This is a WikiProject, an open group of editors dedicated to organizing an internal process on Wikipedia. New participants are welcome; feel free to talk to us!
Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving the merging process. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the merge process. If you would like to help, please join the project, inquire on the talk page, and see the to-do list below.
Milestones
Select "show" to see the reduction of the backlog over the years
As of
Listed articles
Earliest month with articles proposed for merging
Backlog (months)
2005-08-21
2,719
2006-04-07
7,827
2006-07-22
10,195
2007-11-01
12,520
2008-09-14
14,000
May 2007
16
2009-07-27
15,000
September 2007
18
2010-09-14
16,551
August 2007
37
2011-06-13
15,754
March 2008
39
2012-03-04
15,914
January 2009
38
2013-02-24
11,605
October 2009
41
2014-04-20
10,451
February 2011
39
2015-08-30
11,915
October 2011
47
2016-06-08
11,548
May 2012
49
2017-01-29
8,602
January 2014
37
2018-04-17
5,698
May 2016
23
2019-01-01
4,491
May 2017
20
2020-01-10
3,643
August 2018
18
2021-01-22
2,996
November 2019
15
2022-01-02
2,461
October 2020
16
2023-01-04
1,685
September 2021
14
2024-01-01
1,450
March 2023
10
2025-01-01
1,151
May 2024
8
2026-01-03
877
May 2025
8
Scope
The main project focus at this time is reducing the backlog of articles with consensus to merge, but its scope is much larger!
A merge 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.
Nominating articles for merging
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. You do not need anyone's 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. (However, if there is an open AfD discussion for the article—whether it is for merging or otherwise—wait for it to be closed before merging.)
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 should be boldly merged immediately, long and well-developed articles that concern controversial topics are often discussed first. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To avoid manually making some 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:
Copy all or some of the content from the source article and paste it in an appropriate location at the destination article. (If the merge is very large and will take you a long time to fully clean up, you can let other editors know by placing the {{In use}} notice atop the destination article.) 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 [[SOURCE ARTICLE]]; see its history for [[WP:CWW|attribution]].
Do any necessary rearranging and copy editing ideally in a second edit, to simplify attribution. In this edit, also remove any leftover templates from the destination article, like {{Being merged from}} or {{In use}}.
Finally, 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[[DESTINATION ARTICLE]]{{R cat|{{R from merge}}}}
or, if you merged the content to a section:
#REDIRECT[[DESTINATION ARTICLE#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 [[DESTINATION ARTICLE]].
And that's it! You've successfully merged two articles!
These additional steps are not necessary nor required:
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.
Tag the talk pages with the relevant notices for posterity.
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|SOURCE ARTICLE|October 2026}} atop the destination's talk page and {{Merged-to|DESTINATION ARTICLE|October 2026}} atop the source's talk page.
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|DESTINATION ARTICLE|October 2026}} atop the source's talk page.
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 these examples).
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:
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. 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). For most other namespaces, the counterpart to AfD is MfD, which does not accept merge nominations. You cannot formally propose merging a miscellaneous page into another page. However, a deletion discussion at that venue can yield "merge" as an alternative to deletion.
↑To collapse many similar merge banners into one, experienced users may alternatively place the {{Copied}} template atop one or both talk pages: {{Copied |merge=yes |from= |from_oldid= |to= |to_oldid= |to_diff= |date=October 2026}}
Participants
Please feel free to add yourself here, and indicate any areas of particular interest. Please post new entries at the end of the list.
Markvs88(talk·contribs) (I am going to start with all merges beginning with the letter "M"... for no particularly good reason!) 20:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Gsingh(talk·contribs) - I have begun merging articles starting from Feb 2009, will work on articles of any topic. Gsingh (talk) 04:28, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
BDD(talk·contribs) I like working on the full backlog rather than the AfD one, where there are many simple fixes, including stale tags and discussions just waiting to be closed.
