Help talk:Archiving a talk page/Archive 4

Increased transparency of copy-paste archives -- possible solution
Have a look at User:Thinboy00/archive template. Feedback of any kind is appreciated. -- Thin boy  00  @076, i.e. 00:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems a lot more complicated than this solution above? – xeno  ( talk ) 00:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of that solution's existence at the time... I'll probably have mine deleted soon, although the help page could be adapted for that one. -- Thin  boy  00  @172, i.e. 03:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Template rework
This is just a heads-up for any template programmers that are interested in archive boxes.

I am planning to rework some of the archive templates. I don't intend to change any of their looks, I am just going to fix several bugs and do other code improvements. Here's why, and where anyone interested can read more:

Several of the archive templates do not work properly in the namespaces "Category talk" and "Help talk". That is due to that the MediaWiki subpage feature is not enabled in those namespaces.

talkarchivenav and several other archive templates can only count to a limited number of archive pages, such as 40-50 or so. And several of them don't count automatically, but need to be fed parameters manually. But some talk pages now have more than 100 archive pages, and WP:ANI now has 531 archive pages!

So I am currently building, improving and debugging a set of meta-templates that will make archive templates work correctly also when on "Category talk" and "Help talk" pages, and that will help us handle up to 999 archive pages. That might seem like a lot, but it wasn't harder than counting to 200.

Here's some background and discussions about this:
 * archive number – Returns the number of the archive page it is on. Can currently count up to 300, I intend to change that to 999.
 * number of archives and Template talk:Number of archives – Finds out how many archives a page has. Can count up to 999 archives.
 * Template talk:Archive-nav – About the subpage problem.
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 59 – More about the subpage problem.
 * pgn and Template talk:Pgn – My solution to the subpage problem.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a very worthwhile project - the more that related templates can be standardised the better. – ukexpat (talk) 14:47, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

HELP
I still don't get how you archive i need help archiving my talk page sections Parker1297 (talk) 01:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Semi-automated archiving?
Is there a tool/gadget/script/whatever that allows a user to archive a page semi-automatically, in a manner similar to what MiszaBot does?  Rami  R  12:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Good question. Would certainly be useful for pages not active enough to warrant a bot... –xeno talk 12:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


 * A recurrent theme to me.


 * &#91;&#91; hopiakutaPlease do sign your communiqué.%7e%7eThank You, DonFphrnqTaub Persina.]] 13:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know of one. All of my placements have been manual. Flatscan (talk) 02:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Two ambiguous points in the article.
I'm still "too novice" to edit WP Help pages myself. I saw two points that I thought could use an edit when I read the article.


 * 1) In the intro the statement that "there are two different procedures" in the 4th para is ambiguous or misleading.  While the sentence is correct within its own context, it is incorrect with regards the article.  In the article there are actually two methods and three procedures.  (Somebody did tell me that I was qualified to count to three.)
 * 2) In the move procedure, there is no step to actually move.  While referenced in Step 1, a reference to a procedure is not a procedural step.  I'm lost as to whether I perform the move in Step 1, or between Steps 3 and 4.  (Step 4's "now empty" reference implies something was emptied in Step 3, but I didn't see anything being emptied in Step 3.  That to me implied that there is a missing step between 3 and 4, probably the step to actually move, but I can't be sure.)
 * 3) * Were I making a peanut butter sandwich, I get the feeling I'd wind up with a jar of peanut butter between two pieces of bread, nobody having mentioned that one step is to actually remove the peanut butter from the jar. --Aladdin Sane (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Header
The header seems a little abrupt, could it not be expanded to say "This page is about...", followed by the temp, or, drumroll please, a handwritten header? HJMitchell   You rang?   18:24, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Lost contact with my archives
How do I access my archives??? Peter Horn User talk 18:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Found it, I have to click on "History". Peter Horn User talk 18:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

How big should archives be?
Is there any guidance on how big an archive page should be? I've been using 250K as a guideline before starting the next archive, but is there any reason to use a different number? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Some folks on very outdated equipment would prefer less, but I generally use 250k. –xeno talk 14:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there any actual guidance? Has this been explored in the talk archives or anywhere else?  And is it worth drafting anything?  I understand pageload time is an issue (but can't be worse than say, ANI) but an archive isn't something regularly accessed.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate a draft, as there's currently some discussion on this (31K vs. 250K).--Oneiros (talk) 15:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

List of long talk pages?
How can one find very long talk pages needing archiving?--Oneiros (talk) 01:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The Template:archiveme is placed on talk pages which need archiving. You can check which pages link to the template . Elekhh (talk) 01:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I know. But how do you find very long talk pages without that template?--Oneiros (talk) 03:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm there should be a way of making Special:LongPages work for the Talk namespace but I wouldn't know how to do it. -- &oelig; &trade; 15:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Archiving
When I archive a talk page, should I archive ongoing discussions? Us441 (talk*contribs) (talk) 14:45, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No.--Oneiros (talk) 20:32, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Automate archiving?
Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 15:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅--Oneiros (talk) 19:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Judging by the list of dictionaries sourced for the pronunciation of Euler, I would assume this has been considered, but I find the pettiness of it all somewhat detracting from the article. Clearly, as shown by 4 different dictionaries, we/they have agreed to pronounce Euler as if it were modern official Swiss-German. It is of next to no relevance and somehow makes its way into the opening paragraph. It is even more disconcerting when one considers that this pronunciation was simply an incorrect choice that we've come to accept. As I'm sure others have mentioned, the 'eu' diphthong was probably pronounced as more of an 'ew' as in dew than an 'oy' by Euler's parents, classmates, and local acquaintances. I'm not saying that the article's pronunciation is incorrect--it is 'correct' in the completely trivial sense of how it's been pronounced by the misinformed educated class for the last hundred or more years--but I am suggesting that it's a minor point over-stressed by those that haven't the faintest understanding of Euler's work. My suggestion is that this annoyingly trivial, over-sourced pettiness should be omitted from the main paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.197.216 (talk) 04:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not disable Edit button in archive?
We are not supposed to edit archived discussions. So, why is the "Edit This Page" Tab on archived discussions not actually disabled? It should be. It would just make sense. -The Mysterious El Willstro 209.183.185.226 (talk) 08:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That would be a problem for archives that are maintained manually. BTW, archive banners (e.g. ) do disable section editing links and "new section" links.  Rami  R  11:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems that the adverb "manually" is the operative word there. Why do we not have all things maintained automatically once they are finalized as Archives? The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 03:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Monarchs of Edem
Hi, I want to publish an article but I understand you deleted it earlier. This is the link to the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:List_of_Monarchs_of_Edem_%28Eze_Edem%29. I recently published an article on Edem and would like to do some on the monarchs. Kindly let me know what has to be done to get the article published. Thanks. (Eidaofedem (talk) 01:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)).

ongoing discussions and how to continue an "archived" discussion
How is an archived conversation continued? My premise is that with the foundation of Wikipedia on consensus, conversations never really end on Wikipedia, and hence given that archived conversations are immutable, none can/should be archived. What to do when one wants to continue a talk (not start a new one)? Cut and paste? It couldnt be copied because then there would be multiple editions in the archive, and if someone copied a stale version and continued it would effectively branch the conversation, not just continue it, making separate branches into different discussions, defeating the stated purpose of continuing of the original discussion. (Wow thats a mouth full.) The few mentions of this problem have not really been explored. And one more thing, since archived discussions are apparently immutable, please do not archive this discussion until this is clarified, thanks. I am looking for both a short term solution so I can keep my train of thought on another (obviously now archived) discussion, and a long term solution. Int21h (talk) 07:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that this is a problem, and that's why I'm in full support of the new LiquidThreads extension which effectively solves it. In the meantime, if one wants to continue an old conversation it's recommended to just revive the old topic by starting a new message while linking back either in diffs or direct wikilinks to the archived message. It's tedious I know but it's all we got. One way of keeping a discussion alive and noticed would be to tag it with the unanswered template. This should prevent it from being archived manually by a user however I'm not sure if archiving bots recognize this template, they might just ignore it and archive the message along with the template. So in short, to answer your question, unanswered or unresolved would be a short-term solution, while LiquidThreads would be a long-term solution. -- &oelig; &trade; 12:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Help page or Guideline?
This page has a split personality. Sometimes it gives practical advice like a help page, sometimes it gives recommendations like a Guideline.

