Talk:Riot in Cell Block Number 9

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Merge with "Student Demonstration Time"?

Sometime in June 2013, someone suggested that the Wikipedia page for "Student Demonstration Time," by the Beach Boys, be merged into the page for "Riot in Cell Block Number 9." No one appears to have discussed this proposal before now, but I recommend against it.

Reviewing Wikipedia's guidelines for when pages should be merged or not, this looks pretty clearly like a case where merging should be avoided. The two songs have different subjects and lyrics (one is about a prison riot, and one is about demonstrations by students on university campuses), and different composition, performance and recording histories, and the discussions of each song still could not be merged or consolidated in any way, even if those discussions were placed on the same page. Since the two songs represent separate but related topics, their respective articles should remain separate but cross-linked, just as described in item #2 under "Merging should be avoided if" in the first section of the merger guidelines.

Besides, if the two pages were merged, a redirect stub would still have to be left for "Student Demonstration Time." Since nothing is gained by merging the two articles while leaving the redirect stub, we might as well just leave the two articles as they are -- separate, but cross-linked.

The case for merging (if there is one) rests solely on the fact that the two songs have the same music; "Student Demonstration Time" is just "Riot in Cell Block Number 9" with new lyrics. But if that were sufficient, we would also have to merge the page for "Love Me Tender" into that for "Aura Lea," and that for "Surfin' U.S.A." into that for "Sweet Little Sixteen" (to cite but two examples). No one has suggested any of these other mergers, and I see no reason why the situation as between "Student Demonstration Time" and "Riot in Cell Block Number 9" is any different. Though they clearly are related, and they certainly should be cross-linked (as they already are), they should remain separate pages.

76.104.30.160 (talk) 13:15, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]