GenQuest(talk·contribs) I have been working on mergers (through the PM noticeboard) since October 2012. I have been doing a bunch of the Afds also, since the backlog has grown to over 125. I try to do a copyedit on the finished product whenever my editing time allows. GenQuest"Talk to Me" 22:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Skr15081997(talk·contribs) I had done more than 50 mergers last year, and I am already a member of Mergist Association . Skr15081997 (talk) 17:16, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
Iamozy (talk) 02:29, 6 February 2014 (UTC) Interested in science, especially, biology, neurology, and medicine.
P199(talk·contribs) (Working on long-overdue dead or stale merges. Have been working on this sporadically for the last few years already...) 21:16, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Tsistunagiska(talk·contribs) If I offer both hands to help then it will keep me out of trouble. A concept my brothers will agree I need to do more often. So here I am. --ARoseWolf 17:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Joyous! | Talk 02:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC) I love chipping away at a backlog. I've settled in working on the articles whose AfD discussions concluded with a "merge" consensus.
Mooonswimmer(talk·contribs) I have tons of free time, a great portion of which I devote to Wikipedia. Tackling backlogs and doing tedious maintenance work sounds quite appealing to me!
Kautilyapundit(talk·contribs) As an impartial editor, I can assist in merging articles while following proper procedures.
Penultimatesupper(talk·contribs) I like working on articles focused on religion and history, as well as countries I'm interested in learning more about, but honestly anything. They're nice to do when I have 20 minutes free at work, and I'll mostly focus on the AfD merge backlog. 18:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Unknown Lifeform|Talk 09:24, 1 February 2025 (UTC) Excess articles just kinda annoy me.
Reechard(talk·contribs) I've got some merges under my belt, hoping to get better at complex merging
Inactive
Quasihuman(talk·contribs) (I plan on working on closing merge discussions and doing simple merges. Also interested in working out new ways of streamlining the system.) 23:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Pcamellon(talk·contribs) (I am interested in working on articles realted to technology, science music, computer science and electronics. Maybe other topics but these are my prefered ones.19:31, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
The merge report lists articles that require attention because they were nominated at Articles for deletion and the discussion was closed as "merge", but something went wrong afterwards.
All reports below are automatically generated by bots.
The nominated article was redirected to a different destination
The following table lists pages referred to by {{Afd-merge from}} are redirects to some page other than that mentioned in the template. Please correct the {{Afd-merge from}}, either by removing it (if the page was correctly merged to a target different than the one selected by the AfD closer), undoing the incorrect redirection (if it was out of process or against consensus), or pointing it to the correct page.
Editors should investigate these discussions (especially the older ones) in order to figure what went wrong. Most will be false positives. For example, the nominated article could be correctly tagged and the closer simply forgot to tag the destination as described in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion §Merge, or the {{Afd-merge from}} could need to be corrected or moved to another talk page because one of the articles was renamed during the discussion. Other times, however, both articles were intentionally removed from the backlog in an attempt to bypass consensus and keep them; in these cases, the merge tags need to be reinstated, the editors warned, and the articles watchlisted.
The table is updated daily and does not need to be edited; any edits made to the table will be removed by the SDZeroBot bot the following day. The query is from quarry:query/110096 and this database report was created based on a bot request.
This table is generated by querying the database replica and is periodically updated by a bot. Edits made within the table area will be removed on the next update!
∑ 32 items| Query runtime: 1.03 s| Last updated: 16:36, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
End of auto-generated report.
The nominated article was deleted
The following table lists deleted pages that were referred to by the {{Afd-merge from}} template as a result of an AfD discussion. The offending {{Afd-merge from}} has already been removed, but you should double-check whether the deletion was correct:
If the article was not merged (for example if the merging editor noticed the same content was already at the destination article), or the merged material was so little as not to be protected by copyright, then the row from the table should simply be removed.
Entries on this list will not be removed automatically, they need to be removed manually..
The backlog at Wikipedia:WikiProject Merge remains a tough nut to crack. One problem is that the WikiProject itself isn't setting a good example, as we have pages that themselves need to be merged. Merge-related discussions are ongoing at four venues:
At 20:34, 25 January 2003, three items are spun off into a new Some other articles that were duplicates and still need consolidation: section. It's unclear what this means, but it seems that some of these needed a history merge. ({{db-histmerge}}). Or an editor just dumped text from one article to the bottom of another article (diff), asking someone else to "please merge". As yet, it seems there is still no official guidance on how to merge.
