Wikipedia:Merging

This is an information page. It is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts H:MH:M WP:MERGEWP:MERGE

A merge or merger is the process of uniting two or more articles into a single article. It is done by copying some or all content from the source article(s) into the destination article and then replacing the source article with a redirect to the destination article.

Any editor can perform a merge. If merging is obviously needed and is not controversial, editors are encouraged to be bold and simply do it themselves by following the merging instructions below. You do not need permission or prior discussion to proceed, especially if the merge satisfies one or more of the reasons to merge articles. While bold merges may be reverted entirely, the process and the discussion after the revert often result in better articles.

If you have reason to believe that merging an article is controversial, nominate it for merging at AfD. If you want to nominate more than one article for merging into one or more destination articles, you can do so in the same nomination! The main reason that the merge backlog includes hundreds of articles is because the people who support the merge neglect to undertake this final step. Any editor, including the editor who originally proposed the merge, is permitted to perform a merge in accordance with consensus, as merging articles does not require intervention from an administrator.

While young or short articles and stubs that only differ in wording can be boldly merged immediately, longer articles that have been separate for a long time are usually discussed first, especially if they concern controversial topics. If you want to first gauge whether there is opposition to a potential merge or want to hear other editors' opinions before nominating the article, you can seek input through standard consensus-building venues, such as the destination article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion.

There are several good reasons to merge articles:

1. Shortcut

   • WP:DUPWP:DUP
   Duplicate: There are two or more articles on the same subject and with the same scope, also known as redundant content forks. If the content fork was unjustified, the article created more recently should be merged into the older one. If a duplicate article was created recently, it may also be a candidate for A10 speedy deletion.
2. Shortcut

   • WP:OVERLAPWP:OVERLAP
   Overlap: There are two or more articles on related subjects that have a large overlap and might be redundant. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept. For example, "flammable" and "non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on flammability.
3. Shortcut

   • WP:MERGESHORTWP:MERGESHORT
   Short text: If an article is short and, in your opinion as editor, is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it into the article on the broader topic.
4. Shortcut

   • WP:MERGECONWP:MERGECON
   Context: Some topics that are independently notable are best covered in the same article in order to better serve reader understanding. For example, if a short article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it, it should be merged into the broader article.
5. Shortcut

   • WP:MERGENOTWP:MERGENOT
   Insufficient notability: Articles about non-notable topics can have content which if added to another article would make that article better. For example, parents or children of a celebrity who themselves are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity.

Merging should be avoided if:

1. The resulting article would be too long or "clunky";
2. The separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross-linked) articles.

To avoid manually making many repetitive and time-consuming edits, it is recommended to install the easy-merge script before proceeding; the instructions below will also explain when and how to use it. When performing a merge, remember to attribute copied content as required by copyright; at minimum, this means including a wikilink to the source article in your edit summaries, as described below. To merge two articles, follow these steps:

1. Copy all or some of the content from the source article and paste it in an appropriate location at the destination article. (If you think the merge is especially complex and will take you a long time to fully clean up, you can let other editors know by placing {{In use}} or {{Inuse-section}} atop the destination article or section.) Then, immediately publish your edit, even if it duplicates some parts or it looks messy. In your edit summary, include a link to the source article and to the AfD discussion (unless this is a bold merge):

   [[H:M|Merged content]] from [[SOURCEPAGE]]; see its history for [[WP:CWW|attribution]].
   
2. Do any necessary rearranging and copy editing ideally in a second edit, to simplify attribution. In this edit, also remove any leftover {{Merge}}, {{Being merged}}, or {{In use}} templates from the destination article.
3. Blank the source article whose content was just merged and replace it with a redirect
   • To do this more quickly, install the easy-merge script and reload the source article. Then, click the "easy-merge" link in the "Tools" section of your sidebar, enter the name of the destination article or section, and keep this option enabled:
     Redirect this page to the target page
     If you want to enable other options, read the optional step 5 below before clicking Submit.
   • To do it manually instead, replace everything in the source article with:

     #REDIRECT [[DESTINATIONPAGE]]
     
     {{R cat|
     {{R from merge}}
     }}
     

     or, if you merged the content to a section:

     #REDIRECT [[DESTINATIONPAGE#SECTION NAME]]
     
     {{R cat|
     {{R from merge}}
     {{R to section}}
     }}
     

     Then publish your changes using an edit summary such as: [[H:M|Merged content]] to [[DESTINATIONPAGE]].

