Original User: marshburne
For what it's worth, I concur with, support your question, and have been searching the web for a solution. Like you, I have datasets with many variables and its tedious to set the correct merge rule for each one while at the same time trying to ensure that you do not make mistakes in setting the desired merge rule.
It would be great if there was a way to set many fields to the same merge rule, e.g. select multiple numeric fields to mean or standard deviation rule rather than having Spatial Join simply default to first. A dialogue box permitting multiple fields to be selected simultaneously and then setting a merge rule for all of them with a single click is preferable.
If anyone has suggestions on how best to resolve this question, I would be interested as well.
Ernie Marshburn
East Carolina University