Help talk:Archiving a talk page/Archive 2

message: If you archive your talk, should you be required to provide links on your main talk page to those archives? I realize its polite, but wouldn't it be seen as the same as blanking the comments by moving them to subpages that the average person can't easily find? --Crossmr 02:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think that absolutely should be required. It is standard procedure and there is no reason not to do it. An editor should not be required to attempt spellings "archive 1", "archive1", etc. —Centrx→talk • 20:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I've seen that its one thing to remove old benign discussions, its another to remove warnings and discussions that indicate a behaviour problem. I've been told it can be construed as trying to hide the evidence of your past behaviour (even though you can look at the old content via the history) its not readily available.--Crossmr 19:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree, and have seen many references to that. Further, if someone is making an archive, I don't see why they would not just link to it. However, I do not know of any specific prohibition on not archiving, and if a user is in good standing they will be more likely to hide accolades than admonition, perhaps not the case for the user in question. —Centrx→talk • 19:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This goes to the case below where I left an NPA, warning on their page and few hours later when they came back to wikipedia they immediately archived their page.Given past history it looks like they're trying to hide that, but I don't want to turn it into a gong show by reverting as the user and I had just finished a debate about unsourced content, (which is where he earned the NPA warning). I'm finding it very difficult to balance following rules and policies and ensuring they're being followed and not looking like I'm hounding someone.--Crossmr 21:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note, however, that archiving recent vandalism warnings is not acceptable, but without evaluating the user's actions, a personal attack notice might not qualify under that. —Centrx→talk • 03:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving links 

message: A major problem with the move method is ongoing discussions. After move, the history for several discussions is, then, not present on the same page while the discussion is ongoing, and when the discussion that was ongoing at the time of the archival is eventually archived in a later archive, its history is not part of the archive. —Centrx→talk • 20:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh? You're not supposed to archive ongoing discussions... ~MDD4696 20:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, exactly, but using the move method, the Talk page is moved to another archive, with its page history. This move includes ongoing discussions, which I have seen are then copied back to the main page by the archiver. Yet the history of the ongoing discussions remains in the page history of the archive. —Centrx→talk • 20:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, very very good point! ~MDD4696 22:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: So the better reason for the move method is to ensure a true copy, not to segment page history? —Centrx→talk • 19:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with the move method 

message: If someone archives a discussion and an NPA warning tag, the same day they were had (even if the discussion might technically be over), should it be reverted? Seet this User_talk:Davidkevin for what I'm talking about. The user seems to have a history reading his archived talk about trying to insert unsourcable information, and in trying to debate his point this time, he resorted to a personal attack (which again from the talk he may have also had issues with in the past). As I only placed the text today and he's already archived it, it looks to me as though he's trying to hide it. Any advice? --Crossmr 19:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See my comment at Wikipedia talk:Resolving disputes#Salman. —Centrx→talk • 03:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving same-day 

message: I am considering merging some old archives on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) as some of them span only a couple of days and two screenfuls of comments. Is there any reason not to do this, with redirects from the old archive pages? It would greatly facilitate searching the archives because the number of links needed to be opened and searched would be greatly reduced. —Centrx→talk • 03:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds OK to me – Gurch 12:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as the changes are accurate and representative of the original discussion, I see no problem. Just make sure you have good edit summaries. ~MDD4696 16:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging short archives 

message: Is there any easy way to restrict a search to the archives of a page? I hate asking a question on a Talk: page only to be told wearily that it's already been answered on Archives 4,7,11, and 21.  jnestorius(talk) 00:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Searching archives

message: Should there be a policy on archiving too often? Sometimes I've commented in a talk page only to find that (usually a new user) has archived it all a minute later. This isn't a major problem as far as I can see it, but it sure is frustrating not being able to link to any official policy on it when it occurs.--Badharlick 17:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure if it is neither necessary nor useful. It would be like making a policy on common sense. Might it be better to just politely suggest to the person of alternative methods and their advantages? --Swift 19:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Over-Archiving

message: Archives can become very bothersome, especially when a lot of discussion is moved to the archive without bothering to summarize relevant results. Archival hints can give important hints to archivars and help them to distinguish relevant and irrelevant content. A standardized remark section at the top of a talk page can help to find the most relevant discussions quickly, even when already archived. --Fasten 20:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is it takes a significant amount of time to summarize archives. They should be copied verbatim also anyway, and they can be searched. Anyone is free to summarize if they want, but you can't force anyone to do it and it is not necessary. —Centrx→talk • 02:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I didn't mention forcing anybody to do anything. The idea is to give a recommendation from the authors of a thread to the archiving editor what kind of archival they would like to see. It could be a requirement to link to the last history entry of a thread from the summary. This way anybody could conveniently see the discussion in full if the summary seemed inadequate. --Fasten 10:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rationale 

