[WikiEN-l] How to clear a backlog

[Steve Bennett]

On 12/11/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:

> ... anyway, it might not even involve actually performing the merge. A lot
> of old merge requests are merges that have not gained consensus and should
> just be removed. Also, since a merge request typically entails two merge
> templates, it's likely we have "only" somewhere on the order of 6000~7000
> actual requests. So if 100 Wikipedians, every day for a few months:

It's a problem that the same template (merge, mergefrom, mergeto,
mergewith...) is used to mean:

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?

Maybe explicit "merge-todo" templates would be useful, to indicate
that the work should be done, by anyone who feels up to it. Or
alternatively, using "merge-proposal" templates to indicate that a
discussion needs to be had.

IMHO, a big merge backlog is not necessarily a huge problem. At least
contributors will be aware of the existence of the other article and
will hopefully not be adding duplicate information, even if they have
to fairly arbitrarily decide which article to contribute to.

Steve