WikiIndex:Merge policy

This WikiIndex: Merge policy is a draft policy or guideline. Its content may be used, and indeed relied upon on this WikiIndex wiki site. However, it may also be considered open for further discussion on what should or could or even must be done. All WikiIndex users are encouraged to be bold in editing to evolve and improve this draft, and also to contribute to any discussion on its talk page.
If it appears consensus for adoption of this policy has been reached, this message may be removed. If it appears that there is overwhelming consensus to reject this policy, then the page can be annotated as rejected.

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This WikiIndex:Merge policy article is a WikiIndex 'stub'. If you are familiar with, and understand the WikiIndex policy system, you can help by expanding this WikiIndex stub article, thanks.  :-)

WikiIndex: Merge policy — this meta page here on WikiIndex describes the policy of 'merging' articles (or categories, templates, etc). Its purpose is not to explain the mechanism, as that is built-in function (found at Special:MergeHistory) of the MediaWiki software we use to power this wiki website. The process of actually merging can only be carried out by administrators and higher. However, anybody is free to nominate or request articles to be merged, with the inclusion of our template: Merge on its respective page (ideally, both pages should have the merge template added).

Why merge?

Quite simply, it will have been discovered that there are two (or more!) article pages which refer to the seemingly identical wiki site (or other wiki-related subject). Fundamentally, this could simply be an innocent duplicate article page, created in good faith, by the same or different authors.

How to request a merge

Edit the proposed article by adding template: Merge, at the top of its edit box. The merge template requires a qualifier to indicate the intended 'target' article (or category), and this is included after a 'pipe' within the double-curly brackets which are used to transclude templates.

The following example demonstrates how to use the merge template:

{{Merge| name of article to be merged with | reason for merge }}

When NOT to merge

As touched on above, sometimes innocent but good faith mistakes can be made (on any wiki site, not just here on WikiIndex). The most common reason for mistakenly tagging for a merge is when a wiki site split from its original incarnation, and has changed host by way of forking (and instead of creating a new article for the new host, the editor may simply have updated the original wiki site article to the URLs of the new host!). The original wiki site, at its original host (even if now dead) should be preserved as its own article here (annotating its status if necessary as abandoned or dead), and using a hat-note template to point to any new host. Accordingly, this scenario would not require articles to be merged.

The correct procedure would be to ensure that each article page is appropriately named, using any 'identifier' (such as domain, host, etc) within brackets. If appropriate, a disambiguation page can be created to list the relevant wiki site articles.

Examples of how to name and identify two separate articles about the same wiki site which has moved to different hosting:

• Your Wiki Site (Wikia) – for say a wiki site originally created on the commercial wiki farm known as Wikia
• Your Wiki Site (Miraheze) – for say the same wiki site subsequently moved (forked) to the non-profit Miraheze wiki farm

See also

• Template: For — creates a quantifiable hat-note offering link to a similar article
• Template: Not — creates a simple 'not to be confused with' hat-note
• Template: See also — creates a simple 'see also' indented note offering a link to a similar article
• Template: Main — creates a simple indented note offering a link to a 'main' or primary article about the same or similar subject-matter