to deletion. Templates can be explicitly nominated for merging at TfD. The CfD process governs category merges; these fall entirely outside the scope of this page because "merging" categories is not merging in the usual sense (and is not done boldly either).
  1. ↑ To collapse many similar merge banners into one, experienced users may alternatively place the {{Copied}} template atop one or both talk pages: {{Copied |merge=yes |from= |from_oldid= |to= |to_oldid= |to_diff= |date=September 2026}}
Help contribute. Become a member!

2 people Participants

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Please feel free to add yourself here, and indicate any areas of particular interest.
Please post new entries at the end of the list.

  1. Markvs88 (talk · contribs) (I am going to start with all merges beginning with the letter "M"... for no particularly good reason!) 20:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)reply
  2. Ebe123 (talk · contribs) Overpopulated backlog. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 20:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)reply
  3. Mark Miller (talk · contribs) This user has merged 1 article from the February articles for merger list Drakula (1920 film)
  4. Extra999 (talk · contribs) going to help and keep this project going 03:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)reply
  5. Cerebellum (talk · contribs) - Working on AfD merges. --Cerebellum (talk) 01:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)reply
  6. Wikishagnik (talk · contribs) - Working Merge and wikify tags
  7. OlEnglish (talk · contribs) - Certainly support this project and will try to help when I have time.
  8. Thegreatgrabber (talk · contribs) - Work on some random things, applying templates, just help along.
  9. Gsingh (talk · contribs) - I have begun merging articles starting from Feb 2009, will work on articles of any topic. Gsingh (talk) 04:28, 25 April 2012 (UTC)reply
  10. Coastside (talk · contribs) - Interested in working on scientific articles
  11. BDD (talk · contribs) I like working on the full backlog rather than the AfD one, where there are many simple fixes, including stale tags and discussions just waiting to be closed.
  12. Wbm1058 (talk · contribs) I operate User:Merge bot, which updates Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log; Longer term project: analyzing procedures in search of improvements to alleviate the backlog here.
  13. GenQuest (talk · contribs) I have been working on mergers (through the PM noticeboard) since October 2012. I have been doing a bunch of the Afds also, since the backlog has grown to over 125. I try to do a copyedit on the finished product whenever my editing time allows. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 22:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)reply
  14. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)reply
  15. Skr15081997 (talk · contribs) I had done more than 50 mergers last year, and I am already a member of Mergist Association . Skr15081997 (talk) 17:16, 15 January 2014 (UTC)reply
  16. Iamozy (talk) 02:29, 6 February 2014 (UTC) Interested in science, especially, biology, neurology, and medicine.reply
  17. P199 (talk · contribs) (Working on long-overdue dead or stale merges. Have been working on this sporadically for the last few years already...) 21:16, 3 March 2014 (UTC)reply
  18. Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count)
  19. Klbrain (talk · contribs), particularly Pharmacology and Medicine. I'm working on old merge proposals.
  20. Onel5969 (talk · contribs), will try to help out as I can. Came here through the AfD merge backlog.Onel5969 TT me 21:40, 24 April 2016 (UTC)reply
  21. Serial Number 54129 (talk · contribs) Anything except lists, which seem extra complicated.
  22. Kvng (talk · contribs), 21 June 2016
  23. Adityavagarwal (talk) 18:29, 21 February 2017 (UTC)reply
  24. Sophie means wisdom (talk · contribs)
  25. AmericanAir88 (talk) 01:50, 6 November 2017 (UTC)reply
  26. Million_Moments (talk) 12:10, 13 July 2018 (UTC)reply
  27. BRES2773 (talk · contribs) Will really work on anything.
  28. Path slopu (talk · contribs)14:28, 23 September 2018 (UTC)reply
  29. Samee (talk · contribs) 20:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)reply
  30. Trialpears (talk · contribs) Hoping to reduce the backlog and discuss potential improvements to the process. Trialpears (talk) 10:08, 20 April 2019 (UTC)reply
  31. Robertsky (talk · contribs) Willing to help in any way possible. robertsky (talk) 14:07, 20 September 2019 (UTC)reply
  32. Newslinger (talk · contribs) 08:23, 22 October 2019 (UTC)reply
  33. MarcMyWords (talk · contribs · count)
  34. WikiAviator (talk · contribs) 04:42, 6 April 2020 (UTC)reply
  35. TimothyBlue as part of NPP and AfD.   // Timothy :: talk  14:14, 24 October 2020 (UTC)reply
  36. Tsistunagiska (talk · contribs) If I offer both hands to help then it will keep me out of trouble. A concept my brothers will agree I need to do more often. So here I am. --ARoseWolf 17:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)reply
  37. Felix QW (talk · contribs) Will help where I can, when I can.
  38. Karthanitesh (talk) 00:44, 19 January 2022 (UTC)reply
  39. Joyous! | Talk 02:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC) I love chipping away at a backlog. I've settled in working on the articles whose AfD discussions concluded with a "merge" consensus.reply
  40. Mooonswimmer (talk · contribs) I have tons of free time, a great portion of which I devote to Wikipedia. Tackling backlogs and doing tedious maintenance work sounds quite appealing to me!
  41. Kautilyapundit (talk · contribs) As an impartial editor, I can assist in merging articles while following proper procedures.
  42. Lililolol (talk · contribs)Im still learning. 01:14, 22 April 2023 (UTC)reply
  43. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 02:37, 23 November 2023 (UTC)reply
  44. Robertjamal12 (talk · contribs) Robertjamal12 ~🔔 14:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)reply
  45. Choucas Bleu (talk · contribs) No preferences, but happy to help! Choucas Bleu (T·C) 17:24, 12 March 2024 (UTC)reply
  46. Penultimate supper (talk · contribs) I like working on articles focused on religion and history, as well as countries I'm interested in learning more about, but honestly anything. They're nice to do when I have 20 minutes free at work, and I'll mostly focus on the AfD merge backlog. 18:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)reply
  47. Unknown Lifeform | Talk 09:24, 1 February 2025 (UTC) Excess articles just kinda annoy me.reply
  48. Go D. Usopp (talk · contribs) 16:10, 25 August 2025 (UTC)reply
  49. happypenguins82 (talk · contribs) i enjoy random articles, will do my best to help out :)
  50. Royz-vi Tsibele (talk) 17:44, 22 May 2026 (UTC) Merging is the epitome of quality over quantity. It's mergin' time!reply
  51. FaviFake (talk · contribs) Less is more. 23:43, 15 September 2026 (UTC)reply

