Help talk:Archiving a talk page/Archive 6

Sequentially numbered archives section
Is there any reason we don't just put the code for this into the table at the bottom of each set of code to be copied instead of providing this instruction:

In general, you should include (to provide a search box) along with the content of one the following columns (starting with {{|undefined and ending with }}|undefined).

Wouldn't it be simpler if people could just copy/paste the whole thing, all together? When would the average editor needing this help page ever not want to provide a search box/index of archives on a talk page? —valereee (talk) 11:27, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The only case I can think of for not including a search box is if Talk header, which adds an archive search box unless specified otherwise, is on the page. Graham 87 14:45, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * @Graham87, so is that common enough that we need to treat it as the default? Because I'm thinking maybe the opposite is true. —valereee (talk) 00:25, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (FWIW, I always prefer to be pinged, but I now see you didn't ping me so maybe that's my clue you prefer not to be? Sorry, if that's so, I'll try to remember not to ping if that's what you prefer!) —valereee (talk) 00:27, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't mind either way ... just didn't even think about pinging. Old habits die hard! Yeah it's probably not common enough to be treated as a default. Feel free to make any edits you like re this part of the help page. Graham 87 02:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Okeydoke, I've made that change, we'll see if anyone disagrees. :) —valereee (talk) 13:27, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, sounds good! Graham 87 14:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I had long ago considered doing this, but instead of the way you did it I considered placing the " {{ Archive..." around the names already in the first row of the table. I the reason I did not do that was for two reasons: Therefore I am reverting the edit until a consensus for change can be agreed. -- PBS (talk) 11:55, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) The instructions are helpful for editors who are not familiar with templates in explaining what needs to be cut and pasted.
 * 2) For the same reason explaining that difference between the templates is useful in helping a novice to understand that they are doing. This is doubly so as you placed the two distinct templates into the table without making it clear that neither of which directly rely on the other).


 * @PBS, that's fine, I knew someone might object!
 * I guess my argument is the shortest simplest effective instruction is the best, and right now the instruction is, "cut and paste the stuff in the box below, and then also cut and paste this other bit of markup and paste it at the bottom of what you've just cut and pasted, and then add the correct bot name in the correct place".
 * Why not just put all the markup into the cut-paste box correctly formatted and say "cut and paste this"?
 * I feel like I've come across multiple pages that are getting archived, but to where? Because someone who probably didn't notice the second "Oh yeah, also do this" part of the instruction just cut and pasted the stuff in the box. And I don't even know how to fix that...I suspect simply adding the second cut-paste at this late date isn't correct...it might do something weird to the numbering?...hm, don't want to break it worse...so I end up going to the help desk and asking someone more competent if they can fix it. And how many people would even bother to do that but instead would just shrug and move on, or not even notice the page was archiving but there was no index?
 * IMO, the job of this help page isn't to teach people how to use templates. The job of this help page is to make sure archives are added correctly to talk pages.
 * And frankly being a novice has nothing to do with that. I come back here literally every time I need to add an archive, and while I've figured out there are two bits of markup I need to cut/paste, it's a pain to have to cut-paste, cut-paste again, then come back and make sure I've spelled the name of the bot correctly when I added it. Why can't I just have a neat-and-tidy single cut-paste that I don't have to then make changes to? I mean, if I need to just add that to my own user, I guess I can, but I have to believe there are other people who are doing the exact same thing. —valereee (talk) 13:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * @—valereee I have made an edit to address the points you raised (as I agree that a cut and past option is desireable), but also keeping what I think is important in way of an explanation for novice editors or those editors not familiar with templates. If you object to the change then revert the change and we an discuss it further. -- PBS (talk) 12:20, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * @PBS, but why is even two cut-pastes required? I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be obstinate, but the entire rest of the page is available for people who want to learn more about this process, plus multiple other instructional pages for people who want to dig deeper. The point of a help page on archives is to get pages archived correctly, not to force people to learn something before allowing them to do this otherwise simple task. 95% of this help page seems to be directed at people who already understand most of this stuff. Literally the only part I'm interested in is section 4.2.
 * Maybe a TLDR section headed "Archiving for dummies" that just has a straight cut-paste of Cluebot III and one instruction: "Copy and paste unchanged below the header section of the page you want archived"? That would be fine with me, and then those who do want to know more can find it elsewhere on the page? —valereee (talk) 14:14, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not ignoring your last comment, but as we disagree on how best to present the information on this help page (particularly for inexperienced users), I am waiting for others to enter the discussion, in the hope we can build a consensus. -- PBS (talk) 14:29, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * {{u|PBS}}, {{u|valereee}} I just came to this talk page searching for an old conversation I had somewhere. I can't find it now, but I think this help page is one of the most confusing ones on Wikipedia. I still find it confusing even though I have set up talk page archiving a couple of times now. "Archiving for dummies" at the top is 100% the best and I would love that.
 * On a different note: I still find the comparisons between ClueBot III and lowercase sigmabot III confusing too. Is it just me or has ClueBot only advantages? but then: why is no one using it? or is it about the delay? Mvbaron (talk) 16:23, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * @Mvbaron, I agree, from the comparison chart in section 4.1, to me it looks like Cluebot III is the clear choice. It's the only one I use. —valereee (talk) 13:36, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Needs a nutshell!
This is an absurdly long wall of text to not have a nutshell summary. WP:V's:

