User talk:Philip J. Rayment/Article renaming project

Merges

Computer Program and Amino Acids were added to the list for merging/renaming, but I'm going to declare mergings to be outside of the scope of this project.

This project's reason for existence is to rename articles in accordance with the revised policy regarding the case of articles in the Manual of Style. I am also including a few article renamings for other causes, but only because it requires a sysop to do the renaming.

Merges do not require a sysop. They only require an editor to cut and past material from one article to another, and to edit the one cut from to be a redirect to the other. So there's no need for them to be part of this project.

Normally, the {{merge with}} and {{merge from}} templates should be used to propose an article merging to see if there is agreement or objection, but in cases where the two articles are on the same subject and their titles differ only by case or plurality, then I believe that an editor is justified in doing the merging without further consultation.

Obviously such articles should be merged to the one with the name conforming to the Manual of Style, but other considerations could be which is the oldest and, probably more importantly, which has the biggest history. If the one with the non-conforming title is thought to be the one to keep (because, for example, it has the biggest history), then it is possible (although tricky) to swap the names so that the one to be kept ends up with the conforming name. In such cases it requires a sysop so would be appropriate to include them in this project. In both examples above, the the preferred title is the older article and has the biggest, or equal-sized, history.

Philip J. Rayment 06:14, 22 December 2007 (EST)

P.S. Amino Acids was added for renaming, but as Amino acid already exists, it needs a merge, not a rename. Philip J. Rayment 06:25, 22 December 2007 (EST)