Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion
 | This Wikipedia page has been superseded by Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers and is retained primarily for historical reference. |
 | This is a failed proposal. Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use the talk page or initiate a thread at the village pump. It was marked as a failed proposal after discussion at Wikipedia talk:Mergers for discussion § Proposal: Mark as failed. |
Mergers for discussion (MRfD) was where Wikipedians discussed whether an article or collection of articles should be merged. Articles listed here were debated for at least seven days, after which the results were concluded proceeds based on Wikipedia community consensus. The pages were either kept, merged and/or redirected, or taken to AFD.
Prior to nominating an article for discussion, the proposed merger should be discussed on the appropriate talk pages, with the appropriate templates on the top of the article. For most two article mergers, this will be {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}}. If talk page discussion does not yield an editor consensus, then it may be brought to MRfD for wider input from the community. This process was not a necessary condition for mergers, nor was it a substitute for talk page consensus or bold mergers.
This page explains what you should consider before nominating, the steps for nominating single or multiple pages, and how to discuss an MRfD. It also links to the list of articles currently under consideration. When adding a new discussion, please add it at the top of the page.
Is this the right place?
editIf you want to nominate an article, please familiarize yourself with the Wikipedia deletion policy and guide to deletion to help determine if this is the correct process. If the article in question meets the criteria for stand-alone existence, then they will be kept. If they should be merged, then please see Help:Merging and moving pages to determine the correct course of action.
This process also is not a replacement for adding a {{merge}} template. The template should be used if a merge is being discussed on the article's talk page, or if a merge appears uncontroversial but you are unable to perform it. Mergers should always be discussed first on the article talk page, and if there is no response (or just no consensus) after a week or two, it can be listed here for more community input and better visibility.
Creating a discussion
editNew discussions can be created by adding the {{MRfD}} template to one of the articles to be discussed. Clicking the red "this article's entry" link will create a discussion page in the format of Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion/PAGENAME. Please use the same formating and section dividers as in previous discussions.
Once the discussion page has been created, add a template link to it on this page in the appropriate month category. Then add the template to any other articles in the proposed merge, and specify the discussion ___location with the |page parameter.
Common options in discussions
edit- Merge: The article should be merged per guidance on this page (to come) and Help:Merging and moving pages.
- Redirect: Generally, choosing a more specific option is better than "Redirect". Mergers will redirect the page to another article, with content merged as well. Use this option if you think that a merger is not appropriate at this time, but the content should be available for future mergers.
- Keep: Keep page as a separate article, without merging.
- Delete: Article should be deleted without redirection or merging. If there appears to be a consensus to delete here, the article will be taken to the more appropriate venue for further deletion discussion from a wider range of users.