And that's it! You've successfully merged two articles!

4. If the source article has a talk page, reconcile the talk page banners. Move any previously added {{Merged-from}} and {{Copied}} templates to the destination's talk page and copy the various {{WikiProject}} templates to the destination. If the merge was discussed at AfD but you are merging it to a different destination than the one selected by the closer, remove the {{Afd-merge from}} template from the talk page of the destination selected by the closer.
5. Tag the talk pages with the relevant notices for posterity.
   1. If the merge was not discussed at Articles for deletion (for example if it's a bold merge or if it was discussed elsewhere) you can optionally note that the merge has taken place by adding a tag to the articles' talk pages:
      • This action is performed automatically when using the easy-merge script; simply enable these two options and click Submit:
        Add {{merged-from}} to talk page of target page

        Add {{merged-to}} to talk page of this page
      • To do it manually, place {{Merged-from|SOURCEPAGE|August 2026}} atop the destination's talk page and {{Merged-to|DESTINATIONPAGE|August 2026}} atop the source's talk page.^[a]
   2. However, if the merge was discussed at AfD and the {{Afd-merge from}} template is already on the destination's talk page, do not add another banner to the destination's talk page. However, you can optionally add a tag to the source article's talk page:
      • If you are using the easy-merge script, simply keep this option disabled:
        Add {{merged-from}} to talk page of target page
        You can optionally enable the other one, and then click Submit.
      • To do it manually, place {{Merged-to|DESTINATIONPAGE|August 2026}} atop the source's talk page.
6. Check whether you have moved any non-free files to the destination article. In the rare cases where there are any, the article mentioned in the rationale should be updated to the destination article's per the non-free content criteria. You can recognise non-free files from their file descriptions, as they have a red copyright icon and a non-free use rationale (a summary box with Non-free use rationale in the title, or a Fair use section: see examples).
7. Fix any double redirects found at Special:WhatLinksHere. A bot does this automatically, but it may take a day or two.

If you've performed these optional steps, there's nothing else you can possibly do, besides improving the article further or merging another article!

When the merge is a result of a formal discussion at Articles for deletion, editors should not add a new banner to the destination's talk page or change the existing one (see the optional step 5b above). These notices are usually added automatically by the closer and are updated automatically by AnomieBOT several hours after the merge is complete (example diff). These templates inform users involved in those pages that content is to be merged as a result of an AfD discussion. Note that it is any editors' job, not necessarily the closing editors' job, to perform the merge. If these templates have been changed, removed, or if they are not already on the talk pages, you can optionally place this atop the source article's talk page:

{{Afd-merge to |DESTINATIONPAGE |discuss=AFDDISCUSSION |date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} }}

Similarly, you can place this template atop the destination's talk page:

{{Afd-merge from |SOURCEPAGE |discuss=AFDDISCUSSION |date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} }}

Pages in certain other namespaces can also be merged, usually also on a bold basis, but merging on a consensus basis relies on different venues. For most non-article namespaces, the counterpart to AfD is MfD; unlike the former, it does not accept merge nominations, though a deletion discussion can yield "merge" as an alternative to deletion. Templates can be explicitly nominated for merging at TfD. The CfD process governs category merges; these fall entirely outside the scope of this page because "merging" categories is not merging in the usual sense (and is not done boldly either).

• Category:Articles proposed for merging lists articles that have been nominated for merging but haven't reached consensus
• Category:Articles with consensus to merge and Category:Articles with consensus to merge following AfD discussion list articles with AfD discussions closed with consensus to merge
• Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers, previous process for proposing a merge
• WikiProject Merge, used to coordinate the clearing of the merge backlog
• m:Association of Mergist Wikipedians
• m:Implicit merger
• m:Mergism

Jump to a random article with consensus to merge!

   Merge a random article!

• Wikipedia:Splitting
• Wikipedia:Moving a page
• Wikipedia:Section move
• Wikipedia:Content forks, on duplicated content in acceptable and unacceptable cases
• Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia, more details on copyright issues
• Wikipedia:Merge and delete, on deleting the source article instead of redirecting
• Wikipedia:History merging, if they have not been edited in parallel, some merged articles may also be history merged
• Wikipedia:Articles for merging, a failed proposal for a different discussion process