Inactive

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  1. Quasihuman (talk · contribs) (I plan on working on closing merge discussions and doing simple merges. Also interested in working out new ways of streamlining the system.) 23:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)reply
  2. Intwizs (talk · contribs) Badam.. tsss (drum sounds)
  3. Dondegroovily (talk · contribs) still grinding thru them 21:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)reply
  4. The_mobot (talk · contribs) - Working on merge - going to try and get as much of it done as I can
  5. Khatie Lou (talk · contribs) - Will work on random articles to merge.
  6. DoctorKubla (talk · contribs) - I'll do what I can.
  7. Karl.brown (talk · contribs) - I'm still learning... 05:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)reply
  8. Kelpso1 (talk · contribs) - I'll do as much as I can starting right now. 05:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)reply
  9. Dark Silver Crow (talk · contribs) - Working on random articles to merge when able.
  10. Logical1004 (talk · contribs) Working on dead, or Indian election related or Physics related merges. Logical1004 (talk) 17:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)reply
  11. MartinZ02 (talk · contribs)
  12. NewYorkActuary (talk · contribs) 14:59, 29 June 2016 (UTC)reply
  13. nerdgoonrant (talk · contribs) 24 Aug 2017
  14. The Duke of Nonsense (talk · contribs) 20:26, 30 July 2018 (BST)
  15. Pcamellon (talk · contribs) (I am interested in working on articles realted to technology, science music, computer science and electronics. Maybe other topics but these are my prefered ones.19:31, 24 October 2018 (UTC)reply
  16. kashmorwiki (talk · contribs)Hoping to reduce the backlog Kashmorwiki (talk) 17:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)reply
  17. Ophyrius (talk · contribs)

