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Merging is a recognized alternative to deletion ( WP:ATD-M), and yet this doesn't form part of the set of merge reasons here. While it is quite possible to call an AfD first (resulting in a merge), if the nominator thinks that a merge would be the best outcome, then it seems best to discuss this as a merge proposal. In practice, this is what often happens, but I have on several occasions come against the argument that notability is not relevant to a merge discussion. However, notability is relevant to deletion, and so is a warranted consideration as part of a merge discussion; that is, an article not reaching WP:GNG can be proposed for a merge. So, I therefore propose that we add to WP:MERGEREASON a 6th point: General notability guidelines not met (linking to WP:ATD-M). Of course, this would not prevent notable topics being merged for one of the other 5 very good reasons. Klbrain ( talk) 11:36, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Support but I expect we're going to see some pushback from verification extremists claiming that if something isn't notable enough for a standalone article, it shouldn't be included in any article. Do we want to invite that discussion? ~ Kvng ( talk) 15:09, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Comments

This is often seen as an AfD aftermath. These discussions take place regarding unsourced or under-sourced articles, and AfD participants can't quite pull the trigger and delete the thing, so they dump it on us. The result: we merge the unsourced material to the designated target, and it is quickly challenged and deleted — A lot of work with no payback. I have merged hundreds of these, careful to merge only that which is sourced (even if with a bad source), and then am questioned on why the majority of the [unsourced] content was not moved over. This has even involved administrators a time or two (people who should know better). It's a failing of the AfD process, but we get burdened with the cleanup. I'm all for keeping anything that is well sourced, however, if an article can't pass GNG, then that content is likely to dilute the merge target and/or be removed entirely from it after the merge takes place. Instead of adding lack of notability to MERGEREASON, I think we need to address this at the AfD project-end of the process. In other words, If an article can't pass GNG, it can't be "Merge and Redirected", only: "Deleted" entirely, or simply "Redirected." Perhaps specific instructions to that end need to be added to the directions at AfD through an RfC. I really hate doing work twice on these articles. Regards, GenQuest ^"scribble" 18:46, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Merging only sourced material is one school of thought. I beleive longstanding unsourced material that has been seen by a lot of readers and editors over time is valuable. We don't delete stuff just because it is unsourced, we delete stuff that has been challenged and can't be verified. I don't expect we will all agree on how to handle this material (other than, "it depends") so I don't think we can apply the same process to all of it for everybody all the time. Just expect WP:BRD and ongoing rehash of these arguments :( ~ Kvng ( talk) 14:16, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Removing the unsourced material IS challenging it, long-term or not. To add it back, you'll need to take the time to add sources, something not all volunteers here have the time or inclination to do. This is all policy. I've found long-term vandalism in tens if not hundreds of articles, some read by thousands of people in the meantime. Have you never come across hoax entries here? I have. Both of those only last long in the encyclopedia when we become complacent about holding wiki-voiced statements to a high level of scrutiny. It's a win-win for the article. Merging unsourced material is a time waster. If the article is being watched, that content is going to be removed, sometimes immediately following the merge. There's no point to it. GenQuest ^"scribble" 16:02, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I think there should be more to a challenge than this is uncited therefore I challenge - What specifically looks off about the material? Have you searched for sources? Why doesn't WP:BLUE apply? I also think it is better to start with {{ cn}}, {{ hoax}} or some such for questionable material than boldly deleting it. These principles work well for existing article content and so I suggest they be applied to materiel involved in a merge. ~ Kvng ( talk) 15:02, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Your quote: "...I think there should be more to a challenge than "this is uncited therefore I challenge...": –You would need a general RfC for that. The rest are editing issues that any competent editor would take into consideration for each of their edits, whether in a merge or just general editing. As a volunteer project, it is incumbent upon the person who wishes to add statements of fact to verify and cite their additions. It is not, however, incumbent upon an editor who challenges that statement to do anything other than protect the " Wikipedia voice" of our articles, and quickly remove such content. See Bicholim Conflict for starters. GenQuest ^"scribble" 00:41, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I started the sentence with I think... because I realize that different editors have different positions on these questions and policy is broad enough to contain most of them. You've made assertions in the above reply that I disagree with and I doubt there is policy support for. In summary, we disagree and there isn't going to be someone riding in here credibly telling either of us that we are wrong. ~ Kvng ( talk) 22:31, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I just merged into REDD and REDD+ but there are no drop down language links yet. Only Spanish and Norwegian have 2 articles. I cannot find anything in these instructions so hoping I don’t have to do anything Chidgk1 ( talk) 13:56, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

For context: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Royal descendants of John William Friso (3rd nomination) just closed as merge into John William Friso, more specifically John William Friso#Tree of royal descendants. (I proceeded to put the tree into a template which I also put on his wife's page, since they obviously.... procreated together).

Now I find a very similar situation, which has all the same issues as the one above, plus a lot more, namely WP:REDUNDANTFORKs everywhere, and no obvious single target for the merger.

