What is the actual merging mechanism?

Question

There is a lot of talk about merging sites, but I can't find anywhere any explanation of this process. I have read the FAQ, and as many of the questions on this topic as I can find, but nowhere can I find definitive answers to these questions.

• Does merging really exist?
• How do we trigger a merge?
• Who can trigger a merge? A Moderator, or does the community have to vote?
• What happens to all of the Followers, Commiters and Questions of the two merged proposals? Are they all combined, or are some of them lost?
• If two sites both have more than 50% of the required followers and definition questions, then does the merged site instantly go into commitment?
• If two sites both have more than 50% of the required committers etc, then does the merged site instantly go into beta?
• Is all of this in a FAQ somewhere? If not, why not?

Answer 1

The original design was for the Area 51 community to handle these issues through the mechanisms outlined here:

How will the Area 51 discussion proceed?

But Area 51 needs a bit more manual intervention as the process has started to outgrow its original audience. So, while we gear up to replace it with a next-generation Area 51, this is how we implement mergers and other change requests:

So how do change-requests happen?

Shortly after a proposal reaches 45% commitment, that is our cue to consider the specific details of the proposal before moving on towards launch. This is when we consider (and conclude) many of the on-going discussions about scope, naming, and consider if there are other proposals blocking it from going further.

It's actually pretty rare that we physically merge proposals. Thrusting proposal supporters into another proposal doesn't typically end well. We found it better to pick the best proposal with the strongest chance of adoption, and encourage others to support the one proposal to get it launched.

That sometimes means closing other proposals if they are blocking… and possibly expanding or altering the scope of the leading proposal to accommodate the key discussions and ideas raised by the group.

This is why it is really important to continue the discussions inside Area 51 throughout the process and try to reach an unambiguous and clear majority consensus before we have to make these preparations. If the consensus is not clear, we will raise the issues in a proposal discussion. Otherwise, we tend to break things and that makes everyone unhappy.