I think the guideline elements (e.g, what procedures should be used to decide to archive a talk page, how large a talk page should become before archiving, indexing and search recommendations) would be most useful if they were moved to Talk page guidelines, either as a new subsection or under the existing sub-heading When to condense pages.

Any comments on this. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

MiszaBot vs. ClueBot III for automated archival
What are the upsides and downsides (a.k.a. advantages and disadvantages) of MiszaBot and ClueBot III for automated user talk page archival and how well they do in practice? --Etherfox (talk) 01:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Having trouble archiving Talk:Earth
I have updated the counter to 12, but the talk page only registers up to 10.  Serendi pod ous  16:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no 11th archive, that's why it's not displaying any further than 10.  Rami  R  17:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Why isn't Talk:Earth/archive 11 registering?  Serendi pod ous  20:30, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh. I figured it out.  Serendi pod ous  20:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Archive page size
Earlier discussions is found here.

What should the archive page size be? We should give some guideline. In my own opinion it should like this: I see that 150KB and above are huge pages where navigation becomes hard on devices with a slow internet connection. Are we able to find some suitable size value? --Kslotte (talk) 14:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 100KB for relevant talk discussions
 * 150KB for discussion more categorized as trash
 * How do you propose separating "relevant" from "trash"? I think that's ill-advised. If something is irrelevant, it should simply be removed. If's not subject to removal per WP:TPG, it should be archived in the usual way. – xeno talk  14:29, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. Can we found a recommended one archive size fits all? Or is there differences? --Kslotte (talk) 14:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really, I don't think. As an example, WP:ANI uses 600kb as the archivesize because otherwise we would have so many archives it would be pretty unmanageable. – xeno talk  15:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:ANI and other admin pages are special cases. But I hope we are able to sugest a recommandation. Currently it is a matter of taste and sometimes small edit warring about the auto-archiving configurations. My point with "relevant" and "trash" was that if we are able define in what case we should use larger archives. --Kslotte (talk) 15:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Overall information about page size is found at Article size. --Kslotte (talk) 15:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Article size is inapplicable here: it deals with articles, not talk pages, and in terms of readable prose, not byte count. Generally speaking, my rule of thumb is that the archive should be about the size of the talk page, up to about twice the size. So pages with auto-archiving rate more frequent than 30 days would usually require archives of at least 200KiB.  Rami  R  15:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is inapplicable here, but still contain some information that is good to take into consideration for archive pages as well. --Kslotte (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think counting how much talk content is produced within a timeframe is one factor to decide the archive size. --Kslotte (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * What about something like (tweaking and definition changes may still be needed): The recommended archive size is 100KB for article talk pages. Very active talk pages should have a size of 150KB or 200KB. Wikipedia administrative pages can have archive pages even larger then 200KB. --Kslotte (talk) 16:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Personally I prefer 250 KB minimum; otherwise we end up with too many archives. Remember that people don't have to navigate these to open, post, and save. They only have to be able to read them. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * 32K. I'm serious. Why people insist on making utterly massive archive pages is beyond me; it's far harder to find things on them using the archive search tool, they're diabolical to load on more limited devices than modern PCs, and I wasn't aware that we were running out of free pages anyway. For pages which get massive amounts of traffic larger archives may be unavoidable in the interests of practicality, but the vast majority of talk archives are fine at 32K. I'd be strongly opposed to recommending a default four or even eight times that size. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 140K (unless the page has a lot of traffic) to keep archive pages out of Database_reports/Long_pages.--Oneiros (talk) 13:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Archives are sub-pages that aren't shown on "Long Pages" until they reach 500K. --Kslotte (talk) 16:53, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Archive indexing
I would like to add a sentence "Archive indexing is recommended only and when there exist at least two distinguish talk archives (like /Archive 1 and /Archive 2)". Comments or sentence tweakings? I want to define when arhive indexing should be done. --Kslotte (talk) 20:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Archive threshold too low - too much archiving!
A talk page limit of 50KB or 10 items is too low. Let's face it: archives are a pain. They are difficult to search and lead to redundant discussions. There is a lot of excessive archiving going on. Archiving should be done sparingly and only when necessary. I understand there are some benefits, but this article overstates the case for archiving.

I have a slow computer - believe me. But I do not have trouble with talk pages over 10 items. This seems to be a solution chasing a problem. I think this limit should at least be increased to 15 or 20 items. A long talk page is no less convenient than clicking through pages of archives. Some editors seem to be overzealous about archiving. I don't even know if this issue has been discussed before, because I don't want to check 4 pages of archives! 94.222.118.188 (talk) 09:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think Talk: pages aren't archived enough; we don't need editors responding to months-old statements by people who have long since lost interest in the topic. Jayjg (talk) 00:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)


 * My position is actually quite the opposite. I find the beauty of unarchived discussions on low-volume talk pages in being able to respond to someone's query that has stood unanswered for years. Sometimes a post may express a prescient notion which only ripened to maturity in the minds of other editors after a long time. It's good to be able to encounter such items. Not only the users who have busied a talk page in the past are the relevant audience for a talk page post, sometimes the odd visitor may bring exactly the right perspective that others entrenched in the issue could not see. __meco (talk) 08:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The section was posted seven months ago (and archived four months ago), and it contains a query to which nobody responded. That's a shame, because I'm certain that had it been simply kept it would in time have developed into a very interesting discussion. __meco (talk) 09:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Why do you think they are difficult to search? Most talk pages have searchable archives, and if not the functionality can easily be added. Templates such as Search archives and others exist to facilitate that. -- &oelig; &trade; 18:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * FYI this was cross-posted and discussed at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 8. – xeno talk  18:40, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I share 94.222... 's concern; There is far too much "drive by archiving," where an editor who has not been involved on a talk page drops in and changes its editing parameters because they do not fit his preferences.  On some academic pages, discussions of issues can go on for years, and it's best to keep them on the talk page where they can be changed, rather than frozen in archives where the discussion is broken over several pages.  As a minimum, I think we should recommend that archiving on talk pages should be set up by consensus of users on that talk page, as was done here.


