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GeezerVison is showing en.wikipedia.org — Help:Archiving a talk page - Wikipedia  "WP:ARCHIVE" redirects here. For adding web archives to citations, see Help:Archiving a source and Help:Using the Wayback Machine. For other uses, see WP:Archive (disambiguation).
"WP:AATP" redirects here; not to be confused with Wikipedia:Attack page.
Editors archive old discussions on a talk page when the talk page becomes too large. Archiving is often done automatically by a bot. This page explains how and why to set up archiving and archive search boxes on Wikipedia, offering multiple options and assessments of those options. Quick and easy methodTo set up archiving and add an archive search box to any talk page, copy the code in the box below, edit the active talk page, paste the code after the talk page headers (all the other stuff with curly brackets at the top of the edit box), and save the page: {{subst:Setup auto archiving|archives=yes}} After that, a bot will be along within the next day to start archiving. This should work even if there has already been a previous manual archive.[a] This is an appropriate method for nearly every article talk page. For more details, see {{Setup auto archiving}}. Unusual casesA very small number of talk pages, for various reasons explained in the rest of this document, require consideration of other factors when choosing a bot. The most frequently used bots, which have different strengths, are:
For help on deciding which bot to use, please see the § Choosing a bot guide below. Technical explanationMain page: Help:Archiving a talk page/Details § Naming
There are several standard ways to archive a talk page. Each consists of moving sections from a talk page to an "Archive" subpage. The most common method of naming talk page archives is with sequentially numbered archives. For example:
Remember to use the correct namespace – the part before the colon ( Alternatively, archives are often named chronologically. Archive templates will not automatically detect subpages with unusual names. Archive searchingTo check for possible archives, you can search existing subpages with the box below, including the "Talk:" prefix and the slash at the end to limit your search to discussions:
Alternatively, you can always use the optional search parameter prefix. For example, suppose we want to begin a discussion about adding a security section to the Linux article. Before bringing up the topic we can perform the following search: The templates {{Archives}} and {{Talk header}} have a parameter Manual archivingCut and paste procedureThe most basic way to manually archive a page is to cut the material from the talk page and paste it into an archive. If no archive exists, you will need to create a new subpage. Create the archive subpage at Alternatively, you may occasionally wish to create a topical archive, and use an appropriate name for a topic-specific archive (for example When an archive subpage becomes too large, new archives can be created as needed. When manually creating an archive, add Semi-automated cut and paste procedureMain page: Wikipedia:One click archiving
One click archiving allows you to archive any section of a talk page by clicking a button next to the section. To use this method, you'll need to install a user script. After installing one of the scripts listed below, you will see links next to talk page headers allowing you to archive a section immediately:
Other manual procedures—like moving talk pages to archive subpages—are discouraged. See the discussion at Help talk:Archiving a talk page/Archive 1#Archive standards for rationale. Automated archivingFor plain and simple automated archiving, see Help:Archiving (plain and simple).
ClueBot III and lowercase sigmabot III can automatically create archives for any discussion page (one that has "talk" in the namespace), by moving sections to a subpage when the section has received no comments for a specified period of time. See the ClueBot III page and the lowercase sigmabot III page for detailed instructions on setting up these bots. Those pages explain each of the parameters used, such as Standard namingBoth bots can archive sections into simple sequentially numbered archives (e.g. Commonly used talk page templates such as {{Talk header}} and {{Archives}} will automatically detect archived pages by default if they are named according to the format See the documentation of the respective templates for more details. Choosing a botClueBot III and lowercase sigmabot III, the two bots in current use for automated archiving, are similar in their behaviour, but have some differences in terms of features they implement and limitations on their use:
Some additional historic considerations that used to be a larger factor, but are not as relevant anymore due to DiscussionTools having largely solved the dead-link issue in 2022 with the introduction of talkpermalinks to comments and threads.