Open tasks

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History of the merging process

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The backlog at Wikipedia:WikiProject Merge remains a tough nut to crack. One problem is that the WikiProject itself isn't setting a good example, as we have pages that themselves need to be merged. Merge-related discussions are ongoing at four venues:

  1. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Merge
  2. Wikipedia talk:Merging
  3. Help talk:Merging
  4. Wikipedia talk:Proposed mergers

Take a look back to the very beginning, to see where things went off the rails. This is the first step towards getting the WikiProject back on track.

2002–03: Birth of merging, as a listing page for "Duplicate articles"

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The concept of merging was born July 31, 2002 on Wikipedia. A new link Wikipedia:Duplicate articles, which is what Wikipedia:Proposed mergers was originally called, was added to the To Do Lists section of Wikipedia:Utilities— which was later moved to Wikipedia:Topical index (diff). Note the many red links on that diff. At the time, apparently much of project namespace was still in mainspace. I believe these items were later moved to project space without leaving a redirect. The first version of Wikipedia:Duplicate articles had just a single merge item on it. You need to go back to Nostalgia Wikipedia to find the item's origins. Crimean war was created 13:13, 10 December 2001. User:Conversion script logged its phase II conversion edit at 15:51, 25 February 2002‎. The article was rewritten and expanded 09:38, 6 March 2002‎, just prior to the introduction of perhaps the first unintentional content fork—or at least the first reported content fork, Crimean War at 15:51, 30 March 2002. This fork went unreported for four months, but then was merged by a different editor just an hour and a half after it was reported, without attribution – which is understandable since the only guidance given was Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Canonization.

A couple weeks later, someone listed a merger item over at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, under Articles that have good information, but need work for some reason: (diff) – Black Metal and Black metal music. This was either half a cut-and-paste move or an intentional content fork (it's not clear which), as the creator of Black Metal had just edited Black metal music the day before. In any event, three days later Black Metal was redirected to Black metal music. Eventually Black metal music moved to Black metal.

At 09:48, 20 September 2002 and 09:58, 20 September 2002, Duplicate articles became a "subpage" of Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, which in turn was a subpage of Wikipedia utilities.

By the end of September, after its first two months of operation, the list had grown to five items, when the first talk page discussion decided to remove merged items from the list rather than mark them as "DONE" (diff). But a few weeks later, another editor said "I would be in favor of making a list of fixed issues at the bottom of the article. Good for follow-up purposes. If the list grows too long, it can be moved to an archives page."

By the end of November, there were 13 items listed, and a short discussion had spontaneously developed around one of them.

At 16:59, 14 January 2003, the first suggestion to tag articles with "boilerplate text" is made, but no templates yet. 16 items on the list.

At 20:34, 25 January 2003, three items are spun off into a new Some other articles that were duplicates and still need consolidation: section. It's unclear what this means, but it seems that some of these needed a history merge. ({{db-histmerge}}). Or an editor just dumped text from one article to the bottom of another article (diff), asking someone else to "please merge". As yet, it seems there is still no official guidance on how to merge.

At 15:15, 7 February 2003, Some other articles that were duplicates and still need consolidation was renamed Merged articles that need work. At the time the list had been emptied, so the items reported two weeks prior had been promptly tended to. An important insight was added: "The creation of duplicate articles, and the wasted effort this causes, can be avoided by creating lots of redirects." Also, when creating new articles, search for existing articles on the same subject.