 * OlEnglish's comment about searchable archives is a good one, but many pages lack such templates. It would be helpful if installation of such a template were strongly recommended on this help page. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Guidance already exists for this: "Decisions about when to archive, and what may be the optimal length for a talk page, are made according to consensus for each case..." Of course individual editors driving by aren't following this. – xeno talk  14:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I seen many cases where auto-archiving has been asked to get consensus. There is usually a few problems with it.
 * 1. User ask for consensus, but don't tell in what way the auto-archive will be done. Usually no one objects, since many see it as improvment to get old threads archived.
 * 2. User ask for consensus. Users that aren't familair with the parameters interact. It ends up with no censenus (between the once who know the parameters and those who don't).
 * 3. User ask for consensus and have plans to setup auto-archiving with "wrong" parameters. No one interact since they aren't familair with it.
 * So, asking for consensus is a bit pointless and should instead be WP:BOLD following WP:TPG (10 threads, 50K) and possible following WP:BRD if needed. --Kslotte (talk) 11:51, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I very much concur. I am simply frustrated to behold the number of talk pages that have simply had the life force drained from them due to such radical archiving. I'm sure there are those who would retort that making an encyclopedia isn't about maintaining "vibrant talk pages" and perhaps harbor a sentiment that most discussions could well be dispensed with in any case. I just entered Talk:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day (permanent link) and was quite disappointed at seeing this page cleansed by MiszaBot set with the parameter minthreadsleft at 1. __meco (talk) 09:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The ability to search through archives is to me a poor substitute for being able to browse the threads. Perhaps we are differently inclined and that some people, such as yourself, see searchable archives as a perfect substitute for the ability to scroll through the sections. To me the latter modality is indispensable because I usually don't ponder relevant search terms for what I'm looking for, or, very often I just want to see if there are any interesting threads where I might wish to put in a word of advice or join a contentious discussion that has gone stale, thus reanimating it. With archived discussions that simply isn't going to happen. __meco (talk) 09:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I fully support that the values are to low. Should we update it something like 70KB and 15 threads as a first step? --Kslotte (talk) 11:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have being WP:BOLD (and possible wake those that wants to give critics) and increasing the limits to 15 threads and 70K size. This goes also in hand with the information technology evaluation where equipments are getting faster and are able to handle more data. --Kslotte (talk) 13:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Archiving versus Refactoring
I believe there needs to be a concerted effort to discourage archiving and encourage refactoring. Simply put, archiving pushes unresolved issues "out of sight, out of mind", rather than allowing those issues to be resolved. Refactoring doesn't happen currently, because people are unwilling to do the work to make it happen, even though it is a better solution. Triona (talk) 01:50, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm still waiting for LiquidThreads which is an even better alternative. -- &oelig; &trade; 13:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Re-factoring doesn't decrease the talk page size at all. Not either move any threads to the archive. Or, do you mean manual archiving of threads once an issue is resolved? --Kslotte (talk) 14:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Dearchiving/unarchiving
Is there a guideline on taking a archived topic out of an archive and restarting it ? (Rather than restart it in the talk page from scratch again). I ask this because I have come across a number of times where talk pages have been archived, generally in one of two ways, when IMO they should not have been.

They are either archived a) simply on age [not length], where just because discussions are maybe years (or sometime just months old), they have been archived. A talk page may only have 3 or 4 short topics, and someone has archived it solely the age of the discussion (or date of last reply), and not whether the talk page needed it because of length. I find this both unnecessary and stiffling to further discussions. So what if the last reply could be years old ? On low visited pages, some topics may rarely be looked at. In addition, new evidence or discoveries may have occured, leading to re-interest or queries in a long dormant discussions.

b) some talk pages are archived by archive bots whose 'date to archive' threshold is so low as to either accidentally or (in somecases) purposely block further discussion on a topic. I've seen as low a 10 days on subjects that are not highly visited, and where the low threshold cannot be justified.

The problem is that once something is archived, unless is is restarted from scratch, you can't further discuss it. With a bot, even restarting may mean in a few days times its back in the archives (yeah, I could change the bot's settings, but some editors just change them back).

So what stance is taken on these two specific cases ? Can editors unarchive a discussion where it would be to the betterment of the article ? The Yeti (talk) 14:57, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * See also similar issue raised by another user below "Archiving loses record of errors" The Yeti (talk) 23:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Can someone help me?
I tried to create my fourth Talk Page archive, and tried following the instructions on the Move Method on this help page, but all it says in the section on how to do it is "Subpage archives can also be created by moving the talk page to a subpage." I ended up screwing up the names of all four pages somehow, and even though I think I mostly fixed the problem, I can't seem to find the contents of Archive 1. Although this page is labeled Archive 1, you can see from the contents that they're not. Whereas the rightful contents of Archive 1 are dated March 17, 2005 - April 22, 2007, that page's contents are actually the contents of Archive 3, which are dated August 12, 2008 - December 26, 2009. Can someone help me figure this out? Nightscream (talk) 00:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like you've mixed together Cut and paste procedure and Move procedure. Archives 2 and 3 are cut-and-paste archives, while 1 and 4 are move archives. I'm not sure what happened at this move on 26 December 2009; my guess is that you moved your talk page over an existing archive, somehow histmerging them together. Reverting to should fix Archive 1. Flatscan (talk) 05:09, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * How do I do that? Nightscream (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like you fixed it. Flatscan (talk) 05:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Scunthorpe website
82.28.3.147 (talk) 19:15, 7 June 2011 (UTC)how can i get a link to my website that is about Scunthorpe,www.activscunthorpe.com
 * This link is probably not suitable for a Wikipedia article; please see the Wikipedia guideline on links to external websites, especially this section and this one. You will get a faster response to requests for help if you use the main Help desk; only a few helpers will be watching for questions on pages like this one. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I need some help as well
Can someone take a look at my talk and help with my autoarchiving. It isn't working correctly and I am not sure what I can do to fix it. If someone could tell me how or be bold and take care of it I would be thankful.--Adam in MO Talk 05:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed with this edit, I hope. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:50, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Missing archives
The archives for Talk:Jeff Stryker are missing. Could someone take a look into it? __meco (talk) 09:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ I hope. We'll find out when the bot next runs. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:03, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Very good going. Appreciated! __meco (talk) 13:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Relevance of WP:A-A
We currently have a link to User:Kslotte/Auto-archiving in the see also section. One user (Jayjg) has deleted the link with the comment "personal opinion, not generally followed"; I've restored it. Do you also think that the link is irrelevant to the topic on this page and should be deleted?--Oneiros (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed it again. It's just a personal essay, it's not even in Wikipedia space (just user space), and, aside from you, very few people actually follow it or give it any credence. Jayjg (talk) 00:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Quick start checklist
I've added a "checklist" that goes through the subpage archiving procedure step-by-step. It's been tested on several archives, and should be useful for people who know the basics of editing but are confused by the plethora of information in this article. Lou Sander (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Help request
I'd like to request someone to archive the talk page for X Japan. The page shows the previous archives listed in the talkheader (not in an archive box), is this how the cut and paste way does it? Can it be switched to an archive box? Thank you. Xfansd (talk) 20:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've archived a bit of it and added an archivebox. You can archive more if you want. -- &oelig; &trade; 10:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much. Xfansd (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Help
Hi,

I'm trying to archive part of Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject Surrey. I have copied the information, then cut it, made a link to where I want to put my archive, then copied the bit I want to archive and made the page. I have done this, but am unable to get the archive to show up on the Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject Surrey template at the top of the talk page. There is already one archive on the template, but I don't know how to do the same. The bit I want to put next to it is just below the template. I have tried EVERYTHING I know-If someone can help me, then please, please do.