The following are example configurations to set up automatic archiving of an article talk page or user talk page. These configuration templates do not produce any visible output, so you should generally also include a template such as Example with sequentially numbered archives
Both of the above examples will create archive pages, as needed, starting with Warning: the magic word {{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}} is replaced by the talk page name when the template is saved to a talk page. However some punctuation characters that can appear in a page name ( Example with archives by year and month
Bot and config detailsThe best age for threads to be archived will vary, depending on talk page activity. The purpose of archiving article talk pages should be to remove stale discussions, not to stifle discussion. Article talk page threads should not typically be archived in less than 30 days except for very busy talk pages. The The configuration template for lowercase sigmabot III is still named {{User:MiszaBot/config}} even though the original bots, MiszaBot I, MiszaBot II, and MiszaBot III, are no longer active. Category:Pages where archive parameter is not a subpageOne limitation of the way automatic archival instructions are set up is how page moves will easily break the functionality. For several reasons, the bots will generally only archive to subpages; that is, the archive must reside as one or more subpages to the talk page in question. When a page is renamed (moved) and the user forgets to also update the bot instructions, this means that no further archiving will take place (until the bot instructions are updated manually). To facilitate identifying cases where archiving is interrupted, the Category:Pages where archive parameter is not a subpage was created. If your talk page isn't archiving properly, you might want to check this category. If your page is included, this indicates that the specified archive pages are incorrect. TemplatesFor archive pagesA template should be placed at the top of each archive page indicating that it is an archive. The simplest such template, which is automatically added (using its earlier names) by ClueBot III and Lowercase sigmabot III, is {{Archive}}. If the page is using sequentially numbered archives, the template will add navigation links to earlier and later archives (example). The archiving bots can be configured to use templates like this using the For talk pagesThere are many templates that can be placed on talk pages to make the page's archives visible and accessible to editors. These can be broadly divided into "boxes" (which generally appear floating to the right of the table of contents), and banners. Some pages use one or the other, and some use both. Templates dedicated to archiving should generally be placed last, after all other talk templates, but before the discussions proper. Archive link boxesOn regularly archived talk pages, it is useful to have an "archive box" template. Common usage is to place the archive box below other header templates and before the first section heading so that the box appears to the right of the table of contents. If the page already has a manual archive box, add the link to the new archive page to it. If there is no archive box yet, you may want to set one up. The most common archive box template is {{Archives}}. It has a significant number of options. The
For a box with an automatically generated archive list with a search bar. {{Archives}} can be used without any extra parameters.
For a box with a manual archive list and a search bar {{Archives|List of archives}} can be used. For the box to the right the code is: {{tlp|Archives| *[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_1|2003–2006]] *[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_2|2006–2007]] *[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_3|2007–2009]] *[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_4|2008–2014]] *[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_5|2014–2019]]}}
For a box with both an automatic and manual list {{Archives|List of archives}} can be used. The example below for Template talk:Archives where the archives for the old {{archive box}} template are shown use the following code:
This template just demonstrate a lot of the parameters. Most of them are quite self explanatory. {{archives | auto = short | search = no | root = Help talk:Archiving a talk page | collapsible = yes | collapsed = yes | style = background-color:#FFAAAA; width:140px | title = These are the archives! | image = File:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png | image-size = 60px | bot = Lowercase sigmabot III | age = 1 | units = year }} Automatic archive boxes for year/month archivesAutomatic archive boxes for Year/Month archives are a bit more complicated. The most common method is by using the {{Archives by months}} template to generate links to your existing archives. It produces a live link for each existing archive month within a year. It is commonly used in something similar to:
The above code produces the archive box to the above right. The example here has no month names which are links because there are no archive files for this page. You can, of course, delete the lines for the years you don't want. The default for the {{Archives by months}} template is that archive page names are in the format If you are using ClueBot III, it has a couple of additional options for creating an archive box. These involve the use of either the Archive link bannerInstead of putting the archive links in a box that floats to the right or left, some prefer the links in a banner like {{Talk header}}. Yearly and alphabetic archives are automatically detected in addition to regular sequential archives. A search box is included by default if archive subpages exist, and if the page is archived by a bot an auto archiving notice will be automatically included.
The archive links show up in a row at the bottom of the above banner. For a real world example see Talk:Proxima Centauri. Archive indexingHaving an archive index makes finding old discussions on a given topic easier, particularly in pages with many archives, or when the archives are of considerable size. An archive index, when one exists, is typically stored on the page Legobot, formerly HBC Archive Indexerbot, can create an archive index page based on a set of archives. See the bot's instructions for details on how to set up archive indexing. Legobot generated archive indexes are the most commonly available type of index. To set up Legobot archiving you have to create your
ClueBot III automatically creates an archive index when archiving. ClueBot III stores the archive indexes it creates on unique pages in its user space. The archive index for the page you are archiving can be transcluded onto your Resume discussions
Generally, editors should start new discussions, and leave archived old discussions untouched. The exception is when a thread is deemed having been archived prematurely, such as when it is still relevant to current work or was not concluded. In those cases, per WP:PREMATUREARCHIVE it is permissible to 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. May I edit an archived talk page?Rarely, with few exceptions.[b] Talk page archives should not be edited to change the substantive meaning of discussions or disrupt their context;[c] they should only be edited to remove specific material that breaches certain policies.[d] When does a talk page become "too large"?There is no consensus on prescribing any given size when a talk page is deemed too large. This is left up to local consensus on each page. (WP:TALKSIZE) The length of user talk pages, and the need for archiving, is left up to each editor's own discretion. (WP:OWNTALK) When setting up automated archiving by bots, values for the relevant parameters ( Example pages
Here are actual discussion pages on Wikipedia where you can study the code to see how archive pages were created.
StatisticsAs of 7 June 2026, the number of archives for the top five articles with the most archived Talk pages was:
See quarry:query/106075 for current archive counts of the top 200. See also
Notes
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