Wikipedia talk:Splitting

Seeking quick advice: I'm seeking to split an article into two articles with two new titles and leave behind a DAB at the original title (per this proposal). Is there a recommended way of doing this with regards to preserving the old edit history? (E.g. instead of leaving the history behind at the DAB, should I move the current article to one of the new titles first and create the other article from scratch? Or is there a way to copy the edit history to both new titles?) Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 02:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

PS: I've gone ahead and followed my own suggestion above (see Talk:Anatolian Seljuk architecture), but if anyone sees this belatedly and thinks there was something wrong with this method, let me know. R Prazeres (talk) 20:47, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

As a documentation writer of long experience, I know a poor procedure from a good one, and the Splitting Procedure in the WP:Splitting page qualifies as the former.

• Some steps - for example, Step 1 and Steps 8-9 - are not steps but either conditions or options that should be set apart to shorten the main procedure.
• Most steps need to be rewritten/restructured. For example, Step 3 should begin "In a new browser window or tab, open the section or full article", followed by bullets for each action or by new short-and-to-the point steps.
• Step 5 is decent in having a short intro followed by a series of bulleted actions. An alternative, though, would be to move Cleanup to a subsection below the main procedure.

The general principle here is simplify-simplify-simplify, which leads to rules on wording and structure. For example, keep sentences and steps as short as possible. Place "locators" at the beginning of steps (as in the Step 3 recommended above). If a procedure becomes too lengthy, break it into a series of sub-tasks.

I'll gladly re-write the procedure at an admin's request and then post it in a sandbox for reviewing and further editing. Allreet (talk) 14:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, but please don't. This procedure may not follow the rules you're familiar with but it's very effective and easy to follow. In particular, the fact that it's all in one ordered section is a strength, not a weakness. If it were split into multiple sections, people wouldn't read them all. If you want to make incremental changes like rewording Step 3, sure, that's the way Wikipedia progresses, but a rewrite is not indicated. Dan Bloch (talk) 18:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Reason: I encountered a case where discussion was closed but split was not performed, leaving no indication at all on the article that a discussion had even taken place. It is understandable that a more complex split could require more time/effort/discussion, so I am not against such closure in principle; however it is important to reflect that the process is still ongoing, rather than completed.

Requested change: Append the following to Wikipedia:Splitting#Step 4: Close the discussion and determine the consensus. Do not put this in Step 5, because it is likely to be skipped by someone who only intends to close the discussion and proceed no further.

If there is a consensus to split, but you do not intend to immediately perform it, replace the notice of proposal under discussion at the top of the article with {{being split}} to notify users about the split.

A case could also be made for adding mentions to {{being split}} and {{cleanup split}} in steps 5/6 instead of assuming that the user is able/willing to complete the entire task when it can sometimes be non-trivial.

Thanks, 2406:3003:2007:1F3:5F2A:EBFA:FA8C:CFB4 (talk) 07:26, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! Done. --FaviFake (talk) 10:51, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

I think the Clean up section should mention the use of Template:Excerpt. If, as the guide currently says, you might summarise the content with a hatnote, in my experience people just stuff content in there regardless until you have the child emerging all over again in the parent. gilgongo (talk) 20:43, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

If you think additional guidance would solve that problem, the better place to start would be telling people not to just stuff content in there. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:47, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I suppose adding invisible comments might help, although it seems that people often don't even read the "main article" hatnote, so my point is that if somebody feels the need to add a nugget to a summary that should be in the parent, they will see it's an excerpt and go there instead (I hope). I spend a lot of time with {{Copied}} taking granular info from summaries (often updates that don't exist in the main article) and putting them where they belong. gilgongo (talk) 09:04, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Invisible comments may help a little, but from experience they do not prevent the issue. The most effective solution is a regular review of the high-level article shifting new content to lower levels. Excerpts present a variety of problems, such as those with the article on their watchlist not actually able to see changes to the article. CMD (talk) 11:41, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

If the change is made to the excerpted content, then they'll see that, won't they? And if you mean they'd want to check to see if those changes still made sense in the context of the excerpt, then I take your point, but that's why I ask about using excerpts in place of manually maintaining summaries. When a lead is excerpted from a main article, then by definition that should be a summary, and thereby can't disrupt the context in which it appears, no? gilgongo (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

To my understanding they will not see a change to excerpted content, because excerpted content is generated when the page loads. A lead being excerpted is generally a poor solution, as it will have an odd style for body text and often lack references. CMD (talk) 00:31, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Yep - see Template:Excerpt#Advantages_and_disadvantages. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:46, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree the style may be different, so I think you have a stronger point where the summary of the article is unlikely to be subject to change (an historical event for example). In that case, I can see sacrificing style for the sake of utility may not be the best solution. But otherwise, for a summary of a main (and hatnoted) article in the body of another article, it seems to me the advantages of excerpting given by @Nikkimaria are quite compelling (and both approaches can be taken of course. gilgongo (talk) 08:14, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § RfC: Merging merge discussions with AfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:27, 19 January 2026 (UTC)