Thanks ever so much for your help, pbl1998Pbl1998 (talk) 11:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I think by default the archive templates only look for archive pages following one or two specific naming conventions. I suggest you rename your archive page to WT:WikiProject Surrey/Archive 2 without the date. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 12:04, 10 June 2012 (UTC).

Too complicated
The process is too complicated and confusing (or maybe the instructions are). Could somebody write a script or template that does it without the need for so much thought? Xxanthippe (talk) 09:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC).
 * so I wrote a

Dummies guide to archiving your talk page
1. Edit your talk page.

2. Create an archive by searching for "User talk:username/Archive N" where N is the Nth archive.

3. When search tells you that this page does not exist create it by clicking on the red link.

4. Copy the contents of your talk page into this archive and add ((archives|auto=yes|search=yes|)) as the first line [replacing the brackets with {} ].

5. Save this archive and delete material from current talk page. Finished.

Guidance needed
I want to employ an archive bot in my talk page. So far, I have been manually archiving the talk page. So, there are already archive1, archive2 and so on. (The list is in my talk page). If I employ a archiving bot now, will that delete previous archive pages, and replace with new archived material? If not, will it give new style of names to the new set of archives from now on? It will if someone can help me out. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You can configure the naming style that the archiving bot is to use. This should archive to User talk:Dwaipayanc/Archive54 and carry on from there:




 * -- John of Reading (talk) 20:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * oh, wow! Thank you.--Dwaipayan (talk) 03:46, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Archiving loses record of errors
I don't know if this is the place to mention it, or if anyone even cares, but I've come across a number of instances where a mistake is pointed out on an article's talk page, but after a while the post gets shuffled off to an archive page where it is effectively lost forever, even though the problem was never fixed. I guess the message is: just because there has been no activity on a post in a while does not mean it is not still relevant. 86.160.217.252 (talk) 03:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't lost forever, it's just been put into a different page. But I suppose a good solution would be to keep any unfinished or uncommented or unresolved (however you want to put it) sections on the main talk page and wait for them to be concluded before archiving. That Ole' Cheesy Dude (Talk to the hand!) 17:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This is similar to the problem I highlighted above "Deachiving/unarchiving". Obviously not archiving the issue in the first place would be the solution ; but then, if that was happening there would be no need for someone to point out that that ain't working ! (The issue partly occurs because of bots autoarchiving stuff.) Is dearchiving allowed ? The Yeti (talk) 23:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've just looked into Archive 4 for this talk page. Ironically, this issue (or similar) has been raised at least three times there (1, 2, 3), and not been really resolved ; & so should not be archived ; but now they are, & you can't add to the discussion ; and you can't dearchive them either. I feel dizzy. The Yeti (talk) 23:16, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course I realise it is still retrievable on the archive page, but by "effectively lost forever" I mean it will in practice never be noticed by anyone coming along who might be in a position to fix it. One would hope that a human archiver might leave notices of unresolved mistakes in situ (though I'm not sure that's always the case), but I don't know how archive bots would be able to make that decision unless there was some "resolved/unresolved" flag that was consistently applied. IME bots just dumbly archive anything that has been inactive for more than x days, don't they? 86.160.222.19 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC).
 * True, but that's one of the reasons why most pages aren't automatically archived. (The other being the lack of need on many pages, of course.) --Philosopher Let us reason together. 16:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Per the above, and, and Help talk:Archiving a talk page/Archive 4 (which I almost unarchived, to prove the point, but this thread suits), and discussions elsewhere where people have asserted that it is not a standard practice, I suggest we add something to this page, describing the actual existing practice of occasionally unarchiving a thread. Suggested wording, anyone? -- Quiddity (talk) 03:56, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * We could add something like: "If a discussion is archived prematurely, it may be unarchived so long as the discussion is recent, and neither the discussion nor talk page are too long." Would that do? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's good (I was hoping for ultra-brief, and that is).
 * The only other guidance we could offer, is how to unarchive - whether to cut what is already in the archive and paste it in the live-talkpage; or whether to just copy it and paste the copy (thereby making 2 copies of the initial substance). - I'd prefer to leave it unstated (to avoid instruction-creep/bloat) and let common-sense plus context guide editors, but possibly a wordsmith can condense that into a short phrase...?
 * 2 examples I mentioned elsewhere: I've unarchived (cut-out) threads that were bot-archived too rapidly, and I've copied large sections from archives when it was critical that all participants in a new discussion actually read the historic content (rather than just linking to the archived-thread, and hoping they would click through and read).
 * -- Quiddity (talk) 23:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

New to archiving
Hi, I realise now that my first attempts at Mizabot archiving were not a total success and I wonder if there is a "good samaritan", who knows more about these things than I do, who could go through my recent contributions list and correct any archiving errors. Any help with this would be much appreciated... Johnfos (talk) 13:18, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think has handled this. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sincere thanks to Beagel, Delphi, and John of Reading for "coming to my rescue" with this... Johnfos (talk) 00:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Archive talk page
Hi, May any one could please archive my talk page, Regards :)--Omer123hussain (talk) 21:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This will be ✅ within 24 hours once the bot runs. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Permanet link and the move method-depracated?
I have just edited the page to reflect current practice. It has been clear for some time now that the move procedure is not the preferred option of the vast majority of users. I am thinking we should consider it deprecated for article talk pages. Most users are not familiar with it and on those rare occasions when it is used on an article talk page it seems to confuse and even anger many users. I saw an instance of this a month or two ago but unfortunately it escapes me at the moment what page it was on.

I have also seen an attempt to use this process abusively on a user talk page. The user moved his talk page, which was full of criticism of him, and then nominated all his talk archives for speedy deletion per user request. This would have removed not only the criticisms, which they were of course free to do, but all record of them ever having been made, which they are not free to do. Luckily one observant admin figured out what they were up to and refused to do the deletions, but normally if a user slaps the db-u1 template on any page in their userspace it is deleted as a matter of course.

And the permanent link method.... Does anybody do that at all? That one is über-deprecated and should probably be removed altogether or marked a historical only.

So what I am getting at is that I think we should consider the move procedure entirely deprecated at least for article talk pages as that is pretty much a fact at this point, and should consider the possibility of doing the same for user talk pages, and mark the permalink method as historical and no longer used. . Thoughts? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:27, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, the page should focus on the methods that are commonly used and are easiest to manage. The page presents too many choices. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:41, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm going to go ahead and make some more changes to the page. If anyone sees any problem with the, please discuss here. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅. I think newer users will find this trimmed down version a lot easier to understand and use. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:10, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Is the section "A collapsible and searchable system" in the right place? -- John of Reading (talk) 21:20, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, probably not. I've integrated it into the section on archive boxes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beeblebrox (talk • contribs) 22:19, 22 September 2012‎

I am reverting these changes. I still use the move method. -- PBS (talk) 00:14, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

