Template talk:Talk header

message: Would it be worthwhile to add this functionality to Template:Archives as well? Tollens (talk) 23:30, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Tollens, I had just noticed that template during the updates for this one, and had the same thought. That said, let's give this one a chance to air, and if there's no strong objections to it here, then I think your idea makes good sense as a follow-on change. P.S. no ping needed; I'm subscribed.  Mathglot (talk) 23:47, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

text: I have something in the sandbox there, but it's not working yet. I basically got lost in a twisty little maze of curlies, all alike, and trying to fight my way out. Not sure when or if I'll get back to it, but it should point the way if someone else wants to have a look. At least the new code is comprehensible due to indentation, but I'm probably missing a curly higher up someplace. No new script needed, by the way; it calls the same parsing template developed for the solution here. Currently, it's a subtemplate of Template:Talk header, but if we use it from two places, maybe it should be spun off into its own root page. Mathglot (talk) 21:54, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm happy to give it a go – what exactly was the issue? It looks like a bad parameter was being used for the minimum number of threads to keep, but other than that I can't see anything wrong. Curlies all seem to match up far as I can tell. Tollens (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Made a couple other tweaks. As an aside, do we want to move the information about the specific archival bot and minimum threads to a tooltip as was done with Template:Talk header? I know I've used Template:Archives with only the age parameter on my user talk for quite some time and would prefer to keep it appearing that way or similar rather than having the other information be forced to display. Tollens (talk) 23:20, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks; as long as it's just in the sandbox, you can do pretty much what you like. I'll have to go look again to remind myself what the problem was.  But a discussion section should probably be started there, linking/summarizing this one, to explain what it is that is being discussed. That box has had a different presentation for a long time, and any move of info to a tooltip should probably get consensus there, imho. Or now that I think about it, as it concerns two templates (maybe more?) perhaps at a more centralized venue, like Help talk:Archiving a talk page. Mathglot (talk) 02:43, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

text:  Noticed your changes—thanks for that—and added a couple more. Wanted to add some test cases, but if this holds up, and there are no objections from regulars at the Talk page there, I think this would be a beneficial change, and keep the two templates relatively in sync. The same test cases as found at Template:Talk header/testcases4#B. Testing with the subtemplate but tested in situ should work here as well. Mathglot (talk) 12:00, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about Template:Archives 

message: How about ClueBot III? Graham87 (talk) 04:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, wasn't aware it used a different config; it can be added. Do you know of any others? Mathglot (talk) 04:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  , it supports Cluebot_III configs now; any other bots you know of that need to be supported? Mathglot (talk) 08:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nope, that's it. Your ping didn't work by the way, probably because of the shuffling around of messages. While I'm thinking about it I support removal of the now-redundant parameters; it means I won't have to make occasional updates of archiving bot names like this (a previous bot run caught many of them, but not everything). Graham87 (talk) 09:21, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

text: Yes, it is displaying actual archive data pulled from the config. Currently, either MiszaBot, or Cluebot, whichever one it finds on the page. Mathglot (talk) 08:51, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  For the (rare) talk pages that have more than one archive config on the page, see #Pages with two bot configs. Mathglot (talk) 20:37, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to drop archiving params – break 

message: One thing that becomes evident with this change, is the somewhat less friendly units used by Cluebot; how long is 2880 hours, anyway? This is not a big deal, but as long as we are talking about these changes, it would be an easy fix to display the hourly total as days (approx. days, decimal days, rounded days; preference?) if it exceeds some threshold number of hours. I think after 96 hours, I pretty much lose it, not sure about anybody else. If you want to see some live examples, check out the bot notice at any of these Talk pages which all use Cluebot: Talk:The Exorcist, Talk:List of colors, Talk:Toronto, Talk:Switzerland, Talk:Macedonia. We could display days in the notice, and exact hours in the Tooltip, if desired. Mathglot (talk) 08:48, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd suggest rounding anything over 23 hours. I can convert 36, 48, 72 hours, etc. in my head, but it takes some thought. Would rather see that in 1.5 days, 2 days, 3 days format. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:02, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

text: Sure, this sounds fine. Even if it involves some loss of precision, I have a hard time conceiving of any situation where it would matter that a talk pages be archived at a large but precise number of hours. Sdkb talk 14:51, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Especially as there's no way to know what kind of delay might be involved before the bot gets around to visiting the page. Mathglot (talk) 23:48, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Delays should not be taken into account. If a page claims archiving will happen after 6 or 18 or 30 or 60 hours, we should probably say that even though the actual arching cadency is just once a day... Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 14:35, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

text:  . A description of this new functionality can be found at ; please have a look and adjust as needed. Mathglot (talk) 07:02, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I would not round any hour figure lower than 72. Starting to round already at >23 feels unnecessarily aggressive. CapnZapp (talk) 14:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  No worries; it's incredibly easy to change it to any figure that comes out of consensus here.  Mathglot (talk) 21:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

