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Archive of "Votes for merge proposal"

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Votes for merge proposition withdrawn. Please do not add any more comments. This is only an archive. Thank you. Optim 02:10, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Archive 1.1 Welcome to VfM Comments Page 1.2 Village Pump 1.2.1 Tim Starling: you want to advertise your proposal on the pump, and move the copious criticism out of view? I don't think so 1.2.1.1 Optim: It's not moving criticism, it's organisation 1.3 Why do we need this page? (Jiang says not useful) 1.3.1 Pcb21: Vfm not useful 1.3.2 MrJones: Vfm not useful 1.3.3 M1shawhan: VfM IS useful 1.3.4 Optim: VfM may help to lower the edit conflicts at VfD 1.3.4.1 Jiang: The decision to merge arises out of discussion at VfD 1.3.5 Optim: VfM good, fits easily in current del system 1.4 Hemanshu: Propose merges at VfD 1.4.1 Jiang replies: avoid it, VfD is overburdened 1.5 PaulA: isn't the same as Duplicate articles? 1.5.1 Optim: No 1.6 Onebyone: List merges at Cleanup, no need to vote, just do it 1.7 TimStarling says: "no need to vote, merge boldly" 1.7.1 Optim responds: Too anarchistic 1.7.1.1 Onebyone: Wikipedia is inherently anarchistic by design 1.8 Tannin: good but not practical 1.9 Angela, Martin: No need 1.10 ??

Archive

Welcome to VfM Comments Page

Place your comments here, regarding User:Optim/Wikipedia:Votes for merge. Use headings and horizontal lines. Please sign. Optim 06:34, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Village Pump

From Wikipedia:Village pump:

• Some people vote pages to delete, when a merge is the solution. If there was a Votes for merge page, we could avoid unnecessary VfD entries. VfD also tends to be very big and people with slow connections have a hard time downloading all the entries. A VfM (votes for merge) may help to keep VfD clean from unrelated entries. Please have a look at User:Optim/Wikipedia:Votes for merge and tell me your opinion on User talk:Optim/Wikipedia:Votes for merge (not here). Optim 06:40, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Tim Starling: you want to advertise your proposal on the pump, and move the copious criticism out of view? I don't think so

(note by Optim: moved from Village Pump by User:Tim Starling: "you want to advertise your proposal on the pump, and move the copious criticism out of view? I don't think so", [1])

Optim: It's not moving criticism, it's organisation

It's not moving criticism, it's organisation and effort not to overload the Pump with much discussion. If somebody wants this discussion on the pump, feel free to paste it there. Also, you see I do some semi-automatic summarisation using the headers here (so the table of contents becomes a quick summary semi-automatically), how could I do this without a centralised discussion board? :) Optim 23:55, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Why do we need this page? (Jiang says not useful)

Why is it necessary for the whole community to discuss this? All that is needed is that a proposal be put on both relevant talk pages, and when a consensus is established, the merge is done. I would think most vfd listings are done w/o prior knowledge that a merge would be needed. --Jiang 07:16, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Pcb21: Vfm not useful

Heartily agree with this. I don't see yet the use for another global page. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:14, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

MrJones: Vfm not useful

I agree also. I will suggest merges on the appropriate talk pages in future. Whether those discussions leads to redirects or expansion of the articles, it's all to the good. I think deletions are valid on occasion to reduce cluttering of search results, though this might be better dealt with as a technical issue. Links on meta, anyone?

One point, though. I think it's worth mentioning merging at the beginning of the VfD page either as a link, or a sentence such as

It may be worth considering merging smaller articles that cannot be easily or usefully expanded into larger ones and adding redirects.

Mr. Jones 10:29, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

M1shawhan: VfM IS useful

I for one seem to think that a page like this makes complete sense. Why would you put "merge" items on a VfD page? Why not just instead make keep a VfM page (like this one) and make it simple on us all. M1shawhan 10:39, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

Optim: VfM may help to lower the edit conflicts at VfD

We already have too many edit conflicts in VfD. A VfM page will also help to lower the edit conflicts, a bit. Optim 10:53, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Jiang: The decision to merge arises out of discussion at VfD

As I state again, people dont list things on vfd with the intention to merge. The decision to merge arises out of further discussion and reluctance to delete. --Jiang 21:00, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Optim: VfM good, fits easily in current del system