As I said in the history of the how-to-guide "reverted to the version by Delphi234 at 16:12, 30 August 2012 -- major changes that includes a POV about how best to do it is not appropriate on a howto page" -- PBS (talk) 00:19, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Pages like this should reflect actual practice, and in actual practice the move method is only very rarely used these days. A note a was included that it is ok to keep using it on your talk page if that's what you have always done. The bloated, contradictory way this page rad before as likely to confuse as to help a new user. New users being, you know, the people help pages are written for. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I support the clarifications (focusing on the most commonly used method), but object to the use of collapsed-sections - partially for practical reason (ease-of-access, ability to use in-page-search, etc), and partially because they're a plague! I've force-uncollapsed them, but a better method of format/layout should probably be used. (Either a highlighted box, like a pullquote, or something similar. I can't think of an appropriate template offhand, but I'm sure there's one out there. Highlight the critical "how-to", and leave the details in the wall-of-text that our helppages are.)
 * Also, I do believe move-archiving is something that should be somewhat-encouraged and used wherever it can be, as it keeps archive-pages more widely-watchlisted, helping to prevent the slow-decay that can effect them. [struck. I forgot about the page-history being split, and hence made somewhat difficult to follow]
 * Lastly, I think the second paragraph of the introduction should also be re-examined. We could usefully give less prominence for the option of "blanking" (move it down the page somewhat?), and add a brief description of the "cut&paste" method. —Quiddity (talk) 06:40, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

"Pages like this should reflect actual practice, and in actual practice the move method is only very rarely used these days." How would you know that? Exactly how many archives of talk pages have you looked at closely enough to know what method is used? -- PBS (talk) 07:28, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Archiving old irrelevant discussions/topics
Hi, I have quite recently begun contributing to Wikipedia, by editing articles, and I have already come across numerous discussions/topics on talk pages that are old and irrelevant. With that I mean that they are several years old and are about text/information that are no longer in the main article, and thus have NO relevance anymore, as I see it. It's not about discussions/topics that are several years old that still might be of interest, but it's about things that are old and irrelevant. It only wastes people's times that they appear, and therefore I would like to move this into archives. Is there any problem with doing this or can I just do it? /PatrikN (talk) 15:41, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The talk page guidelines suggest archiving "When a talk page has become too large or a particular subject is not discussed any more", but it does not mention anything more about archiving irrelevant subjects, nor does this "Archiving a talk page" help page, as I wrote about above. If you agree with me that old irrelevant discussions/topics should be archived based on irrelevance (lack of interest for anyone), I suggest the two mentioned pages should be updated with some (more) text about that. /PatrikN (talk) 15:41, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Any inactive discussion may be archived, regardless of relevance. Feel free to archive such discussions when you see them. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:05, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Redundant instructions
The cut and paste procedure is outlined twice on this page. We've got the "quick start checklist", followed by the "detailed explanation". I could see the advantage of a "quick start checklist" if it were extremely brief, like the "dummies guide" someone posted above, but it's actually no less detailed than the "detailed explanation", so I'm not sure what the point is. Would there be any objection to my merging the two guides into one? DoctorKubla (talk) 17:41, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not from me. -- PBS (talk) 16:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Methods and procedures
I have reverted the changes since the 5 November, because I think it is undermining the usefulness of the page and before any substantial changes are made I would appreciate it if we can try to build a consensus for those changes. -- PBS (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I think something that is being missed in some of the edit that have been made recently is that the page is currently divided into two methods "Subpage" and "Permanent link". Within the subpage method there are two procedures "cut and past" and "move". -- PBS (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you see the conclusion of the section, above? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I had not and now that I have read it, I do not think it is a fair summary of the opinion within the RFC, particularly as so few took part in the RFC. -- PBS (talk) 17:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * so obviously the correct solution is to edit war so that it says what you want regardless. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The usual way to approach the issue is Bold revert discuss, Bold edits were made I reverted and opened a discussion. -- PBS (talk) 16:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But you've already done that above. BRD is not an infinite loop. Graham 87 01:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

RFC on deprecating two archive methods
'''Should the move method and permanent link method of talk page archiving be considered deprecated? 21:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)'''


 * Rationale We had a less formal discussion of this and it was only after changes were actually made that any objections became apparent. The reasoning behind marking these methods as deprecated is that this page is here to help new users. Instead it was presenting a dizzying array of methods and comparisons between them, making the page as likely to confuse a new user as to help them with archiving the page.


 * I don't have actual statistics and I don't know how we would even get them, but my personal experience is that over the last several years the move method has fallen out of favor and is very rarely used on article or project talk pages. As it removes the page history it can be confusing for the majority of users who are not familiar with it. As such the page was editied to indicate that the move method should only be used on user talk pages where the user has a history of using it. I believe this reflects current practice on Wikipedia and as such would like to see those edits restored.