Source pages that probably should be merged per WP:REDUNDANTFORK, WP:NOTDIRECTORY, WP:LISTCRUFT, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:UNSOURCED, WP:V, WP:RS

• Royal descendants of Queen Victoria and of King Christian IX
• Descendants of Queen Victoria

Possible target pages

• Queen Victoria#Family
• Albert, Prince Consort#Issue
• Christian IX of Denmark#Issue
• Louise of Hesse-Kassel#Children

I'm not sure where to even start nominating, so I was hoping someone could give me advice on how to proceed. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 19:27, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

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Replace the redlink in step #6 of "How to Move" (" a logo") with File:Stade Lavallois logo.png, or any of the other 163724 files in Category:All non-free logos. 2603:8001:4542:28FB:4487:B54E:7615:4938 ( talk) 00:38, 13 October 2023 (UTC) (Please place talk page messages here instead)

 Note: Not sure if this suggested logo - for a football club - is an acceptable replacement, given that the last one was deleted with the comment, "Unused non-free media file", and the proposed one has a non-free license as well. But the link really should be pointed at some logo. -- Pinchme123 ( talk) 04:16, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

The whole point of that link is to illustrate a non-free logo (the rest of the sentence is 6. Check for non-free images (or other files). Examples: .... But at any rate, I just picked a random one as an example; if you'd rather you could try this one instead. 2603:8001:4542:28FB:5D4C:58E2:FE57:26F7 ( talk) 06:09, 13 October 2023 (UTC) (Please place talk page messages here instead)

See? I'm just a dense moron. Disregard me here! -- Pinchme123 ( talk) 14:53, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done. I replaced it with a different space agency logo. Anon126 ( notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 14:37, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I have encountered problems while trying to merge'' Q3326454 with Q264251. Both clusters of languages deal with the same topic (''anatomical terms of motion'') and I am neither able to add languge links in the old vector legacy (2010) skin (probably due to the fact, that both object are already clusters of more than one language) nor edit language links in the new Vector (2022) skin. Merging the articles with the MergeItems tool and the MergeLexemes tool resultet only in error messages. What am I doing wrong and how to solve this problem in the future? (I have already encountered this problem very often, so I hope that I will be able to contribute better to wikipedia in the future if someone explained me how address that issue ;) ) Mikulicz ( talk) 14:29, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

It sounds like you have a question about Wikidata items. You should ask those at d:Wikidata:Project chat. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:16, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Is there any consensus on the best way to handle merging talk pages? After making the talk page of a long-merged article redirect to the new location, [1] I've added the pre-merge talk page as an archive with a decimal number. This is now searchable from an archive template, but won't show a hyperlink (positive integers only). If I had done this at the time of merging (instead of seven years later) I could have just moved the pre-merge talk page to Talk: <new article>/Archive <n + 1> and incremented the arching counter to "n + 2". I used a generic {{ ombox}} to explain that the talk page had come from elsewhere because I don't see any kind of standard template for this. This all seems like the kind of thing a script could do, but after searching I don't think such a script exists. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ ( talk) 20:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Rjjiii: From step five of the Merging Procedure:

PS. To clarify: TalkPages with discussion content should not use the normal #REDIRECT [[<talk:target article>]] template at all, but must still have an attribution link to the target TalkPage in the edit summary. ~GQ

Most mergers do not involve articles with well-used TalkPages featuring archives. For the few that do, I like the idea of preserving the archived comments of the Source Article TalkPages where they would be more accessible to the readers. Perhaps by merging them to the archives of the target article: Talk:{target article}/Archive_0 maybe? Just throwing that out there. Ideas anyone? GenQuest ^"scribble" 14:20, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like a lot of work so I doubt it will happen reliably. Perhaps better to improve {{ merged-from}} to add links to the old talk page archives if such exist (it already has a link to the old talk page). ~ Kvng ( talk) 13:27, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe so. The easier a solution is, the more likely folks are to use it.

I'll post a few examples below of places where I have tried to include the old talk page into the merge target's archives. This is likely not necessary for most merges, but especially on templates I think this is sometimes really useful to be able to search the full discussion history.

• Moved old talk page to "Talk:Target/Archive n+1": Template talk:Unbulleted list citebundle/Archive 1 (from {{ multiref}})
• Moved old talk page to "Talk Target/Archive 0": Template talk:Cite comic/Archive 0 (from {{ comic strip reference}})
• Moved old talk page to "Talk Target/Archive n.1": Talk:Roswell incident/Archive 1.1

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ ( talk) 17:08, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@ User:Rjjiii it looks like you've done WP:CUTPASTE moves here. Leaving history of the talk page at the original location is sub optimal. To avoid creating confusion about where the original discussion occurred, I think it is best to not move these pages. To make editors aware of these, I support adding links to the original archives to the top of the talk page of the talk page of the merge destination. ~ Kvng ( talk) 15:17, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; I have already realized that I can keep the talk page history using page moves. [2] I may try adding links in the future. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ ( talk) 02:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)