I think the article at Cattle egret ought to be a disambiguation set index article rather than a fork of this content. I propose that Cattle egret be trimmed down to a set index with links to Western cattle egret and Eastern cattle egret. Shyamal (talk) 07:44, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I get a 97% overlap in the content, I am not sure merge is the right term. One day a spin off page may be needed, but this is not it. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 08:17, 7 March 2019 (UTC)).[reply]

Are the eastern and western different enough for their own pages, I note the Cattle egret is a featured page. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 09:06, 7 March 2019 (UTC)).[reply]

By eye, not really distinguishable but only based on geography in which the birds are seen. They are what are knows as phylogenetic species - those that have historically had a long separation leading to considerable difference in genetics. Cattle Egret is the older article and its history should be preserved in the move/merge along with the FA info. Shyamal (talk) 03:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Having one page for two species would be a little strange. However, I am not confident after a little time on google scholar, that the idea of B. coromandus as its own species has caught on (one day maybe). In the mean time this featured page (cattle egret) with two redirects will stop a great deal of confusion and repartition. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 05:12, 8 March 2019 (UTC)).[reply]

• Merge to cattle egret. Per Western cattle egret, it's the same species, Bubulcus ibis. Since cattle egret is a featured article, Western cattle egret should be merged there. Brandmeister^talk 19:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above statement is incorrect and the the reason for this forms the basis for our current situation. The two articles are no longer recognized as the same species. The formerly monotypic genus Bubulcus, which had a single species (Bubulcus ibis, known as cattle egret) has now been split into a genus of two species (Bubulcus ibis, now renamed to western cattle egret; and Bubulcus coromandus, a former subspecies known as the eastern cattle egret). Loopy30 (talk) 14:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to cattle egret as per Brandmeister. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 19:58, 7 March 2019 (UTC)).[reply]
• Keep separate. This is a indeed a content fork, but one that is following the state of current knowledge of the split species. In practice though, I do recognize that it can be very difficult to separate the information between the two "new" species when one has already been written from sources that pre-date the split. At least one and possibly both articles may have to be re-written or re-sourced to to remove any inaccuracies. This would be much easier for a stub than an FA though. In the mean time, these articles are still live unless they were to be both re-written in draft form and then simultaneously "released" as a replacement for the original single article. I note that Barn owl is another featured article that is in a similar situation with the split between the common and eastern barn owl species. Loopy30 (talk) 14:03, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Hi, Loopy30. The idea of two species does not seem to have been adopted by the scientific community. It is quite common for these things to be suggested then ignored, but Wikipedia should go with the scientific consensus. Our page implies the idea of a split has been gaining momentum since 2005, however, the vast majority of papers on Cattle egret’s in Asia and Australia still use “Bubulcus ibis” to this day. Almost all uses of “coromandus” are for the subspecies Bubulcus ibis coromandus. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 19:37, 8 March 2019 (UTC)).][reply]

Please note that the articles Eastern cattle egret and Western cattle egret will remain as splits. Cattle egret will now be a brief page noting that it was formerly considered one species and that they are now considered two species - with links to the two pages - ie a Wikipedia:Set index articles Shyamal (talk) 07:59, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Did I miss the conversation where Cattle egret couldn't stay as the genus page and the two species articles could exist separately? Sabine's Sunbird talk 08:10, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• That works for me. Fixes the logistical problems and allows the scientific ones to be explained. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 08:36, 9 March 2019 (UTC)).[reply]

That is certainly a good option. Shyamal (talk) 11:53, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I think Sabine's Sunbird's suggestion is a good option and it forced me to re-look at what was actually being discussed here:

Proposal recap

• Article was tagged with "Proposal to merge cattle egret into western cattle egret". In retrospect, this already happened in Apr 2017 when this page was created by copying material over from the cattle egret page.
• Talk page proposal here to "convert the cattle egret page (not this one) into a disambiguation page". The content of the cattle egret page was described as content fork of this one when it was actually the reverse.
• Talk page comments supporting "merge of this page (western cattle egret) into cattle egret", as the cattle egret article had the older page history, was a featured article, and that the split between the eastern and western species may not be significant enough to warrant separate articles. This was essentially the reverse of the original merge tag proposal.
• Additional confusion added (by myself and others) focusing on the distinction between the two species and whether separate pages were necessary.
• Clarification that the two species articles were proposed to remain in their current form and that the change proposed was to the cattle egret page (not this one), replacing its content with a SIA.
• Suggestion that the cattle egret article could become the genus article with links to the two species. As this discussion and proposal has a much greater impact on that article, perhaps this thread should be moved over to Talk:Cattle egret. I hope this summary helps with understanding, Loopy30 (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for missing this! Yes, I agree with the summary (I should say that I got to this because I wanted to update the articles based on some new papers and could not figure out where to do it, whether I need to make the same edits in multiple pages or not). I still think the edit history should go to the substantial article as also the original FA reviews. Shyamal (talk) 08:29, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]