At 15:15, 7 February 2003, Some other articles that were duplicates and still need consolidation was renamed Merged articles that need work. At the time the list had been emptied, so the items reported two weeks prior had been promptly tended to. An important insight was added: "The creation of duplicate articles, and the wasted effort this causes, can be avoided by creating lots of redirects." Also, when creating new articles, search for existing articles on the same subject.
At 05:30, 25 February 2003, a new item was added to the Merged articles that need work section. Plot and brief characterisation of Richard II was concatenated to (appended to the end of) Richard II (play), and needed "merging" or "to be edited". Three weeks passed before any copyediting of the appended content began. I just put template {{copied}} on the talk pages, but that template wasn't created until 6 July 2009.
At 02:28, 27 April 2003, an editor removes an item from the list and initiates a discussion about it on the talk page. At 03:02, 27 April 2003, the item returned to the list, with edit summary "there is a dispute about merging. Consult (one of the articles' talk page) about merging.; Agree?" The Duplicate articles talk page won't be edited again until August. There are 29 Articles to be Merged and four Merged articles that would benefit from further editing.
At 13:16, 14 August 2003, an editor puts the list in alphabetical order. The list has grown to 54 Articles to be Merged and 10 Merged articles that would benefit from further editing. At 06:29, 20 October 2003, an editor comments on the talk page, "Actually I liked the previous order, time-based order. What happened??"
At 12:05, 16 September 2003, the list was grouped into alphabetical sections. There are 64 items in the list.
At year-end 2003, there are 95 items on the list. Note that a few of them seem to be "merged articles that would benefit from further editing", but now rather than appended in a special section at the end, these are co-mingled with yet-to-be merged articles, e.g.,
Huldrych Zwingli (article includes two versions) – as of 7:49, 22 September 2003 (note the "Text to integrate from Schaff-Herzog Encyc of Religion" and, further down, "Text to integrate from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia")
2004: Birth of {{merge}}, and expansion of scope—it's not just for duplicates (content forks)
At 16:33, 3 March 2004, a talk-page suggestion to change policy: "... in the opening couple of paragraphs, I think we should distinguish another valid fix for duplicate pages: leaving the two pages as distinct, but rewriting the pages so they no longer duplicate information."
At 22:37, 25 June 2004, {{MergeDisputed}} became the second member of the merge template family. At 22:46, 25 June 2004, a new instruction is added: "If you disagree with a 'merge' indication then change the template from {{Merge}} to {{MergeDisputed}} and discuss it on this page until concensus is reached."
At 13:35, 5 August 2004, {{Mergefrom}} became the third member of the merge template family, and the second populating Category:Articles to be merged. At 13:43, 5 August 2004, the instructions were modified to include use of this new template. The template adds the hatnote: This article should include material from, which seems to leave the door open for copying (moving) a portion of the content while preserving both articles.
At 03:20, 16 August 2004, an editor refactored the talk page to group all procedure discussions to date into a single section.
At 17:41, 17 August 2004, an editor briefly adds the first parameter to {{merge}}, but quickly realizes this is incompatible with existing usage and opens discussion at template talk:Merge. At the time, there were 93 items on the list, and an unknown number of pages possibly transcluding one of the three merge templates, but not listed at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles.
In late August 2004, a discussion listing new candidates: Q: After inserting the merge tags in each article, do we need to add them to the list on the project page, or are they automagically added? In other words, how is the list updated? A: Articles need to be added to this page manually. Reply: Perhaps this should be noted in the "Mark current duplicates" section — Done17:39, 28 August 2004 Gosh, we have a bot for that. And the need for it was apparent back at the end of August '04.
