Feature summary (what you would like to be able to do and where):

When a Wikidata item has citations to, for example, an academic article or news item made up of multiple statements, for example:

stated in: Brooklyn Eagle
publication date: 20 September 1915 Gregorian
page(s): 18

and the cited article is later the subject of a new Wikidata item, it should be possible to replace all citations to that work, on a given item, with a simple

stated in: Q4115189

for the new item.

It should be possible for a user to trigger the tool to do this on a single item or to supply a list of QIDs (maybe a query result) to change multiple items.

The tool should be able to cope with statements which should be preserved, such as quotations or specific page numbers within the work, not found in the new item.

Use case(s) (list the steps that you performed to discover that problem, and describe the actual underlying problem which you want to solve. Do not describe only a solution):

This diff:

https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q108309703&type=revision&diff=1519224286&oldid=1490690953

shows such an operation, performed manually. It required 20 edits comprising 80 individual mouse clicks.

Benefits (why should this be implemented?):

Reduced editor load/ increased editor efficiency. Reduced number of statements in Wikidata. Greater discoverability of cited works.