Information:Splitting

If an article becomes too large, or a section of an article has a length that is out of proportion to the rest of the article, it may be appropriate for some or all of the article to be split into new articles. In some cases, refactoring an article into child or sister articles can allow subtopics to be discussed more fully elsewhere without dominating a general overview article to which they are non-central (but only if the new articles are themselves sufficiently notable to be included in the encyclopedia).

When to split

The two main reasons for splitting material out from an article are size and content relevance. If either the whole article, or the specific material within one section becomes too large, or if the material is seen to be inappropriate for the article due to being out of scope, then a split may be considered or proposed. Consideration must be given to size, notability and potential neutrality issues before proposing or carrying out a split.

Size split

Articles should be neither too big nor too small.

Large articles may have readability and technical issues. A page of about 10,000 words takes roughly 40 minutes to read at average speed, which is right on the limit of the average concentration span of 40 to 50 minutes. Also, some users may have technical limitations, such as a low speed service, an unstable connection, or a pay per megabyte service.

At 8,000 words and above it may benefit the reader to consider moving some sections to new articles and replace them with summaries. Consideration, however, needs to be given to the amount and quality of material to be moved. If the material for the new article is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of the subject, or would simply duplicate the summary that would be left behind, then it may be too soon to move it. Unsourced material shouldn't be used to create new articles as it may have notability or verifiability issues.

Below 8,000 words, an article may not need splitting based on size alone, and at 6,000 words and below a split would generally only be justified based on content issues.

Word count	What to do
> 15,000 words	Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed.
> 9,000 words	Probably should be divided or trimmed, although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material.
> 8,000 words	May need to be divided or trimmed; likelihood goes up with size.
< 6,000 words	Length alone does not justify division or trimming.
< 150 words	If an article or list has remained this size for over a couple of months, consider combining it with a related page. Alternatively, the article could be expanded; see BattleTechWiki:Stub.

These guidelines apply somewhat less to disambiguation pages and do not apply to redirects. They also apply less strongly to list articles, especially if splitting them would require breaking up a sortable table.

Too large after templates are expanded:

Main page: Help:Template § Template limits

Pages exceeding this limit are in Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded

After all templates and transclusions are accounted for, if the resulting "post-expanded include size" may reach a limit. Symptoms include templates lower in the page, such as {{reflist}} or navigation templates at the bottom of the page not displaying properly. One solution is to split the article.

Since "un-doing" a split may be labor-intensive if significant editing happens to either page after the split, try to avoid splitting until after a community discussion. If there is another way to reduce the "post-expanded size" that is easier to "undo" than a split, consider doing it first, then opening a discussion to see what the long-term fix should be.

Likewise, if a split would be controversial, try to find a less controversial way to temporarily reduce the "post-expanded size" then open a discussion to find consensus for a long-term fix.

However, if splitting the page is the easiest-to-undo solution and such a split would not be controversial, consider being bold and splitting the page, then immediately opening a discussion to see if the community accepts the split or if it offers alternative solutions. In this case, be prepared to undo the split.

Content split

Sometimes two or more distinct topics may share the same base title or similar titles, sometimes the distinct topics may be closely related

When two or more distinct topics with the same or a similar titles are being written about on the same page, even if they are closely related, a content split may be considered, and a disambiguation page created to point readers to the separate pages. Before proposing a split, consideration must be given both to notability of the offshoot topic and to potential neutrality issues. If one or more of the topics is not notable on its own, it may be more appropriate to simply remove the material from BattleTechWiki than to create a new article.

If unsure, start a discussion on the article's talk page using a template.

How to properly split an article

The following procedure can be used for splitting from a single source article to a new article. These instructions are provided for guidance, but some steps may not be necessary in all cases and these instructions may not cover every eventuality. It is advisable to read through the whole of this procedure before starting.

1. If the material you want for the new article is scattered around the source article, then prepare the source article by grouping the material to be split out into a single section. Save your changes with an edit summary like "preparing to split article". If the material you want for the new article is already in a single section, then skip this step.
2. Create the new article by opening the empty page (or redirect page).
3. Open the source article (or relevant section) to edit in another browser window (or tab) and copy the contents to be split out (from the section created in step #1) from the source article.
4. Paste into the new article with edit summary "Contents [[BTW:SPLIT]] from [[Source article name]]; please see its history for attribution." and save the new article.
5. Tidy up the new article:
   • The lead sentence will need to be changed to use bold font and usually includes a link to the source article.
   • A References section should be added and categories should be added. There may also be sections of a bibliography, navboxes, See also section or External links that can be copied from the source article.
   • Adjust section headings.
   • Add any background information about the parent subject that will be necessary for the reader to understand the subtopic.
   • Resolve any cite errors that occur when invocations of a named reference are separated from their definition – i.e. copy the relevant information from the source article.
6. Create a good summary of the subtopic at the parent article.
   • Add "{{Main|new article name}}" (use the order: image, main tag, text). If all the content of the section is being removed (e.g. in the case of a list) use the "See" template instead of the "Main" template. Use the edit summary "Material [[BTW:SPLIT]] to [[New article name]]" and save the edit.
   • Add a summary, usually of a couple of paragraphs and one image, of the newly created subtopic (unless complete removal is appropriate). Alternatively, with a strong lead paragraph in the new article, use an excerpt template to replace the section: {{Excerpt|Page title}}
   • There may be some external links, bibliography items, etc. that can be removed from the source article as they are now in the new article.
7. Check Special:WhatLinksHere to see whether some inlinks to the source article (especially any that were to the section that has been split off) can now be changed to point to the new article.
8. (If possible) Connect the new article to any corresponding articles on the wiki.

Templates

Main page: BattleTechWiki:Template index/Splitting

There are a number of templates that can be used on articles and their talk pages as part of splitting articles.

Articles nominated for splitting

A list of articles that have been tagged for consideration for splitting are at Category:Articles to be split.

See also

• Information:Writing better articles
• Information:Merging
• Guideline:Content forks – there are acceptable and unacceptable content forks. Know the difference.