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Wikivoyage talk:How to merge two pages

How to merge two articles
Swept in from pub:

I want to merge two articles. How is this done? I doubt that there will be any objection, as I am so far the only person to edit either, and having nearly completed them I see that they would be better as a single article. What is the procedure? I have looked for this information without success. Cheers, (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 07:52, 29 August 2009 (EDT)
 * There's no programmatic way to do it. Just copy text from the source article and paste it into the destination article, then redirect the source to the destination.  Make sure your edit summaries indicate that it's a merge and link to the other article involved (e.g., "Merging text from Foo" ).  (WT-en) LtPowers 11:14, 29 August 2009 (EDT)

Thanks, will do. Perhaps you would take a look after it is done to see if I have done all the required things. Cheers, (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 06:12, 31 August 2009 (EDT)

Along this same line: I'm new around here, and was going to check before I made such a drastic change. I grew up in Texarkana, TX, and went looking at the page for nostalgia's sake. The residents of Texarkana, TX and Texarkana, AR, pretty much consider the two cities as one, with two not-so-distinct sides. The wikis for the two cities at the moment are listed in two districts. Would combining the pages into one be acceptable, and would navigation be an issue for users navigating hierarchically from the main page down through the regions and states to the cities? (WT-en) heyuka 2101, 6 Sep 09 (PDT)

 * Welcome. If that is the division that would feel natural to the traveller, there is no problem with a destination article that straddles two regions.  There are a few like that already, see Albury-Wodonga, for an example.  We have redirects at our disposal should we need to simplify the process for someone navigating the regional hierarchy.  --(WT-en) inas 00:14, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

 * Thank you. That seems like a perfect example.

Merging to two articles
A normal merge tag allows for one target and states that the article content should be merged there and the page turned into a redirect. I just came across this case where the article content should be appropriately divided between two target articles and the page turned into a disambiguation page. Would it be worth changing the merge tag to have more than one possible target, automatically changing the text from "redirect" to "disambiguation" when more than one target is given? Texugo (talk) 12:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

More guidance
There are many skimpy, outline-level pages where merger & redirect seems the humane thing to do with them. The "how to" guidance could usefully be expanded, below is suggested text but I leave it to others to decide what if any to incorporate.

"If there is any stand-out attraction at source, update it first, as this is of immediate value to readers.

"Post your proposal to merge on the source and target Talk pages, and also any regional Talk. But hold substantive discussion on a single page (probably the target Talk since this will remain visible after redirection) with others simply a cross-reference: “It’s proposed that this page merge into Blogsville, see that city’s Talk page.”

"Wait at least five days for views. Don’t proceed against objections but these might be negotiable.

" There is no need to slavishly cut and paste the source material – a judgement is needed on what’s worth migrating. But if in doubt migrate, especially listings for See, Do, Eat and Sleep. Transport links can probably be briefly stated in the target “get around”.

"Some people delete the source as migration progresses; it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. In any case the migration should be completed fairly promptly to avoid leaving pages in limbo.

"Finally, ensure that all migrated material is reasonably up to date, and integrated into the target page." - Grahamsands (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Penultimate sentence above might instead read "Some people partially delete the source as migration progresses. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t, so long as once finished, you delete the rest of the target page: that's to leave no ambiguity about the page's status. In any case . . . " Grahamsands (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

 * Isn't the source always redirected, if there was something valuable in it, and deleted only in special cases? If the paragraph is about content, it might be better to say "remove content from the source as migration progresses" and "once finished, you change the source page into a redirect", to avoid confusion. --LPfi (talk) 20:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Requests for comment regarding two proposed mergers
I tagged two articles with merge, and they show up at Requests for comment, but as this happens without editing that page, I believe it does not show up on the Watchlist of interested parties, so here is your official notice. I believe that Talk:Quinta do Lago and Talk:Vilamoura should be merged and redirected to Loulé. Please discuss if you wish to do so. Thanks! Nelson Ricardo (talk) 03:42, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Continued discussion:

 * Perhaps one then should put Category:Articles to be merged on one's watchlist? I edited the page to tell about the possibility. –LPfi (talk) 17:49, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

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title: Wikivoyage talk:How to merge two pages