V 0.01:


 * Agree. Situation still absurd. Does the above accomplish "Use this substitution template to insert an auto-archive header that is maximally self-documenting, an Archive notice banner, archive box with search." or still ?  Not sure if the code is right but I've improved the display.  Template:Archiveme spouts this hogwash: "If you see this and you'd like to set up automatic archival, please find easy instructions at Help:Archiving a talk page#Automated archiving."! Plus this, which is contradicted below - "Before setting up automatic archiving on an article's talk page, please establish a consensus that archiving is really needed there."--50.201.195.170 (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I added a nutshell, not sure it's quite right, including a link to a page I've just created with plain and simple instructions for people who aren't interested in understanding everything on this page. —valereee (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Retroactive?
I've been on here for years, but have been intimidated by the coding and such. So I'm JUST getting around to putting an archive on my unwieldy talk page. However, I've just added it and don't see anything different. Is there a way to auto-archive sections on my talk page retroactively? Like, I kind of only want the comments there for the last year. How is this done?--Criticalthinker (talk) 09:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The new archiving instruction on your talk page looks fine to me. Currently, "old(182d)" asks for archiving after six months, so if you want to retain threads for a whole year, you should increase that to "old(365d)". The archiving instruction doesn't take effect instantly, but the archiving bot should be along within 24 hours to act on your instruction. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:36, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, if it's not instant, then that answer my question. I guess I'll be patient. Thank you, . --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:43, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Forcing the bot to archive now
How do I force a bot to archive now? I'd like to archive some sections in Talk:Artificial intelligence. Pin me if you answer. CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:00, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The easiest way to archive sections *immediately* is to use OneClickArchiver. Normally you could temporarily decrease the archiving period to get the bot to archive a section, but Lowercase sigmabot III is down at the moment ... it should be back up soon though. Graham 87 06:15, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * And it editie this very page about four hours after my last message. Graham 87 15:45, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Best Practice - Consensus - Initiating archiving bots
Hi, is there a best practice page (sort of process) how to know when to archive a talk page? I'm editing several articles recently and talk pages contain very old information (sections, comments). Initiating a section suggesting the use of one of the archive bots would be my idea. But how and when to reach consensus? Wait for how many votes/users to comment? In other words, how to implement archiving? Of course I feel good about adding/applying a bot, but before doing so, would like to hear some feedback on this. Thanks.--𝔏92934923525 (talk) 10:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * @17387349L8764, you don't need consensus to set up archiving. If someone objects, which is unlikely, they can open a section and ping you for discussion. —valereee (talk) 13:43, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you @Valereee, will kick it off then. --17387349L8764 (talk) 13:47, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The page currently says . Does that need to be updated? —2d37 (talk) 23:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that seems really odd. valereee (talk) 15:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Editing archives
In some cases, we may need to edit archives with minor (non-significant) modifications. This page doesn't seem to discuss this case. By example, section which are archived but seems unfinished / unprocessed, while they actually were processed. Adding a clear ✅ ✅ or closing remark helps to an archived discussion helps. Fixing a link helps. There are various cases when such marginal edits are ok, so a section "Editing archives" should discuss such case with do and don't. Yug (talk)  🐲 20:11, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Support for an "Editing archives" section. Or we can rename the "Continuing discussions" section to this, and enhance for the cases where editing an archive in allowed. What are the cases, can we edit an archive to avoid a double-redirect or when a shortcut has changed? Jay (talk) 07:43, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, there is a discussion happening at Village pump (policy), which says that the "Continuing_discussions" sections seems to contradict another archive guideline. The help page makes a statement Given that archived discussions are immutable. This is without a context, and no previous mention of immutability with reference to an archive. Jay (talk) 06:02, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll make the change as per that discussion archived here: WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 171. Jay (talk) 16:31, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Archival dependencies among discussions on different pages
I'm thinking about whether something should be done to link two (or more) discussions on different pages that have archival dependencies, either due to WP:SELTRANS or simply subject linkage, with the second (let's say, active and lively) discussion relying a great deal on items within the first one (quiescent, close to triggering the bot). Basically, this would be a feature saying that "discussion A depends upon discussion B, and shouldn't be archived while B is still open". Maybe something like a change to Do not archive until in order to accept a new named parameter, Other page#Some section for example. If considered desirable, this would require changes to the archive bots to support it, but first we should see if there's even support for the idea. Mathglot (talk) 22:15, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Seems like a good idea to me! valereee (talk) 14:43, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

