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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The previous merge proposal (first raised 11 years ago) only appears to have been closed due to complete lack of interest from the editors over 4 years. Since then, both remain stuck with a rather low number of views, and continue to overlap greatly. The only apparent difference (mirror vs. lens, reflection vs. refraction) can be comfortably described within a single article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:57, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both are space-based interventions that are currently completely theoretical.
Both appear to trace their roots to the same physicist named Hermann Oberth, and both articles talk about him at length, with effectively total overlap.
In both articles, the bulk of the text is devoted to potentially applying the article's subject for solar geoengineering purposes. This particular article does have a brief and uninformative "Spacecraft sunshades" section which is at odds with the rest of the article, and appears to belong somewhere in spacecraft thermal control. The other article talks about Znamya, but that is also solar geoengineering, just intended for a different purpose (and effectively a footnote of a different era anyway.)
In all, the only real differences are on a technical level and not on the intent level. The two articles are describing different ways of achieving the same goal (countering climate change) by doing mostly the same thing - launching a whole lot of objects into orbit/L1 point. While they are split, they are not doing that very effectively, as the more clicks people need to see information, the less likely they are to actually do it, and pageview stats back this up. A merge would only help more people see the contents. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"real differences are on a technical level"
Exactly! There are major differences in the design. It's like saying Staged Combustion and Pressure Fed are the same thing (same intent: to push fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber, but different means of achieving that goal).
Also, the # of page views is similar to some very important articles. Several of the articles I tend to check on get significantly less.
And, the intent is very different. Space Mirrors are designed solely for reducing sunlight hitting earth, while Space Sunshade is in regards to any object particularly spacecraft) Redacted II (talk) 14:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If the same title can conceivably cover things as different as a continent-sized lens and a person-sized heat shield, then all it shows is that the article has a poorly defined scope, which is all the more reason for merging some of its content and splitting away the rest.
And bringing up a low-quality article with three citations is...not a winning argument. Pressure-fed engine is almost exactly the kind of article we would want to see less of.
I didn't check Pressure-fed engine before mentioning it. But my point was that the proposed merge would be similar to merging Pressure-fed engine with Staged Combustion. Both are of similar intent, but have differences that require separate articles.
While the quality of the Space Sunshade article is poor, that isn't necessarily cause to merge it with a different article. Instead, try to improve this one first. Redacted II (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think this discussion was closed prematurely. It seems to me that 3 people were arguing for a merge, one person was arguing against it (I know it's not a vote). I think the articles should have been merged. In the meantime (until this discussion is perhaps rekindled again), which of the two would we see as the basis for a future merged (overarching) bigger and better one? I am asking because I am about to move some content that was recently deleted from solar radiation modification in this edit by User:TERSEYES to here. I think I'll move it to Space mirror (climate engineering) rather than to Space sunshade for now. But I strongly feel that the two articles should be merged, perhaps under a title of Space-based solar radiation modification. EMsmile (talk) 09:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Chidgk1 should not have closed the discussion so prematurely. He wasn't even an uninvolved editor. I think if anything, an uninvolved editor should have closed it. What speaks against restarting the discussion now, 1.5 years later? TERSEYES seems to also support a merge now. As far as I can see, you (Redacted II) are the only one opposed to it so far. Even if they are different things, they could easily be discussed in one article. Just like carbon offsets and credits are discussed in one article because two separate articles had too much overlap. - Alternative proposal: shrink down space sunshade so that it no longer overlaps with space mirror (climate engineering), i.e. remove (or shorten) that part that relates to solar radiation modification. EMsmile (talk) 21:35, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two different things (which you admit they are) should NEVER be discussed in the same article.
The discussion was dead for 1.5 years. No one was going to comment here. There was no consensus. It was closed. Trying to revive it because you didn't get consensus is WP:OTHERPARENT. It sucks, but you have to move on. Redacted II (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Sounds good to me. Let's also remove the overlap with space mirror (climate engineering). If they are such "different things" then there shouldn't be so much overlap with respect to solar radiation modification. Firstly, it would help a lot if this article had better main level headings and a better structure. How about a main level heading of "purposes"? This would also help clarify which is a parent article of what. Is this the parent article for space mirror (climate engineering) or vice versa? I can't get my head around it. Sorry if it's a dumb question. I am really just trying to help our readers to figure things out. EMsmile (talk) 11:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The big issue is that the article is rather low quality.
