On 12/11/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
a) Maybe these articles should be merged? What do you think? b) I think these articles should be merged. If no one objects, I'm going to do it. c) We all think these articles should be merged. Does anyone have time to do it?
d) I don't see any reason for a merge but "merge and redirect" was the outcome of an AfD so I'd better chuck a {{merge}} template on it.
Articles listed for reason (d) are rather likely to stay in the backlog since they're on articles no one cares about which only narrowly survived deletion. Before those templates existed, people could [[WP:BB]] and redirect the page, but now it seems more common to use a template than to "fix" the problem. I don't know if this is a policy/guideline issue with people being obligated to add {{merge}} before doing so or just a cultural change where many editors no longer feel confident to "be bold in updating pages".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold_in_updating_pages says "If in doubt, fix it", not "If in doubt, chuck on a template."
Angela