Help:Archiving a talk page: Difference between revisions

{{Redirect2|Help:Archive|Help:Archiving|help on archiving web pages|Help:Archiving a source|the template used to mark discussions as closed|Template:Archive top|Wikipedia's historical archive|Wikipedia:Historical archive|selfref=yes}}

{{redirect|WP:AATP|the project page with the [[WP:ATP]] shortcut|Wikipedia:Attack page}}

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{{Wikipedia how to|H:ARC|WP:ARCHIVE|WP:AATP}}

 

It is customary to periodically '''archive old discussions on a talk page''' when that page becomes too large. Bulky [[Help:Using talk pages|talk pages]] may be hard to navigate, contain obsolete discussion, or become a burden for users with slow Internet connections or computers. Notices are placed at the beginning of the talk page to inform all editors of an archive.

 

 

The [[Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#When to archive pages|talk page guidelines]] suggest archiving when the talk page exceeds 75 KB (or 75,000 bytes), or has multiple resolved or stale discussions. However, when to archive, and what may be the optimal length for a talk page, are subjective decisions that should be adapted to each case. For example, ongoing discussions and nearby sections they reference should generally be kept intact.

:<code><nowiki>Special:PrefixIndex/</nowiki>''Talk:Pagename''</code>

For example

 

== Manual archiving ==

# Delete copied material from main talk page with edit summary mentioning the name of the new archive.

# If an archive box doesn't already exist on the main talk page, add the line {{Tlx|Archives}} below the WikiProject tags and publish. (This will not be necessary if the main talk page already contains the line {{Tlx|Talk header}}, since this template automatically contains a list of archives if they are [[#Automated archiving|named in the standard way]].)

 

For a more detailed set of instructions, see [[/Manual archiving]].

 

=== {{anchor|Semi-automated cut and past procedure}}Semi-automated cut and paste procedure ===

 

=== Other manual procedures ===

 

== Automated archiving ==

{{shortcut|WP:AUTOARCHIVE}}

[[User:ClueBot III|ClueBot III]] and [[User:lowercase sigmabot III|lowercase sigmabot III]] can automatically create archives for any discussion page (one that has "talk" in the namespace), by moving sections to a subpage when the section has received no comments for a specified period of time. Both bots can archive sections into simple sequentially numbered archives (e.g. <code>YourPage/Archive&nbsp;1</code>, <code>YourPage/Archive&nbsp;2</code>, ...), or archive according to date (e.g. <code>YourPage/Archives/2013/June</code>, <code>YourPage/Archives/2013/July</code>, ...).

 

See the '''[[User:ClueBot III|ClueBot III page]]''' and the '''[[User:lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo|lowercase sigmabot III page]]''' for detailed instructions on setting up these bots. Those pages explain each of the parameters used, such as <code>archiveheader</code>, <code>minthreadsleft</code>, etc. The examples below are also available for use. All of the examples here are intended for you to be able to copy them while viewing this page and paste them into the edit box on your target page without ''requiring'' any modification to have a working configuration.

 

=== Choosing a bot ===

|-

! style=text-align:left; | Number of talk pages in use on

|-

! style=text-align:left; | Index of archives?

 

The following are example configurations to set up automatic archiving of an article talk page or user talk page. These configuration templates do not produce any visible output, so you should generally also include [[#For talk pages|a template]] such as {{tlx|Archives}} to provide readers with links to search and navigate the archives. These templates may also be configured with the parameters <code>bot</code> and <code>age</code> to include a message notifying readers that automatic archiving is taking place. For example: {{tlc|Archives|age{{=}}90|bot{{=}}[[User:ClueBot III#How to archive your page|ClueBot III]]}}.

 

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" | Sequentially numbered archives

|-

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| algo=old(90d)

| counter=1

| maxarchivesize=75K

| minthreadsleft=5

| minthreadstoarchive=2

| age=2160

| numberstart=1

| maxarchsize=75000

| minarchthreads=2

| format= %%i

|}

 

Both of the above examples will create archive pages, as needed, starting with <code>''TalkPage''/Archive&nbsp;1</code> and continuing with <code>''TalkPage''/Archive&nbsp;2</code>, etc., when the current archive page grows to more than 75,000 bytes. Only sections with dates that are older than 90 days (2,160 hours) will be archived, although the five sections with the most recent contributions will be retained on the talk page no matter how long ago the last contribution was added. If archives for the page already exist, then set the counter/numberstart parameter to the next archive number in the series.

 

 

{| class="wikitable"

|-

Note:Each time ClueBot III runs it places threads in a ''single'' archive which is the YYYY/Month of (NOW - age). If you are starting archiving with a backlog this will result in a ''single file'' with all of your old threads older than <code>age</code>. ClueBot III does not appear to run every single day. Thus, even when archiving has been running for a while, some threads may end up in an archive that is one month later than when they were last edited.<br />

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| algo=old(90d)

| minthreadsleft=4

| minthreadstoarchive=2

| age=2160

| minkeepthreads=4

| minarchthreads=2

| format=Y/F

|-

|}

 

{{clear}}

;Example 2

For a box with a manual archive list and a search bar {{tlp|Archives|''List of archives''}} can be used. For the box to the right the code is:

{{clear}}

;Example 3

{{Archives|auto=long|'''Archive box archives''':<br>[[Template talk:Archive box/Archive 1|Archive 1]], [[Template talk:Archive box/Archive 1|Archive 1]]|root=Template talk:Archives}}

For a box with both an automatic and manual list {{tlp|Archives|auto=long|''List of archives''}} can be used. The example below for [[Template talk:Archives]] where the archives for the old {{tl|archive box}} template are shown use the following code:

{{clear}}

;Example 4

}}

This template just demonstrate a lot of the parameters. Most of them are quite self explanatory. <br>

| auto = short

| search = no

| age = 1

| units = year

{{clear}}

 

{| border="0"

|-

| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{Archive box |search=yes |title=[[Help:Archiving a talk page|Archives]]<!--

--> ([[{{#titleparts:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|1}}/Archive index|index]]) |collapsible=yes |bot=ClueBot III |age=90

==== Archive link banner ====

 

 

<nowiki>{{Talk header}}</nowiki>

{{Talk header}}

 

 

== Archive indexing ==

Having an archive index makes finding old discussions on a given topic easier, particularly in pages with many archives, or when the archives are of considerable size. An archive index, when one exists, is typically stored on the page <code>Talk:YourPage/Archive index</code>. While it is possible to generate an index by hand, the <code>/Archive index</code> page is normally generated automatically. There are two bots which automatically create indexes: [[User:Legobot|Legobot]] and [[User:ClueBot III|ClueBot III]].

 

! Numbered archives !! Archives/Year/Month

|- valign="top" <!-- This is intended to be able to be copied while you are viewing the page, not while editing. -->

|target=/Archive index

|mask=/Archive <#>

|leading_zeros=0

|indexhere=yes

|target=/Archive index

|mask=/Archives/<year>/<month>

|indexhere=yes

|}

 

[[User:ClueBot III|ClueBot III]] automatically creates an archive index when archiving. ClueBot III stores the archive indexes it creates on unique pages in its user space. The archive index for the page you are archiving can be [[WP:TRANS|transcluded]] onto your <code>Talk:YourPage/Archive index</code> page by putting the following text in that page:<br />

 

== Archive searching ==

 

== Continuing discussions ==

 

== Example pages ==

 

== See also ==

*[[Help:Using talk pages]]

* [[Wikipedia:Closing discussions]]

* [[Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages]]

* Pages that need archiving

** [[:Category:Archive requests|Category Archive requests]] is populated by the {{Tl|Archiveme}} template.