Help:Merge

Merging page histories
In some circumstances, administrators need to merge page histories in order to ensure that all edits to an article are reflected in a page's history

For example, every non-minor article edit is credited to the Archivist who contributed it, available in the page history. However, if two articles contain the same or similar information that consensus requires be combined into one article, the only way for contributors to both articles to have their edits recorded in the new pages history is to merge the pages' histories.

Another example would be a "cut and paste" move, where Archivist B moves Archivist A's addition from Article X to Article Z using cut-and-paste. The page history of Article Z will not reflect that Archivist A made any contributions.

Procedure
Warning: this procedure may sometimes only be undone by a developer, spending quite silly amounts of time: to undo a merge, every single version has to be manually reassigned to the correct source page. Do not do this if you're not sure what you're doing.

Suppose we wish to merge the edit history from Federation History (old title) into History of the Federation (new title):
 * 1) Copy the text of History of the Federation into Federation History, merging the text appropriately if required. (This is to ensure the combined text will be on "top" after the articles are merged, as the move itself will be the most recent revision)
 * 2) Move Federation History to History of the Federation, using the move tool.  When it asks to delete the destination page, confirm.
 * 3) Restore the revision history of the History of the Federation article. This can be done by using the "view/restore" link in the deletion log.