At 11:00, 8 October 2004, the instructions were changed to say that those disagreeing with a merge indication could just remove it, rather than replace {{Merge}} with {{MergeDisputed}}, and pleaded with editors to "Consider using these tags sparingly, and use the discussion page to discuss how to merge articles where it's not obvious whether or how the article should be merged", after concerns were expressed on the talk page that merge tags were being overused. At the time, {{merge}} was just a simple hatnote saying This article should be merged with, and {{merge/doc}} did not exist—in fact, documentation for the {{merge}} template would not be created for another two years. So, while Wikipedia:Duplicate articles leads with "Below is a list of duplicate articles that have been created mostly by mistake. They have to be merged into a single piece of work", an editor had tagged Federal Assault Weapons Ban, a subsection of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, to merge with Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Comments were left on each talk page; paraphrasing: "It was suggested that these articles be merged. I deleted the merge tag from each article because I think the appropriate place to suggest merging articles is on the talk page, where the pros and cons can be discussed, rather than in the articles themselves. While some content is duplicated, it's not obvious to me whether or not the articles should be merged, and I take no strong view either way." As of 2014, Federal Assault Weapons Ban and Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act are still separate articles.
An early October 2004 talk page conversation: Q: How long does it take before a pair that gets mentioned on this article can actually be merged?? Feel free to include what it can depend on. A: It can be merged anytime. It only depends on who is willing to put the effort to merge the articles involved, and that can take time.
At 23:41, 4 December 2005, {{Merge-section}} is created: "The following section overlaps with other sections and should be merged with the rest of the article."
In January 2009, two similar but separate proposals to rename AfD to "Articles for discussion" were created two days apart. In both discussions, editor suggested renaming AfD to "Articles for discussion", initially to allow nominating articles that may need massive cleanup, that may need to be userified, that are to be merged or possibly transwikid, and [needing] other actions including deletion, and later to only emphasiz[e] outcomes and compromises other than deletion (e.g., merging, redirecting). While multiple alternatives were considered, including folding the Proposed mergers process into AfD, none of the proposals gained enough consensus.
In April of that same year, a third discussion was opened on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion, arguing that the option of merge [should] be introduced in an enforceable form. This proposal failed miserably: after two weeks, it was closed with 46 editors opposed the rename and just 5 supporters.
In December, a proposal at the village pump to allow moving disputed merges to "Articles for Discussion" had a diametrically opposite result, with 45 editors supporting the change and only a dozen opposing it. However, despite the strong consensus, technical difficulties and inertia resulted in the change never being implemented.
A different proposal in 2011 considered making the process more mechanical by forcing closing admins to "complete" the merge themselves by merely copy/pasting the content of the source article at the bottom of the target article and placing a {{Cleanup merge}} notice at the top. The onus to actually reorganize the resulting article would then fall onto that article's editors and not the editor performing the merge. This suggestion was discussed at length but never went anywhere.
In 2013, a discussion at the village pump overwhelmingly concluded the Proposed article mergers process and its associated templates to be inadequate, citing the need and found wide consensus that there should be a process for mergers that is similar to RM or AFD. A consequent discussion on implementation of an automated system similar to requested moves was archived after 2 months of inactivity. The latter discussion had 6 participants; no conclusion was reached.
In March 2026, consensus was found to merge the Proposed article mergers process into Articles for deletion, making it the only formal venue for proposing merges as well as deletions. In light of this, a new RfC to rename AfD took place shortly thereafter, to reflect the venue's expanded scope. There was no consensus found to rename the venue, as, per the closer's summary, [a] satisfactory substitute for the word 'deletion' hasn't yet been agreed.
Another article needs to be merged into this article. Old was nominated for merging. In Error: Please provide the subpage name of the AfD discussion. (Learn how), editors reached a consensus to merge its contents into this article. You can carry out the merge by following the merging instructions. Do not remove this notice after completing the merge. It will be updated by a bot.
This article is currently slated for merging into another article. This article was nominated for merging. In Error. Please provide the subpage name of the AfD discussion. (Learn how), editors reached a consensus to merge its contents into Other page. You can implement the decision by following the agreed resolution and the merging instructions. Do not remove this notice until the merge is carried out.
This article is currently slated for merging. Based on Error: Please provide the subpage name of the AfD discussion. (Learn how), there is consensus to merge Other page into this article. You can implement the decision by following the agreed resolution and the merging instructions. Do not remove this notice until the merge is carried out.
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