 * As to the permanent link method, I don't believe this was ever common practice but it certainly isn't now, seems like a very obvious candiddate to be considered entirely deprecated. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Anyone who is confused by the moving of a history with an archive is not likely to know how to search a history of a talk page! The page history is no more confusing than when an article is moved from one pagename to another, besides the move method has clear advantages when article pages are merged, as the history of the old talk pages will be with the old talk pages. If that is not done then the history can be lost, on an arbitrary page, depending on how the archives are move around and renumbered. So there are advantages and disadvantages of both methods. -- PBS (talk) 14:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the second and third sentences of that message at all. Could you perhaps give us an example? When two articles are merged, there's no need to move any of the talk page text around. For example, if Page A is being merged into Page B, the only thing that needs to be done to Talk:Page A is to remove any WikiProject tags. Any other action leads to madness. For what it's worth, I strongly dislike the page move archive method (at least for article talk pages) for the following reasons:
 * It fragments the talk page history, making it more difficult for humans and computer programs alike to analyse it (figuring out the number of edis, the most prolific contributors, etc.)
 * It risks deletion of significant page history when the archives are re-organised. Here is [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=Talk%3AIncest%2FArchive+5&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1&hide_review_log=1 an example].
 * It makes it far more difficult to renumber the archives. This is extremely rare, but see this thread on my talk page where I describe an archive renumbering operation that was made far more difficult by the use of the page move archiving method. Graham 87 09:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've numbered your points to make it easy to identify. I don't think 1. is a problem -- if you do then place it in an argument for not using the move method it. 2. On the contrary I think it helps preserve the edit history with the text see archives at Talk:List of sovereign states, where there was a reprisal to delete the redirect Talk:List of countries -- with multiple merges and moves the edit history to the archives can get lost if they are not attached to the archives. I concede the last point but I think that the benefits of moving outweigh that problem, and again that can be listed in a compare and contrast. -- PBS (talk) 19:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My first point is admittedly a minor problem, but I don't see why talk page history should be split up while article history is not. As for the example in your second point, page move archiving has not contributed to the preservation of any page history in that case; however, it [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=Talk%3AList+of+countries%2FArchive+5&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1&hide_review_log=1 directly caused the loss of over 1500 edits from the page history] for over two years. Graham 87 04:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think I should oppose "deprecating" these methods entirely - they work, and there's no obvious reason to prefer the most common method in general. I suppose you can say that the first method is preferred for article and/or Wikipedia talk pages.  So far as I know its only real advantage is that you can go in and edit the archive afterward; its disadvantage is that it pretty much breaks the history, unless the relevant edits are properly dated (which they should be, but might not for some reason or other).  I think archiving with history links should be very efficient in terms of disk space, and it practically eliminates the possibility of vandalism hidden away in an unwatched archive, so it might still be a very good option for user talk pages, talk pages for temporary events and so forth. Wnt (talk) 21:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've encountered quite a few talk page archives, because I sometimes do talk page cleanup; I like to check that a talk page's archives are in working order and aren't missing any significant text. Here's an example of [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20120831000000&limit=90&tagfilter=&contribs=user&target=Graham87&namespace=1 my most recent talk page cleanup spree]; in that case I was following up the talk page edits of a long-retired user. In my experience, the cut-and-paste archival method is indeed the most common one now by far, the page move archive method has become less and less popular over time, and the page history method has never been widely used (though it was previously used at the village pump). Perhaps discussion of these less popular methods can be relegated to a subpage and the main page could just contain a summary of them. Graham 87 09:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * This is not a guideline it is a howto, As such it should not be giving guidance on what is the preferred method but explaining how pages can be archived. If one method is more popular than another then why the need to banish the other methods from being discussed on this help page as the "popular" that method will be picked as a preference by most editors?  -- PBS (talk) 14:20, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As I've tried to explain, the only goal here was to make the page less confusing. Presenting three very different options and then leaving it up to the now even more confused newbie to pick one does not seem particularly helpful. Since most users (and as far as I know all of the archive bots) use the cut-and-paste procedure it was decided to highlight that process. There is also far more information on how to properly do it, and a much wider variety of options. As it is the preferred (and simplest) method it only makes sense to let new users know that right up front. If a significant number of users do not wish to consider the other methods deprecated that's fine, but we should still try to let new users know that there is in fact one option that is much more common and easy to use. The intent is not to tell anyone that the way they have been archiving talk pages is wrong or anything like that. I mention that because I feel like you are taking personal offense here but I don't know why that would be. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Whether or not these extra methods are formally deprecated, I would like to the page kept as simple as possible and directed at new users. Question: How do you archive a talk page? Answer: You copy this MiszaBot/config instruction to the top of the page. Done. Then, maybe, some sections or sub-pages on other ways editors sometimes do it. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Support clarification of the most common/popular/recommended method (cut&paste), and support de-emphasis of the other methods. (Including a rework of the 2nd intro paragraph, as I noted in the thread above). Make this page simple and clear for newcomers, particularly in the tophalf of the page. Just don't use collapsed sections for anything! —Quiddity (talk) 19:47, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Beeblebrox the "simplest method" (less steps) is to move the page. -- PBS (talk) 09:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have often found that new users, the users help pages are for, find the move feature confusing. I personally do not and I do get what you are saying, What I am getting at is that I believe we have two different ways of presenting this information:
 * 1=The page as it is right now, with my changes fully reverted. Three options are presented in detail, with whole sections comparing and contrasting them to one another.
 * 2=Some form of the proposed simplification made as a result of the previous discussion. The choice that is more widely used and understood is highlighted, and it is made clear to the user that they can set up auto-archiving and never have to worry about it again. The other options that have by and large fallen out of regular use are mentioned further down
 * Exactly how it is formatted or what words we use to make the distinction are not really the relevant issues here, the relevant issue is making this help page as helpful as possible. I believe that means making it simple and to the point, and directing users to the most used method which can be permanently set up in just a few moments. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * The current (old) layout places the cut and past method first so that is the one most people will assume from its position is the most common (it was placed first for that reason). The problem with the archiving methods is that although it may seem simple to you, it is very confusing for someone new to Wikipedia and not familiar with templates bots etc; and, as often happens when it does not work as expected, it can be very difficult to trace and fix the reason why. -- PBS (talk) 19:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * As it happens I have been looking for something in an archive today which is auto archived. Because the archive depends on the last edit to a section and not the first, it can be very difficult to trace into which archive a section has been placed if one does not know the date of when the last comment was made to a section. -- PBS (talk) 19:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That's what the search box is for. Most talk pages with several archives should contain a search box; if not, just type " prefix: " into the search box, click the search button, and Bob's your uncle. Graham 87 04:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If search is used, then the justification for keeping the edit history in one place evaporates (but using the search facility assumes that the the text one is looking for has been correctly archived). -- PBS (talk) 18:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * PBS, I think you are either misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring what this conversation is really about. It isn't about arguing which archive method is "better." It is about the help page being helpful. I feel like ego and/or personal feelings  are involved in your arguments, you don't want your preferred method to be pushed aside. Well, the community already did that. Not because they don't like you but because, for whatever reasons, be they valid or not, the community as a whole now strongly prefers the cut and paste method, to the point where many users are genuinely unaware there even is any other method. (I also don't see anyone coming forward in support of the permanent link method, which as far as I am aware was never a common practice) Beeblebrox (talk) 17:46, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I am neither misunderstanding of ignoring what his conversation is really about. I have no preferred method. I use different methods in different places depending on which I think is the most appropriate. If as you say "... to the point where many users are genuinely unaware there even is any other method." then there is no harm in pointing out the alternatives here so that a person who is not aware of the other method and process is available for use. -- PBS (talk) 18:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Review of the decision
I was asked to review the closure by Cunard on my talk page, after reading his comments and re-reading the discussion here I am still convinced there is a consensus to minimise and basically exclude content on the other methods for archiving a talk page apart from cut and paste. However only Beeblebrox has really said that the other methods should be formally deprecated, so I don't think there is a consensus to do that. If users really wish to archive pages in one of the older ways they should be free to do so. This certainly shouldn't mean that the page has any more content on the other methods of archiving than it currently does as that will be likely to confuse users and go against the consensus here. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:48, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Request auto-archive set up on WT:DENT
Sorry, I'm too stupid to manage this kind of thing. If it could be set up like WT:MED, but maybe with a longer time before auto-archive, this would be ideal...thank you for any help... Lesion ( talk ) 02:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * All done. Graham 87 05:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. This talk page had some backlog, but it isn't as busy at it appears. Is there an option to only archive threads with no new replies in a certain time? Lesion  ( talk ) 10:43, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's how the archiving bot works. When Graham87 set up the archiving, he included the line "algo = old(60d)", which tells the bot to archive any thread that has been inactive for 60 days. You can adjust that figure if you like. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

for extra dumb dummies such as I
The simplified instructions for making an archive are not bad but the use of the noun "source" is ambiguous twice. Could some tech savvy editor clean it up/clarify this particular lacuna ?--— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht Talk/Stalk 14:15, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note. Does [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Archiving_a_talk_page&diff=556385197&oldid=556376945 this change] make it better? Graham 87 06:19, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Vandalizing pages?
Only writing here because you vandalized, for no apparent reason, a client of mine's pages. Grow up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.36.120 (talk) 05:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * This is the talk page for the help page "Help:Archiving a talk page". Did you mean to post this somewhere else? -- John of Reading (talk) 07:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Update for lowercase sigmabot III
This article needs to be updated to reference lowercase sigmabot III, which has recently taken it upon itself to perform the archiving of my talk page in lieu of its predecessor. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:19, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've made an edit. Any good? -- John of Reading (talk) 12:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

De-(un)-archiving
How could an archive (for which no very founded reasons to archive are and most of the archive as a whole is relevant to present discussions) be de-archived?--188.26.22.131 (talk) 09:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Move the text back to the main talk page and if necessary, tag the archive with db-g6 to have it speedy deleted. Graham 87 14:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Help needed
Would anyone mind taking a look at my talk page and see if I've borked something up? I set up Mizabot yesterday to archive old threads automatically but so far it has archived nothing. Is something wrong with the configuration I set up? Regards. 13:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaba p (talk • contribs) 13:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether the archiving bots will cope with the underscore "Gaba_p" in your MiszaBot/config, so I'd recommend changing that to a space. But you'll have to be patient. The old Miszabots aren't running, and the new lowercase sigmabot III hasn't started working on user talk pages yet. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've changed the underscore to a space, let's see if that works. What do you men by Mizabot not running? Not running for good or just right now? Regards. Gaba  (talk) 14:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * MiszaBot III last ran in October, and the bot's operator is no longer active on this project. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * As of 24 November User:Lowercase sigmabot III has been approved for unlimited use. See Bots/Requests for approval/Lowercase sigmabot III 2. It has begun to archive User:Gaba p's talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 17:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It has indeed :) Thank you guys! Gaba  (talk) 18:20, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