which help page should be at this title?
I'm kind of wondering if Help:Archiving (plain and simple) ought to be at this location, and this page ought to be at Help:Archiving (technical)? I just feel like the average person looking for instructions is going to be more helped by the simple cut/paste page vs. this long description of every possible configuration? valereee (talk) 18:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm quite tempted by that idea tbh. Archiving is a mess and almost noone cares about the details. --Trialpears (talk) 19:23, 18 January 2022 (UTC)


 * And the folks who are interested in the tech details will still easily find them. valereee (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ehh it doesn't bother me either way, as long as all the pages (and the archives) are moved properly). This page used to be even worse. Graham 87 02:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @Graham87, based on your comment, I'm not confident I know how to make sure everything is moved properly. Would you be willing to check my work? valereee (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure. If you make sure that " Leave a redirect behind" is unchecked and the box to move subpages is checked, things should go reasonably smoothly. Graham 87 03:57, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Trialpears, would you be willing to make this move, based on the fact we've had no objections in over a month? I am cautious about making it myself because of the expressed concern about moving the archives correctly, as it sounds like that might be something I could screw up if Twinkle doesn't automatically assist. valereee (talk) 16:29, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Archives start at 0 or 1?
I feel this is an important part of the procedure that isn't mentioned. Should the first archive be archive 0 or achive 1? BrigadierG (talk) 12:07, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * They start at 1; see the examples of archive lists. Graham 87 14:37, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

What happens if a bot archives a discussion that is still notable and may need to continue?
What happens if a bot archives a discussion that is still notable and may need to continue? Krystal Kalb (talk) 02:53, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:ARCHIVENOTDELETE says "If a thread has been archived prematurely, such as when it is still relevant to current work or was not concluded, unarchive it by copying it back to the talk page from the archive, and deleting it from the archive. Do not unarchive a thread that was effectively closed; instead, start a new discussion and link to the archived prior discussion." In most cases, I think starting a new thread is preferable. Going forward you can use Pin message. It is probably best to discuss this issue on the relevant talk page to establish consensus for this specific case. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 03:08, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

New subpage behaviour?
I created a talk page subpage for an archive just now and instead of a blank page that I would simply add the 'AAN' template to I got a complicated screen inviting me to start a new discussion. This seems new to me, is there any way to bypass it and carry on as normal? Thanks Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)  18:25, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * A better place for this question would be the technical village pump. Graham 87 00:42, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I was hoping to encounter editors who regularly archive talk pages here. I will ask over there. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)  07:49, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It is new behaviour, to disable it select 'open wikitext editor' in Special:Preferences. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)  08:31, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