At 05:30, 25 February 2003, a new item was added to the Merged articles that need work section. Plot and brief characterisation of Richard II was concatenated to (appended to the end of) Richard II (play), and needed "merging" or "to be edited". Three weeks passed before any copyediting of the appended content began. I just put template {{copied}} on the talk pages, but that template wasn't created until 6 July 2009.

At 02:28, 27 April 2003, an editor removes an item from the list and initiates a discussion about it on the talk page. At 03:02, 27 April 2003, the item returned to the list, with edit summary "there is a dispute about merging. Consult (one of the articles' talk page) about merging.; Agree?" The Duplicate articles talk page won't be edited again until August. There are 29 Articles to be Merged and four Merged articles that would benefit from further editing.

At 13:16, 14 August 2003, an editor puts the list in alphabetical order. The list has grown to 54 Articles to be Merged and 10 Merged articles that would benefit from further editing. At 06:29, 20 October 2003, an editor comments on the talk page, "Actually I liked the previous order, time-based order. What happened??"

At 12:05, 16 September 2003, the list was grouped into alphabetical sections. There are 64 items in the list.

At 12:57, 17 September 2003, the Merged articles that would benefit from further editing section, now with 15 items, is moved and merged to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention (diff).

On December 6, 2003, the MediaWiki namespace is introduced.

At year-end 2003, there are 95 items on the list. Note that a few of them seem to be "merged articles that would benefit from further editing", but now rather than appended in a special section at the end, these are co-mingled with yet-to-be merged articles, e.g.,

2004: Birth of {{merge}}, and expansion of scope—it's not just for duplicates (content forks)

[edit]

At 01:18, 29 February 2004, {{msg:Merge}} (MediaWiki:Merge) is created, and at 1:36, 29 February 2004, it replaced the boilerplate text. The implementation was clunky. Were parameters supported yet?

At 16:33, 3 March 2004, a talk-page suggestion to change policy: "... in the opening couple of paragraphs, I think we should distinguish another valid fix for duplicate pages: leaving the two pages as distinct, but rewriting the pages so they no longer duplicate information."

At 1:56, 9 March 2004, an editor "took a leap" and "Made the policy clearer and (hopefully) more friendly for newbies." 86 items on the list.

At 21:04, 12 May 2004, "See also: Special:Whatlinkshere/MediaWiki:Merge" is added to the instructions, perhaps in recognition that not all templated articles are added to the list.

At 4:49, 4 June 2004, Template namespace initialisation script moved {{msg:Merge}} from the MediaWiki namespace to {{Merge}}, in the new Template namespace. At 2:35, 6 June 2004, "MediaWiki"->"template". Rm "msg:"

At 22:37, 25 June 2004, {{MergeDisputed}} became the second member of the merge template family. At 22:46, 25 June 2004, a new instruction is added: "If you disagree with a 'merge' indication then change the template from {{Merge}} to {{MergeDisputed}} and discuss it on this page until concensus is reached."

At 02:12, 18 July 2004, Wikipedia:Summary style is created as an alternative to writing articles in news style.

At 15:14, 31 July 2004, {{merge}} was modified to pupulate Category:Articles to be merged and at 15:15, 31 July 2004, Category:Articles to be merged was created as a sub-category of Category:Wikipedia maintenance. At 11:44, 6 August 2004, a category link was added to Wikipedia:Duplicate articles.

At 13:35, 5 August 2004, {{Mergefrom}} became the third member of the merge template family, and the second populating Category:Articles to be merged. At 13:43, 5 August 2004, the instructions were modified to include use of this new template. The template adds the hatnote: This article should include material from, which seems to leave the door open for copying (moving) a portion of the content while preserving both articles.

At 03:20, 16 August 2004, an editor refactored the talk page to group all procedure discussions to date into a single section.

At 17:41, 17 August 2004, an editor briefly adds the first parameter to {{merge}}, but quickly realizes this is incompatible with existing usage and opens discussion at template talk:Merge. At the time, there were 93 items on the list, and an unknown number of pages possibly transcluding one of the three merge templates, but not listed at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles.