IP location
Please help anyone who can. I found myself in my account history for logins. I have noticed that there is a IP ADDRESS 76.90.68.216 located somewhere in corona. I have never login from corona but there is someone who i work for and live with who does. I need to find that location if possible. please help cause i feel that this person has been in my info and knowing what emails i have... not good. HELP Thank you tom

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:BCA7:58B0:19FC:E49C:F94D:DBC7 (talk) 23:24, 5 December 2013 (UTC)


 * This isn't really the right place for this request, but in case you're asking how to find the address of the person who used the IP address at a particular time, that generally can't be done without a court order. Graham 87 04:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

How to auto-archive unsigned/undated posts?
Hello, on User talk:MatthewVanitas I have archiving set up, and it's worked great, but towards the top of my page I'm gaining an accumulation of posts which are failing to archive because the posters have left no signature, or no date, on the post and thus the Archiver is not recognising them as old posts. Is there some proper way to get them recognised as old, or should I just "forge" a sig at the bottom of each post that's 91 days old to trick them into archiving? MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:37, 27 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, this is more a matter of the programming of the bot that does your archiving, but I think the easiest thing to do might be to just manually archive any such posts when you are tired of looking at them. The only other thing that springs to mind is to add a date stamp as you suggest. You could just add five tildes as soon as you see a post without a date on it, I think that would be enough indication for the bot. Others who know more about the bots may have better ideas though. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:29, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The MiszaBot series of bots don't archive unsigned posts, but ClueBot III does (though I've found it trickier to set up). I don't think forging datestamps is a good idea: either use unsigned/UnsignedIP/undated (remembering to subst them), just manually archive the errant posts, or use ClueBot III. I've fixed a few signature wibbles on your talk page; hope you don't mind. Graham 87 05:03, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
 * MiszaBot would archive a thread containing some undated posts so long as at least one post in the thread was dated. So instead of putting in a fake datestamp you could try replying to the stale posts. EdJohnston (talk) 16:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * There are multiple options of how to do this. A couple of them are:
 * Option 1: Set up the One Click Archiver for yourself. Then click on the Archive link for each section you want to archive.  This is the good, low-effort solution.
 * Option 2: Use one of the unsigned2 templates (perhaps unsignedIP2). Find the edit in the edit history that actually added the comment. Then cut & paste the time, date and username/IP address from the edit history.  Insert the "|" character and your correct time zone.  You must add the "(UTC)" text. Miszabot (lowercase sigmabot III) does not recognize a date unless it has the text "(UTC". The edit history time/date is usually in your local time so the UTC text you enter will probably be something like "(UTC-5)".
 * Makyen (talk) 08:29, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Could use some help
I've been archiving my talk page threads for a long time. So far I have 7 full pages, and on my active talk page there is a listing of past archives along with a search function. Today I created Archive page 8 but some reason it isn't listing on my talk page along side links to Archives 1,2,3 etc. Can someone please help me out? Thanks in advance....William 13:53, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I gave the servers a kick by purging your talk page, and now archive 8 is listed. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:49, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you....William 17:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

How do we link to archives once they're made?
There is no obvious link to the talk archives on this page or on e.g. Catalan language. I've done this before, but can't figure it out now, and this help page is no help. I'd like to link Talk:Fula language/Archive from Talk:Fula language. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The links to the archives are part of the talk header on both this talk page and Talk:Catalan language. I've undone your page move of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages/Fula to Talk:Fula language/Archive because I don't think it's a good idea to mix discussion and history in the Wikipedia and main namespaces. However to add an automatic link from a talk page to it's archives, use a template like archive box with the "auto=yes" parameter; this requires that the archives be named in the standard manner like "Talk:Fula language/Archive 1". I had implemented this at Talk:Fula language before I realized what was really going on. Graham 87 04:38, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The most visible way archive pages are normally linked is to use a archive box. The template archive box, as mentioned above, is one of the options. There are several options. The help page has several examples which you can cut & paste into the page where you desire them.  While the talkheader template also provides links, it is not where my eye goes to find them.  Thus, I prefer an archive box of some sort.


 * My personal choice is:
 * This is one of the examples on Help:Archiving a talk page.
 * This is one of the examples on Help:Archiving a talk page.


 * I have added an archive box to both this page. I have configured automatic archiving on both Talk:Fula language and Talk:Catalan language along with making sure there is a talk header, an archive box and enabling archive indexing.


 * It really is my goal to make this help page useful to people. From your statement above, you did not find the information that you desired when you came to the page. Can you tell me what it is that you were looking for (specifically) and how you were looking for it? People look for things and think about things in different ways. Because you were unable to find what you desired, it is clear that the page did not describe things in a way that enabled you to find them. My knowing how you were attempting to find what you were looking for will, hopefully, make it such that I can incorporate into the page text/descriptions which will permit the next person that is looking in the same way you are to find the information desired.


 * Thanks. Makyen (talk) 05:19, 23 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Because we didn't have numbered archives, but just a single archive from an old project (which has now been moved back so it's not accessible from anywhere, but no mind), I didn't know how to get it to link. Maybe I just overlooked the place in this page where we say that the name cannot deviate from a set formula?  — kwami (talk) 00:47, 24 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The archive box templates currently require archive page names to be in specific formats in order for the page to be automatically detected. However, any of them can display any link desired by including that link in the first unnamed parameter of the archive box template For example:


 * All of the links in the box to the right which are not single digits are manually provided to the template. Three of the five examples of archive box template text on Help:Archiving a talk page show including non-automatically detected links.
 * All of the links in the box to the right which are not single digits are manually provided to the template. Three of the five examples of archive box template text on Help:Archiving a talk page show including non-automatically detected links.


 * BTW: Thanks for bringing this up, I found one of the examples had broken visible text, but not in the code used to produce the example box. That is now fixed.


 * At the moment, I probably will not update the page with more descriptive text on this specific topic. Re-writing the auto-detection code for the templates in order for them to detect arbitrary archive page names is on my personal to-do list. The re-write is needed on multiple counts (at least one of the templates is at maximum permitted resource use).  I expect to work on this next month. Thus, taking the time now to make changes to the Help:Archiving a talk page in this specific area would be effort I would have to go over again in the near future. Makyen (talk) 02:59, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Help with archive set up
I feel like an idiot, but I am really struggling getting the archives set up. Part of my problem might be that I changed formats and manually placed all the archives in their respective destinations. If you feel like looking at my situation, I have placed the archived on pages such as these here — Preceding unsigned comment added by Speednat (talk • contribs) 13:23, February 24, 2014‎ (UTC-8)
 * I'm taking a look at it. It would help to confirm what you desire have have as the eventual outcome.  I am assuming that you want:
 * In the future, automatically created archives with names in the format Archive/YYYY/mmm (e.g. like the User_talk:Speednat/Archive/2009/Dec page you linked.)
 * The archive box you now have on your talk page, or one very similar, to point to your archives.
 * You don't actually have a preference for using User:ClueBot III or User:lowercase sigmabot III. For archives organized by date, I strongly recommend User:lowercase sigmabot III.
 * Makyen (talk) 22:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In a similar situation, you can save a considerable amount of effort by allowing the archives be created automatically by User:lowercase sigmabot III. If you cut & paste the User:lowercase sigmabot III example from the Archives by year/month table in Help:Archiving a talk page that will automatically create archives for all of the threads on a talk page, putting them in archive pages by the last modified date in the thread.  Note that User:lowercase sigmabot III will do this, but User:ClueBot III will not.
 * In a similar situation, you can save a considerable amount of effort by allowing the archives be created automatically by User:lowercase sigmabot III. If you cut & paste the User:lowercase sigmabot III example from the Archives by year/month table in Help:Archiving a talk page that will automatically create archives for all of the threads on a talk page, putting them in archive pages by the last modified date in the thread.  Note that User:lowercase sigmabot III will do this, but User:ClueBot III will not.