How many days of inactive discussion should a page be archived
In the end, I think 14 days should be enough for archiving. However some discussions are extreme and in the news topic, there are a lot of discussion, so we can archive sooner than 14 days? Thingofme (talk) 03:34, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It depends on the page and the situation. For many pages, 14 days is far too quick because they don't get many discussions and issues can sometimes take years to be resolved. That's why the minthreads parameter exists. Graham 87 05:33, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Graham87 what is minithread parameter? Venkat TL (talk) 11:41, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The minthreads parameter determines how many threads should be left on the page after an archive bot has performed its archiving operation. Graham 87 12:33, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Adding two cents, echoing Graham87: I finally decided to investigate how archiving works partly in frustration with overly aggressive archiving. For talk pages with infrequent additions, there is no need to sweep away discussions after a couple weeks and leave a mostly blank talk page. Often past discussions, esp. ones that establish notable points of consensus for an article, can remain relevant for months or years. The minthreads parameter seems like an excellent idea. CAVincent (talk) 05:17, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Gracefully migrating from User:HBC Archive Indexerbot
I'd like to get the archiving working again on Talk:Stanley Kubrick. However, there's massive archives there already, and I fear breaking things if I just yank out User:HBC Archive Indexerbot and stuff Miszabot in its place - as I'm not all that skilled at backend work. Is it actually the case that if I did as I just mentioned, everything would transparently work? If not, is there a guide somewhere on migrating from one to the other? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 21:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you've had a major mixup between HBC Archive Indexerbot, an archive-indexing bot, and lowercase sigmabot III (formerly the MiszaBots, which actually performs the automated archiving. The archiving bot is doing exactly what it's told to do because there are precisely five level-two sections on the page, so your first edit was a good thing to try, but your second edit wasn't. Graham 87 07:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Checking out the discussions further, I realised that there isn't really much point in keeping them open, so I went and archived them all manually to Talk:Stanley Kubrick/Archive 14. Graham 87 07:34, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * My confusion here was clearly rampant! Appreciate the fix. I keep running across talk pages that either haven't ever been archived even though an archiver is in place - or pages with seemingly working archives - with a handful of comments dating from the early 2000's that are never caught by them. I've got a lot of reading to do... cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 07:57, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The former problem can be because of the spam blacklist or an archiver misconfiguration, and the latter problem is common because signature formats used to be different (and because there are many early unsigned/improperly signed messages). Graham 87 15:46, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In that vein, having poked around some, I assume you're familiar with User:Enterprisey/archiver? Is that a good solution for dealing with such one-off cases without incurring too much personal-bandwidth-overhead, so to speak? (I guess I could have just asked 'is that easy?' but excessive verbosity is my forté). cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 18:42, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've heard of it but I'm not usually a script person (compared to most Wikipedians) and it doesn't really fit my workflow anyway; when archiving I like to fix unsigned/badly signed comments along the way. But I guess if it helps you, you can use it ... Graham 87 02:49, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Editing an archived talk page
What happens if you edit an archived talk page?Cwater1 (talk) 23:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Most likely either nothing at all or someone gets a bit annoyed at you, but there really shouldn't be any reason for you to do so. Editing old comments just makes it difficult to follow the discussion and to know what was said, replying to an archived thread will likely not give you any answers and messing around with formating or templates on such a page is basically just a waste of time with few exceptions. --Trialpears (talk) 23:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * True, but it's fine to edit an archive page if you're fixing a problem with it, or if a bunch of super-old talk page comments refuse to auto-archive because of incompatible or no signature lines on them. But for just about any other purpose besides that, it accomplishes nothing. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 03:09, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I see. To continue a conversation, start a new one or go to the users talk page.Cwater1 (talk) 02:13, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Moving talk archives
I think this may require special handling. The page Talk:Killing of Caylee Anthony is partially broken, because the archives were not moved when the article was renamed from 'Death of Caylee Anthony'. I was trying to fix the autoarchiving, and became lost because even though it shows that archiving is in place, there were no archives linked on the page. So I think this needs someone with page mover grants...? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 01:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It doesn't necessarily need page-move rights but they do make things a lot faster. I've done all the relevant moves. Graham 87 01:50, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks very kindly, Graham. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 02:14, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A separate - though related - question though. As I was poking at the header to try to "fix" things (I abandoned doing so as it was sure to be a mess) I noticed that the Miszabot configs had a couple of 'blp' configs:
 * But I looked around at the relevant pages regarding both misza and lowercasesigmabot, and couldn't find those fields, though it's certainly possible I didn't look thoroughly enough. Are they valid fields? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 02:19, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I noticed those too but I didn't check any deeper because they didn't seem to be doing any harm ... I'd never encountered those parameters before in an archiving template either. Using a few iterations of WikiBlame I found out they were added in this edit by Yobot. I've gone and removed them. Graham 87 16:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I noticed those too but I didn't check any deeper because they didn't seem to be doing any harm ... I'd never encountered those parameters before in an archiving template either. Using a few iterations of WikiBlame I found out they were added in this edit by Yobot. I've gone and removed them. Graham 87 16:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism in archived talk pages
Archived talk pages generally have a notification reading "Do not edit the contents of this page." Does this apply if a talk page has been vandalized, then archived? Is it OK to remove the vandalism in this cases, or should it be left as is?

