User:Siege/How to merge pages

Sometimes, when two or more articles would be more appropriate if merged into a single article, this merge template will be placed in them. Perhaps their subjects are closely related; perhaps they're about the same subject, but each contains different information.

Well, how do you merge articles?

We don't have a button that does it automatically, and for good reason. Machines still aren't smart enough to know how to write a good article, much less take two articles and make one out of them. Instead, I'd suggest doing it yourself.

In order to see what you're doing, you could try loading the pages into different windows and moving them side by side for comparison while editing. Or you could copy the contents of the one page and paste into the other's edit window. Whatever works.

Once you've got things put together, then take relevant info from one article and put it into the other. Don't leave out any important details! The idea is not to lose information, but to add relevancy to both sets of information.

From there, you can do a bit of cleanup as well, to make sure that the new, more complete article reads smoothly. Sometimes you'll find that you still have duplicate or out of place info that needs some work.

Finally, clear the page you just merged your stuff from, and type  #REDIRECT other page  into its edit window. When everything is saved, one page will hold both sets of information and the other will be a redirect to it. -- Siege(talk) 02:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)