message: Is it ever appropriate to archive parts of a talk page instead of archiving the entire page?  --Milo H Minderbinder 12:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is usually appropriate to do that. Recent discussions should not be archived, and usually pages require archiving while discussions are on-going. —Centrx→talk • 00:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense.  But what about archiving bits and pieces of a page, not based on age but handpicking individual posts?  --Milo H Minderbinder 01:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think WP:REFACTOR answers your question. The way I see it archiving entire pages irrespective of the content is just laziness. --Fasten 09:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Partial Archival 

message: What, exactly, is the problem with using werdnabot on article talk pages? If threads are getting tucked away too quickly, increase the "age" threshhold to a suitable figure. If a section of a talk page has not been touched for a couple months, it probably does not need to remain in plain sight (and there's a good chance it was flame bait anyway). If something (is so important that it) needs to stay on the main talk page indefinitely, it should probably be put above the first section header, where people can notice it right away. Significant items such as "this article was nominated for deletion" usually take the form of a big brown box rather than a signed comment, and thus would not be accidentally archived due the lack of timestamp.
Alternatively a "no-archive" directive could be specified. Post-date a dummy comment with the year 2525 if need be, but between now and then let's try asking the bot's operator to address our concerns instead of completely shutting it out. —freak([ talk]) 04:34, Oct. 29, 2006 (UTC)
:This assumes that articles will stay at the same level of high activity. What often happens is a month after Werdnabot is added, no one is active at the article any more, the talk page becomes totally empty, then someone comes by and adds a comment to do something about the article, no one responds to it, then it gets archived. There is no reason to archive a page if it is not lengthy. With user talk pages there is a single person who is normally in sole control over the talk page—it is a page for sending him messages—and with administrative noticeboards the page is so active and always has dozens upon dozens of people watching it and responding that few if any comments will be missed. Articles have a spurt of some insane activity—during which it is simple to do an archive every week—then eventually the participants leave. —Centrx→talk • 04:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A better way to do the bot would be to have it check the length of the talk page and if it is very long to simply archive the oldest messages before a certain time, rather than having a fixed time interval which for most articles would should be 300 days or more not 30 or 3. —Centrx→talk • 04:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good idea, and from a programming standpoint, it's actually easier (byte count vs. regex'ing various idiosyncratic timestamp formats). In any case I think it's something that should be decided on a case-by-case basis, by the people who actually frequent the talk page, rather than being subject to global deprecation (or encouragement). —freak([ talk]) 04:52, Oct. 29, 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the current issue on the article page. There are times when these bots could/are very useful, for example with a page like: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. However for many articles there is a flurry of activity on the talk page and then it dies down, and when that happens the arguments Centrx is advancing becomes true. However I think it is worth mentioning the bots on the article page because if ever I need to set up such an archiving method I would like to come to a central place to see what they are, rather than grubbing around in past archive looking for a half remembered conversation. If this page can have a link to another page which lists them so much the better --PBS 09:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: werdnabot

message: Are you going to respond to the reasons I have given rather than revert warring? —Centrx→talk • 18:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is disappointing that there has been little response to your postings on this page on issue one way or another, so IMHO you have not yet built a consensus for the change, because I for one am not convinced by your arguments. --PBS 01:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have not explained what is wrong with them, or even which of the changes are wrong. Wholesale reverting is not productive. Not communicating is not productive. There does not need to be a poll for every change to every instructional page or guideline on Wikipedia. Explain what is wrong with it. —Centrx→talk • 01:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: A poll is not needed by a consensus is. There is no evidence that there is such a consensus. Personally I do not like the changes because they emphasise, and therefore encourage, the use of one method over the others. I am not against the page being changed, it is far from perfect. But I am against promoting one method over the others. --PBS 07:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, so your objection is about having cut-and-paste being the first and main method, and the others being alternative methods in subsections. —Centrx→talk • 07:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reorganisation again 

message: Maybe we should use the cut & paste method, and add a link to the version of the talk page just before archiving. Diff links would still be valid, and someone looking for the history of the archived discussion has a link going straight there. What downsides might this method have? Jobarts-Talk 22:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a good idea. The text at the linked revision would not be exactly the same as the archive, because most archiving copies all the older discussions, rather than all the discussions on the page, but it would still be helpful to ensure the archive is accurate or for anyone who would otherwise scroll through the history to find the revision. —Centrx→talk • 06:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: cut & paste + permalink 

message: Is it convention to place the archive of a talk page as a subpage of the talk page or of the article itself?  The instructions at the top of the Subpage archive method section are a bit confusing and make it sound like it could be either way.  Personally, the former method makes the most sense to me, but I'm not too familiar with how things are usually done.  Thanks,  Dallben 23:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a subpage of the talk page. This both makes sense because it is an archive of that very page of which it is a talk page, and is also necessary because the article namespace does not allow subpages so any archive there would show up as just another "article". —Centrx→talk • 23:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!  That is what I thought it meant, but because the instructions used the Article/Archive # example, I was a little confused.  (I guess it doesn't yet seem natural to think of a Talk:Article page as an article itself).  Maybe there's a better way to word that section?  Either way, thanks again.  Dallben 23:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subpage Location Convention 

message: I saw recently on User talk:Saoshyant an archive method different to the two on this article, which uses the hidden comment () tags to prevent old content from being displayed; something like:
 