For the purposes of this, "vandalism" means the most blatant of the blatant -- editing somebody else's comment and/or template to include crude vandalism along the lines of "i fucked your mom," making it appear that they originally said it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:21, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, if I saw something like that, I would fix up the archive, giving a clear edit summary. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, will do (unfortunately this isn't a hypothetical...). Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I've encountered this situation several times. The admonition about not editing archives doesn't apply at all to maintenance edits such as removing vandalism, adding more text that hadn't been archived before, etc. Graham 87 15:27, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Help
Can someone please explain how to archive a single discussion thread on a talk page? Thanks. Sng Pal (talk) 07:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You can use User:Evad37/OneClickArchiver. Graham 87 07:54, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

lead
In the lead we say

Archiving one's own user talk page is optional; some users simply blank the page, as the history is kept available for future reference, but this is not considered the best practice (as it makes things more difficult to find and link). For this specific case, the use of "permalinks" can provide an easy way to display an archived view of a talk page at a given moment, though there's no control on thread organization or presentation. Removal of content from your user talk page, such as warnings posted by others, is considered evidence you have seen the content; this is true whether the removal was manual or automatic. (emph mine)

This isn't making sense to me -- is the bolded sentence actually specifically about user talk pages? Valereee (talk) 14:27, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've removed that sentence. It was added in May 2010 and is a holdover from when this page listed multiple procedures, including permalinking, before this 2012 RFC. When permalinking was used it was most common historically on the village pump pages (see the "old series" archive links at Village pump archive) and user talk pages. Graham 87 16:23, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * +1 Valereee (talk) 16:24, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

How long before the bot kicks in?
From here, I pasted this:

at Talk:Derek_Williams_(musician) over the weekend, below all the curly bracket info at the top of the page, and according to the article above, the archiving should have kicked in within a couple of days. The bot has worked elswhere I have used it. Any suggestions as to why this is not working? Chrisdevelop (talk) 14:01, 19 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Looking at the parameters of the template it created, it has   - this means the bot will always leave at least 5 threads (header level 2 sections) on the page before it attempts to archive any, and Talk:Derek Williams (musician) is currently sitting at just 3, so the bot won't attempt to archive any threads right now. Aidan9382 (talk) 14:25, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! As the threads are very long and very old, I have reduced to 3 to see if that cleans up the talk bloat. Chrisdevelop (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That won't help because there are only three threads on that page. The threads aren't *that* long or old compared to many threads on other Wikipedia talk pages; I wouldn't have set up archiving on that page, to be honest. Graham87 (talk) 03:15, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Feedback requested: use of 'archiveN' as subpage name for active, non-archival page
The Featured articles process appears to regularly use pagenames of the form  for active, ongoing discussion. I raised a discussion about this, and your feedback would be welcome at WT:Featured article candidates. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:52, 7 November 2023 (UTC)