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I just did some merging that was bold. Possibly too bold. So I thought it would be wise to share it here and invite folks to roll me back if they think I went too far. I just merged ~20 articles about downloading YouTube videos to one canonical article on the topic. The ~20 articles I merged were almost all commercial topic type articles that gave basic instructions on how to use “brand x” to download a video. These articles all met the letter of the law in our commercial topic policy. That said, I think many of us here still viewed those articles as basically repetitive ads that offered very little value to our readers. So rather than hosting these ads that might be sending people to sites full of malware, I thought we could better serve readers by directing them to just one canonical article on this topic that we could all watch and better maintain: http://www.wikihow.com/Download-YouTube-Videos I’d also like to improve this canonical article in the future too. My contribution history shows what I’ve done: easy image link: http://glui.me/?i=z8jikul9rhwkhis/2014-07-20_at_5.18_PM.png/ live link: http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Contributions/JackHerrick I know this mega-merge is a bit outside of our commercial topic policy. But as @BR and others have been saying, there are areas of that policy that are failing us currently. Perhaps one way to consider how we can improve that policy is to start looking at bold actions to get rid of things that smell like spam first and figure out a policy that could define that sort of spam later. Anyway, if I’ve gone too far, please feel free to roll me back. Or voice alternate solutions here. Thanks!

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Humph…I would say it is better to be bold than let the spamlords have their way with us… I have been inclined to push the nfd/spam envelope with a lot of pages lately, but since they don’t show up on my contributions list, maybe I shouldn’t be confessing doing it? By the way, I noticed those going through RC, and think you deserve a thumbs up, not the finger of shame!

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+2 for consolidation of a really spammy topic into one that’s more neutral. It can be hard to draw the line between advertisement articles and ones that demonstrate how to use specific software.

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/me bows in awe of Jack… 20 articles!? Oh wow…having done 6 at a time, I know how difficult that can be.

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I really appreciate you doing this (especially considering the amount of articles). We have too many articles that say something like “How to Download XXXXX Using (insert service or product here)”. I like one simple article on a topic. Thanks again!:slight_smile:

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Oh good. Glad folks thought this was a good idea. Since I got a positive reception, I merged another 25 articles this morning.:slight_smile:The next batch was on moving companies, forex trading, real estate, SEO and other categories that get more than their share of commercial topics. As always, please feel free to check my work and revert anything I may have gone too far on: http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Contributions/JackHerrick

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Hey @JackHerrick , I was working on Double Redirects a little while ago, and when I just opened the page that they now went back to (Download YouTube Videos), I noticed a slight little problem with a few of the Relateds. Unfortunately, due to that page now being protected, there are several Relateds that were changed that now link to the same page. You’ll see if you try to open a few of them on the (Download YouTube Videos) page.

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Thanks for doing the merges, Jack! I see many of those commercial articles in NAB and get tired of them eventually. I agree - we need to condense them into one comprehensive article, so again, thanks!