 
  
 
 current discussions
This method, I think is valuable because it fully preserves page history (the only change caused by archiving is the addition of hidden comment tags); rather than removing it from the comments (cut & paste method) or breaking it for current discussions (move method).
Alternatively, using  tags and transcluding the page to a subpage would give an active discussion, and a complete version at talk page/archive.
A disadvantage would be that multiple archives would not be possible. 
Before I add this to the page, I thought I would ask if others agree that this is a valuable method. Thanks, Jonabofftalk 19:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unlikely. The size of the page would just increase endlessly, taking longer and longer to load and edit. This would be a very bad archival method; the whole point of archiving is to get rid of this stuff. —Centrx→talk • 19:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair comment, I had not thought of this. It does make sense. Thanks, Jonabofftalk 19:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another archive method 

message: I created a template  for the top of archive pages... it is just the normal  with the navigation features from  that I find quite useful. The layout could be improved, but all-in-all, I really like it. I realize there might already be such a template, but I haven't found one. The idea is that there should be one template I can use on top of the archive page that does it all for me, and this one comes close to it. I have only tried it at Talk:The_God_Delusion/Archive_2, but since it is basically just  there should be no problems. Any opinions? --Merzul 21:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template Atnhead, adding atn to the normal talkarchive heading 

message: Is it appropriate to edit talk page archives when performing maintainance such as userbox migration?  I noticed  had edited some talk page archives  here, here and here, and reverted the changes in the belief that the archive is a historical record and should reflect what was actually being discussed, not updated to reflect subsequent changes and page moves.  But  suggested that adjusting the archive would be appropriate, because the history of the template being discussed had been moved.  What's the general sentiment about editing or updating links on archive pages? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My experience and observation is that this practice is based on context...so I cannot say what is black and white; maybe someone more informed can chime in and let me know too. --HappyCamper 17:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: This changes the statements by the other user and changes the record of the discussion. The user Jamdav86 never created anything at User:UBX/Doctor Who, and if someone were to read the archive they would get the false impression that the userboxes had already been in userspace at User:UBX in December 2005. I do not see any reason why archives should not simply be searchable records of the page history with the added bonus that naive users won't maul the active talk page by accidentally editing a permanent link archive. —Centrx→talk • 16:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to archive pages 

message: Can we add a section on if someone dosn't want to do it themself, what they can do to have it done, like use Template:Archiveme.  → p00rleno (lvl 85) ←ROCKSCRS 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  archiveme template 

message: from the introduction:
"The only exception to this are warnings of vandalism and other abuse on IP talk pages. These must be retained so that admins can readily apply or remove edit blocks"
Perhaps I'm a bit ignorant but... What's an IP talk page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by John Smith (nom de guerre) (talk • contribs) 11:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP Talk Pages 

message: I know there is Special:Longpages for the main article space, but is there an equivalent for the talk namespace? That would be a useful tool for someone wishing to help archive talk pages.-Andrew c 02:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is an answer to this, could you contact me on my talk page please? Thanks.-Andrew c 18:07, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any way to find longpages? 

message: Actually, a lot more than just talk pages are archived. Simply south 18:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean? I think the only other things that are archived separate from the page history are various noticeboards. —Centrx→talk • 15:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are various discussion type pages which are not notice board pages, which are archived, but they are predominanly Wikipedia pages. Simply south 16:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Such as...? —Centrx→talk • 03:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: Woa, I came to this page wondering how to archive a talk page. And have to admit, after 5 minutes, I have no idea.
Could you please clarify the sentence "There are two main methods for archiving a talk page, detailed below."
I can't work out which are the 'two' that are mentioned. There is no numbering, there are no clear headings to indicate two different methods. There's at least 3 headings (of various boldness) with the word 'method' in it... spurrymoses 13:00, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The usual way is, simply, cut the old sections out of the talk page, paste them into a subpage, like "Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive 1", slap a  tag on top of it, and put a link to the archive from the main talk page. —Centrx→talk • 16:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Huh?

message: Wikipedia:new contributors' help page is getting huge and I feel that the page should be archived, but it isn't a talk page and I'm confused on how to go about this and if I should. Should I just have werdnabot archive sections older than 14(?) days or should i do this differently because it is not a talk page. Thanks, Urdna 17:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving a Wikipedia Page