Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages

Shortcut: WP:MM

Merging and moving are two fundamental aspects of how articles are developed and reformed on Wikipedia. A "merger" is a manual (non-automated) process by which two existing but similar (or redundant) pages are united under the same name. A "move" is equivalent to "renaming" a page — i.e. giving it a new title.

Contents 1 Merging 1.1 How to merge pages 1.1.1 Proposing a merger 1.1.1.1 Caveats 1.1.2 Performing the merger 1.1.2.1 Alternative version 2 Renaming / Moving 2.1 How to rename a page

Merging

There are several good reasons to merge a page:

• There are two or more pages on exactly the same subject.
• There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there doesn't 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.
• If a page is very short and cannot or should not be expanded terribly much, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic.
• If a short article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it.

Merging should always leave a redirect in place. Even if it seems rather pointless or obscure, leave it in place. Superfluous redirects don't harm anything, and are sometimes helpful. Other websites may have made links to the old page title, so we'll want to redirect incoming visitors to the merged page. We don't want people accidentally creating a new page under the old title, not knowing that the merged page exists. Redirects also show up in search results, helping people who might be looking under the "wrong" title to find the page that they are looking for.

You may find that some or all of the information to be merged is already in the destination page. That's fine; you can feel free to delete the redundant information and only add the new stuff. If there's no information to be added to the destination page, you can note in your edit summary on the source page (as you are turning it into a redirect) that there was nothing to be merged (or that the source page was entirely redundant with the destination).

How to merge pages

If you are uncertain of the merger's appropriateness, you should propose it on the affected pages. After sufficient time has elapsed to generate consensus or silence, you may perform the merger or request that someone else do so.

Proposing a merger

To propose a merger of two or more pages, place the tag {{merge|OTHER PAGE}} at the top of each page. It should appear like this:

If you know which page should remain, use {{mergefrom|SOURCE PAGE}} on that page (including one instance for each of the pages that should be merged into the destination page), and {{mergeto|DESTINATION PAGE}} on each of the pages that should be merged into and redirected to the destination page. Applying these templates relieves the merging editor from having to decide which way to merge, and causes both/all "Discuss" links to lead to the talk page of the destination page (instead of each page linking to its own talk page). These templates will appear as:

and

Caveats

• When proposing a merger of pages within "Wikipedia" namespace (any pages that begin with the "Wikipedia:" prefix), do not include this prefix in the parameter.

• Due to technical limitations, the above tags are incompatible with cross-namespace mergers (mergers between pages from both the article and Wikipedia namespaces). Such instances are rare, and should be handled via manual template substitution and editing.

• Do not use the above tags to propose a category merger. This should be requested at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, which uses a separate {{cfm}} template.

Performing the merger

This becomes much easier once you get the hang of it…

1. Open the source and destination pages in two separate windows.
2. Cut/paste the source page into the destination page.
3. Add "#REDIRECT [[PAGENAME]]" to the source page.
4. Preview and edit the destination page until it looks good and consistent.
5. Save both, and note the merger (including the page names) in the edit summaries.

If you're unable to merge the pages, or you believe that the merger may be controversial, you might want to add a listing to Wikipedia:Proposed mergers.

Alternative version

Simply dumping the text from one page onto another is progress, because it puts all of the information on the same topic on the same page. This, however, seldom results in a smooth-flowing article. Fixing that may require a great deal of time and rewriting. If you can do that, terrific! Future readers will greatly benefit from your contribution. If you don't have the time or expertise to do so, please tag the article for attention; select a template from Wikipedia:Cleanup resources, such as {{cleanup-date|December 2008}} (using the current month and year as the parameter).

Renaming / Moving

See policy related to article naming conventions and moving a page.

On Wikipedia, usually anyone can rename a page from its current name to a new one. This is also called "moving" because the effect is as if the page has been moved. A redirect is automatically created at its old name so that links still work. After a move to correct a spelling mistake, you may want to list the resultant redirect for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion. This, however, isn't necessary, and the redirect may be useful if the misspelling is a common one.

• Misspelled — The most common reason is that a page name is misspelled or incorrectly capitalized. Please fix any and all of these as you see them.
• NPOV — Terms used in a title express a bias or POV. NPOV policy requires that titles be given "neutral" titles — using the most general and objective terms.

Sometimes, you may feel that a page is wrongly named for another reason. For example, "Napoleon" is more properly known as "Napoleon I of France." However, this is a situation in which a redirect would be appropriate. Most people would not search for Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, but rather for Mme de Sevigne.

How to rename a page

1. Go to the page that you wish to rename.
2. Click the tab labeled "move."
3. Type the new desired title, add a reason, and click "Move page."
   • The old title will redirect to the new title.
   • The old edit history will be moved to the new title.
4. Check for redirects.
   • Double-redirects will fail to link, and must be renamed to redirect to the current page name.

• Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so destroys the edit history. (The GFDL requires acknowledgement of all contributors, and editors continue to hold copyright on their contributions unless they specifically give up this right. Hence it is required that edit histories be preserved for all major contributions until the normal copyright expires.) If you come across a cut-and-paste move that should be fixed by merging the page histories, please follow the instructions here to have an administrator repair it.

If you cannot rename a page, or you think that the renaming may be controversial, please go to Wikipedia:Requested moves and list it there.

The most common reason for failure is that there is already an article at the location to which you're trying to move the article. This is especially likely to happen if there is a history of moves from one name to another. This can be dealt with by an administrator after discussion at WP:RM.

If the destination does exist, but it only contains a redirect without any history, the move will still work — the designers of the wiki software recognised this as a special case in which no information will be lost if a move is performed.cs:Wikipedie:Slučování a přesun stránek sr:Википедија:Спајање и померање страна zh:Wikipedia:合并和转移页面