Currently all deletion pages are centralised. Why do we need Wikipedia:Lists for deletion? we could discuss the list deletion on the talk pages. But for some reason the system is centralised. I propose to have a VfM page because it fits easily in our current policy. We will just add a link in VfD pointing to Wikipedia:Votes for merge. No need for other changes. If in the future we decide to decentralise our deletion system, the VfM could be serve just as an index for all relevant discussions at the talk pages. Optim 10:57, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hemanshu: Propose merges at VfD

A merge can be proposed on the VfD page. - Hemanshu 07:39, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Jiang replies: avoid it, VfD is overburdened

The point of this is to avoid that, since vfd is overburdened. --Jiang

PaulA: isn't the same as Duplicate articles?

Isn't that what Wikipedia:Duplicate articles is for? —Paul A 07:38, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Optim: No

Certainly no. Julie Scott and AMORC are not duplicate articles, but somebody may vote to merge them. Optim 07:45, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Onebyone: List merges at Cleanup, no need to vote, just do it

I don't think proposed merges need to be voted on. Just do it, and if anyone doesn't like it, they can undo it. If you can't do it (e.g. because you don't know enough on the subject), list it on Wikipedia:Cleanup for someone else to do. Onebyone 11:33, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

TimStarling says: "no need to vote, merge boldly"

We don't need a votes for merge, you just do it boldly like you do any edit. -- Tim Starling 13:46, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

Optim responds: Too anarchistic

Too anarchistic and may end up with edit wars. I may want to merge Education in Greece with Greece, or George W. Bush with USA (I don't, of course). If I do it, ppl will shout at me, probably:) My point is to increase and enhance the organisation and collective decision making. Optim 14:15, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Onebyone: Wikipedia is inherently anarchistic by design

Wikipedia is inherently anarchistic by design. Users are only banned for truly heinous actions, and are not in general bound by the results of votes. As I see it, the reason for Votes for Deletion is that only a small group of users are capable of deleting files, seeing deleted files, and reverting deletes. There are a thousand things a regular user could do that would cause people to shout at them, or spark an edit war, and all of them are currently solved by reverting or talk page discussions.

As far as a Wikipedia consensus is concerned, a vote is no more inherently a collective decision than any other route which leads to a stable article. Edit wars happen for reasons, usually because two strongly conflicting views exist. In such situations, enforcing a majority opinion is not the same thing as reaching a consensus (although in some cases a vote helps), which is why "votes to resolve edit wars" would never work.

In this case, I don't think additional layers of bureaucracy would help more than they hinder. As a discussion of possibilities, which people can ignore if they choose, fine. But if I ever see "article merge reverted - this hasn't been cleared by Votes for Merge" I will not be impressed. Onebyone 16:00, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Tannin: good but not practical

A good idea, Optim, but not practical, IMO. The thing is, with a consensus on VFD, someone can come along, see the consensus, and simply delete away. Takes maybe 30 seconds. But with a consensus to merge, it might take an hour or more of solid work to perform the merge. Merging articles can be seriously hard work! Your best bet, I think, is to either simply merge away (if you are confident that people will approve) or else post a notice of intent on the talk pages and see what people think. Tannin

Angela, Martin: No need

There's no need for a vote. It adds bureaucracy and makes things much more complicated than they need to be. We need to vote on deletion because it is not reversible by non-sysops but a merge can be undone by anyone, the same as any other edit. If you find yourself in an edit war over it, then you can discuss that on the talk page. Be bold! If you think it will be contentious, then discuss it first, but I see no need for that discussion to occur on a centralised VfM page. Angela. 17:29, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Angela. Merge if you wanna merge. The decentralised nature of most of Wikipedia helps us operate without being drowned in heirarchy, so we only step away from that model where we must. This proposal also duplicates wikipedia:duplicate articles Martin 23:30, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 ??

What's with all the subheadings? They're very annoying. Wanting the read all the comments on this page, I am forced to read things twice. --Jiang 00:05, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's summarisation. Can you suggest some alternatives? Optim 00:16, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There's no need to summarize single sentence responses with an extra subheading. I recommend keep the summarization to h2. --Jiang

It helps me to jump quickly at the response I want to see, without having to scroll down. Optim 00:19, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

But dont you have to scroll down to insert the header in the first place? --Jiang

Is there any way to make the headers visible only to me? Optim 00:43, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)