Is this a good idea? Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion was recently created in hopes of assisting tricky merging situations. But now that I look closer, I see that project and this project have significant overlap. While they are similar, they do seem to have very different time frames, and different methods to accomplish the same goals.

I would like to see Merges for discussion resolve things in a matter of days rather than in years. In that sense, I think that the backlog of this project could be absorbed into that process, and a quicker more streamlined way of generating merge feedback can be created. I would appreciate if any interested editors could join discussion on the talk page of that project. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 03:39, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The two processes should be merged (haha, something ironic about mentioning that) but I think the biggest problem is lack of traffic. This might be solved by a link at the top of the WP:AFD page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In what way? Please explain your idea further. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 04:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Heck it is there already. But anyway, in essence all the mergers suffer from a severe lack of traffic, which is why they remain open so long with only a few comments. There needs to be linkage highlights. I just noticed now that proposed mergers is actually linked on the top of the AfD page (but I hadn't seen it in 2.5 years). The other place is at the top navbox of WP:AN. template:editabuselinks Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hilarious. Ok. So we need to think of another way to attract attention that is not pointy. CENT? --NickPenguin_(contribs) 04:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh - I know. The whole topic is such a vexed one....Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added a whole bunch of Done tags to anything that was redirecting to one of the two articles suggested to be merged. I'll leave it like this for a few days, then I'm going to remove all the finished merges. Hopefully it will clean this page up a bit and make it look a little more managed. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 20:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your work. Flatscan (talk) 23:46, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, as we have two pages covering the same process (that is, merging articles), this would be a good time to discuss which format people prefer, and then conform the existing page to that format.

Essentially a list of mergers only, all discussion takes place on the destination article's talk page.

• By simply linking to the Talk page discussion, PM is consistent with other steps, allowing one discussion to be used throughout the process. Flatscan (talk) 05:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Talk page section
  • Merge templates on articles
  • Proposed mergers
  • Requesting outside input as described by dispute resolution, such as WP:3O, WikiProjects, and WP:RFC

For discussion of mergers actually on the page. The setup is inspired by AfD: each discussion has its own subpage that is transcluded to a log. A time limit was proposed but not implemented.

Previous discussions

• WT:Mergers for discussion, a few sections
• WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 63#Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion

Backlog

I think that the backlog has a substantial contribution from the delay in implementing mergers after consensus has been determined, which would be substantially identical between the two discussion processes. There are over 100 transclusions of {{afd-mergeto}}, which is placed when an AfD is closed as merge and removed when the article is redirected. Flatscan (talk) 04:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should we archive the 2008 requests? VoltageX (talk) 13:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've been going through them over the past few months, and there's only a few left. The ones still here are a little tricky, but all of them should actually be merged. I would rather see the work completed rather than brushed under the wikicarpet. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 20:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm against archiving them. If the discussions are inactive or if there's a decision reached, close them. If they're active, contribute to them. As with any backlog, it's the oldest ones that need the most attention. Archiving is not a solution for this. Jafeluv (talk) 20:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added a section describing how to propose a merger, and made a little template, {{PMlink}}, to help in listing the articles. Let me know what you think. Jafeluv (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, I've moved the section into a subpage so that people can say their opinion first. Jafeluv (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support including this how-to somewhere. It's significantly better than the mess (that I had a hand in writing) at Help:Merging#Proposing a merger. Flatscan (talk) 04:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I boldly added it back. The template wasn't really necessary, I guess. Feel free to tweak the wording. Jafeluv (talk) 13:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could a bot be created to list all proposed mergers here automatically (similar to the one used at RM)? It could also be used to add missing merger tags when only one page involved in the merger has been tagged. --GW… 09:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]