In late August 2004, a discussion listing new candidates: Q: After inserting the merge tags in each article, do we need to add them to the list on the project page, or are they automagically added? In other words, how is the list updated? A: Articles need to be added to this page manually. Reply: Perhaps this should be noted in the "Mark current duplicates" section — Done 17:39, 28 August 2004 Gosh, we have a bot for that. And the need for it was apparent back at the end of August '04.

At 11:00, 8 October 2004, the instructions were changed to say that those disagreeing with a merge indication could just remove it, rather than replace {{Merge}} with {{MergeDisputed}}, and pleaded with editors to "Consider using these tags sparingly, and use the discussion page to discuss how to merge articles where it's not obvious whether or how the article should be merged", after concerns were expressed on the talk page that merge tags were being overused. At the time, {{merge}} was just a simple hatnote saying This article should be merged with, and {{merge/doc}} did not exist—in fact, documentation for the {{merge}} template would not be created for another two years. So, while Wikipedia:Duplicate articles leads with "Below is a list of duplicate articles that have been created mostly by mistake. They have to be merged into a single piece of work", an editor had tagged Federal Assault Weapons Ban, a subsection of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, to merge with Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Comments were left on each talk page; paraphrasing: "It was suggested that these articles be merged. I deleted the merge tag from each article because I think the appropriate place to suggest merging articles is on the talk page, where the pros and cons can be discussed, rather than in the articles themselves. While some content is duplicated, it's not obvious to me whether or not the articles should be merged, and I take no strong view either way." As of 2014, Federal Assault Weapons Ban and Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act are still separate articles.

At 03:34, 9 October 2004, {{Merging}} became the fourth member of the merge template family. At 21:00, 9 October 2004, the instructions were modified to include use of this new template, at 6:05, 10 October 2004, the Wikipedia:Duplicate articles content was "clarified" a little, and at 06:13, 10 October 2004 {{Merging}} became the third template to populate Category:Articles to be merged.

An early October 2004 talk page conversation: Q: How long does it take before a pair that gets mentioned on this article can actually be merged?? Feel free to include what it can depend on. A: It can be merged anytime. It only depends on who is willing to put the effort to merge the articles involved, and that can take time.

2005–09

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At 19:10, 3 April 2005, Wikipedia:Content forking is created. While its initial focus was on POV forking, it evolved to include redundant content forks which were unintentionally created.

At 23:41, 4 December 2005, {{Merge-section}} is created: "The following section overlaps with other sections and should be merged with the rest of the article."

At 16:13, 29 December 2005, {{Merge-section}} was moved to {{Cleanup-merge}}.

At 02:27, 12 March 2006, Category:Articles in need of internal merging, populated by {{Cleanup-merge}}, was created as a sub-category of Category:Wikipedia cleanup categories.

At 18:00, 5 December 2006, {{Cleanup-merge}} was moved to {{Cleanup-combine}}.

At 17:35, 5 October 2009, Category:Duplicate articles, populated by {{Duplication}}, was created as a sub-category of Category:Wikipedia maintenance.

Milestones

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  • 16,000 to be merged: March 2, 2012
  • 15,000 to be merged: May 7, 2012
  • 14,000 to be merged: June 16, 2012
  • 11,500 to be merged: January 9, 2014
  • 12,400 to be merged: November 26, 2015
  • 9,600 to be merged: December 12, 2016
  • 5,861 to be merged: July 1, 2018
  • 4,626 to be merged: October 7, 2018
  • 3,000 to be merged: May 2, 2020
  • 2,000 to be merged: December 1, 2022
  • 900 to be merged: January 3, 2026

Templates

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Barnstars for WikiProject

The WikiProject Merge Barnstar The Merging Barnstar
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The Merging Barnstar
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See also

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Logo of Association of Mergist Wikipedians
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