 * Another time, it is a bit easier in the long run to use the presumed default archive page naming scheme of .  There are a variety of templates that assume that naming scheme as the default.  In fact, the template Archives by months – used to make the list of month links in the archive box – did not have the option to use the naming scheme you are using, , until the middle of December 2013.  There is nothing wrong with using the naming scheme that you are using, it is just easier to use the default.  I am neither suggesting, or recommending, that you change the naming scheme at this point.


 * Everything is now set up such that you will continue to use that naming scheme on your talk page and its archives. I left the archiving bot set for a 90 days dwell time for threads. Given that you already archived some of January, you may want to reduce that amount of time.  If you do change it, be sure to change it both in the archive box template and the User:MiszaBot/config.


 * You will probably want to have User talk:Speednat/Archive 2 deleted, WP:G6 (created in error), as it is not being used and is not expected to be used. Makyen (talk) 22:51, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You Rock Thanks speednat (talk) 00:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

What am I missing...
How long does it typically take ClueBot III to come 'round? I thought I set things up correctly on my user talk two days ago but so far nothing has been archived. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Your ClueBot III (CB3) configuration appears to be a cut & paste of what is on the talk page. I have used that identical (verified) configuration on multiple pages which have functioned properly. CB3 appears to have more or less taken a couple of short days this week 8-) as the number of its edits is a bit low on a couple of days.  This could be a website traffic volume issue.  Non critical bots are generally restricted during high traffic volume times, which happen to be Wednesday and Thursday (WP:BOTREQUIRE). CB3 appears to have completed its run for today.  I do not have an answer as to why it has not archived your page.


 * Under the assumption that it is more important to you to get the archiving done than to use CB3, I will drop in a tested lowercase sigma bot III (lcSB3) config I have used on multiple pages. lcSB3 usually begins its daily run in about 40 minutes from now. We should know within a couple/few hours if it is picking it up. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ I am marking this done because lcΣB3 has now performed its first archiving pass of your talk page. I will try to keep an eye out as to the behavior of CB3 wrt. starting archiving on pages new to CB3. I vaguely recall considering that there might be an issue in this area.  However, I have almost exclusively been setting up pages to use lcΣB3 since that bot became routinely active.  The primary reason for my using lcΣB3 is a dislike for how CB3 does not handle putting archives organized by month in the actual month corresponding with the last date in the thread. Given this lack of recent use of CB3, my memory is a bit hazy as to an issue along these lines.


 * In addition to the lcΣB3 config I also added an archive box and an archive indexer bot config (and created the /Archive index page with the contents it requires). This is my "normal" coy & paste set. If you don't want either of these, feel free to remove them. Given that you do not have a header on your user talk page you may want the archive index box to match the color of the TOC. Because I realized I left the vertical alignment not quite matching the TOC, I have also made the change to the color. The colors to match the TOC are  . Obviously, you are free to make whatever changes you desire.  Please consider anything I have put on your page as merely examples/suggestions.


 * It should be noted that the archive indexer bot is currently down (and has been for quite some time) throughout at least the English Wikipedia. Thus, you should not expect it to make an index any time soon. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 03:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Archiving seems to have stopped
Yesterday I cleaned up the talk page and archives of Talk:Stephen E. Ambrose. It had previously been archived by MiszaBot, but seems to have stopped working years ago. If I understand correctly, lowercase sigma bot should be picking up the slack, but it seems to be stuck somehow. I've waited nearly 24 hours since I refactored the page, but perhaps the bot is not recognizing the dates? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, GentlemanGhost   (converse)  20:01, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking at Special:Contributions/Lowercase sigmabot III, it looks as if the bot fires up at 00:00 UTC each day. At that point the archive configuration at Talk:Stephen E. Ambrose was still incorrect - it had the old page name without the middle initial. Now you've fixed the configuration I think the next run should work. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is working now. I should have had more patience. :-) Thanks! -- GentlemanGhost  (converse)  09:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

How do you start an additional page when manually archiving?
I have just archived Talk:J. K. Rowling and have reached my established 50K archive limit. How do I add the next archive?  Serendi pod ous  01:33, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Go to archive 11, go to the address bar and change the 11 there to a 12, and then click on the link that says "Start the Talk:J. K. Rowling/Archive 12 page". Graham 87 01:47, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
 * To keep the header format the same as is on Talk:J. K. Rowling/Archive 11, you will probably want to add:
 * to the top of the new page.
 * BTW: is there a reason you are using manual archiving instead of one of the archiving bots? It appears to be a lot more work to use your current method. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 02:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
 * BTW: is there a reason you are using manual archiving instead of one of the archiving bots? It appears to be a lot more work to use your current method. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 02:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned archive?
I was searching Talk:Islamic views on slavery and found what appears to be an orphaned archive. I don't know how to make it show in the archive list, so I'm posting here in case someone else does (I figured it'd be better here than disrupting the topical discussion there). --72.227.105.84 (talk) 20:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm looking into it. Posting so as not to duplicate work by multiple people. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The page was created due to an error in the MiszaBot configuration. I have:
 * Moved the page to Talk:Islamic views on slavery/Archive 3
 * Marked the redirect at Talk:Islamic views on slavery/Archive 112 for speedy deletion.
 * Changed the User:MiszaBot/config to be a close approximation to what it was but with some changes:
 * Corrected the archive name which became invalid due to a page move on April 12, 2011‎.
 * Corrected the counter to 4 instead of 112. A new page will be created so as not to disturb any of the current archive pages.
 * Changed the minimum number of threads required to be archived at one time from 10 to 1.
 * Changed the time that threads remain on the page from 10 days to 90 days. At this point, the amount of traffic on the page does not justify 10 days. I also feel it is inappropriate to suddenly spring a 10 day time to archiving on people after no auto-archiving for an extended time.
 * Changed the archive box to automatically detect archives so that maintenance requirements are reduced.
 * The archive box has changed color to the standard colors for talk pages. If you desire to change it to what it was to match the TOC, I left commented out text in the archives template which will do that and a description there as to what to uncomment.
 * Added archive indexing (Although that bot is more or less defunct).
 * That has gotten the archive page in question such that it is available in the links from the talk page. You should also now have a functional archiving configuration. I will watch the page through the first pass of lowercase sigmabot III (lcSB3) to verify that everything is working.  lcSB3 has not done any archiving in the last couple of days so there may be a temporary problem with it and archiving may not start for a day or two. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 22:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Rationale?
Personally, i am completely agreeing with the idea of having archives, and "get" their purpose, but i don't see it properly documented anywhere. Is there any kind of "mission statement" for this Archiving task? (preferrably focused on its usefulness for noticeboards) -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 10:18, 18 May 2014 (UTC)