text:   This I take to mean ANY number is rounded to a multiple of 12 (half a day). I would suggest a more conservative start. Do not round any hours-number lower than 72 for starters, then let consensus drive rounding of lower numbers. The other way round assumes we will revisit the subject later. I think now is the only time you will hear voices to avoid rounding smaller numbers, so please consider this to be the consensus you'll get. CapnZapp (talk) 09:11, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for pointing that out; I neglected to mention the > 23 threshold, so I tweaked the doc, which should be accurate now; sorry for the confusion. As far as what the threshold should be,  72 sounds fine, so does 96, so does 24; it's easily changeable and I have no strong preference myself. Mathglot (talk) 10:00, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  If my voice is the only voice with an opinion: start with 72 and change it if somebody asks for it. Not the other way round, partly because doing it that way in effect willfully ignores suggestions you are getting now. Why can't suggestions now hold equal weight to those that you (probably won't) get later? Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 14:04, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Any multiple of 24 hours should definitely be presented as X days; this is significantly more likely to be the intention than hours per se. Odd multiples of 12 hours should generally be presented as X.5 days, though maybe 12h or 36h can be left as exceptions. If someone has some weird value like 20 or 50 hours then maybe show it as hours. –jacobolus (t) 22:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Convert Cluebot hours to days? 

message: Convenience notice: A situation arose with a user who has two archive bot configs on his Talk page. The automatic bot notice generation feature of Template:Archives failed to work properly in this case, because it was only designed to look for one bot config per page. The bot parser subtemplate has been modified to handle this case and is in sandbox testing now; details here. When it is completed and released, Template:Talk header will automatically pick up this change, and begin working correctly for pages with multiple bot configs that use the same bot. For the very limited number of Talk pages that use two different archival bots, only the first one will be reported automatically and a further upgrade would be required if we want to handle both. Mathglot (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pages with two bot configs 

message: First off, this information was once presented using separate templates that have now been removed with the justification their functionality is integrated into this template. 
But when those templates were removed, there were zero talk of then regressing the information, losing valuable functionality. 
So let's discuss: what is the purpose of presenting archive bot parameters to the end user, the non-technical person?
It is to give him or her enough information to understand when and where discussion topics will be archived. (And, of course, the basic fact that they will get archived automatically; with the implication "you don't need to archive this page manually, the bot will come round to doing the job for you eventually".)
In order to perform this job, the user needs to be able to understand subtle things, like the bot being instructed to keep at least four talk sections on the page, even though some of them are older than the cut off point (the 90 days or whatever). This is very useful because it keeps the TOC - the TOC is automatically hidden on pages with 3 or less sections, and archiving ALL sections can be confusing for the beginner, since it now isn't immediately apparent where you're supposed to add your own section if there aren't existing sections that show you how it's supposed to look. 
Similarly, the user needs to be told things like "the archive bot only acts when there are two or more sections eligible for archiving", commonly done to keep down the archive bot activity (without it, you can end up with History pages where every other edit is made by the archive bot. If you find this zealous cleaning distracting and frankly completely unnecessary, you tell the bot to only archive when multiple sections are eligible)
Now I hear the call to minimize and remove these "technical" pieces of information that "no ordinary user" needs to know.
But that wasn't the deal when the previous specialized templates were taken from us. 
If you make this template display only "bot info light" then you absolutely should consider restoring the more specialized templates we've lost where editors can once more show the user the actual specifics, ideally with no calls for "users don't need to know this". The whole point is for users to understand why their talk pages are or are not getting archived, and having to click "edit" and look at the actual code would be a shitty solution.
Don't do a bait and switch here. Don't first integrate functionality in general templates, and then argue the information is too specific for said general template, ending up with a dumbed down information display and no way to convey detailed archiving parameter info!
Or rather, if you do, that's fine if you then agree that perhaps integrating the functionality into an overly-general template (and few templates are as multi-purpose, dare I say bloated, and general as this one!) wasn't the best call, and reinstate more specialized templates for more specialized usage. Thank you for reading.
CapnZapp (talk) 05:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait, what? I am almost 100% certain no information has been removed. In fact, I am pretty sure information has been added. What information do you think has been lost, and where was it displayed? Tollens (talk) 06:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hello. I am talking about calls to simplify/hide/remove the information given regarding archival bots. Since this information is now part of a very general template, I can certainly understand the viewpoint. I just want to post a heads-up that this reduction/removal of information details wasn't part of the deal when it was proposed to merge functionality into Talk header that previously was found in separate templates; templates whose specialized nature naturally meant nobody called for the information (the archive bot parameters) to be simplified/hidden/removed. Have a nice day CapnZapp (talk) 08:11, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see; you aren't saying that anything has already been removed, you are saying that nothing should be removed. I agree. Apologies for the misunderstanding. Tollens (talk) 08:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, my point is that if there is consensus for only displaying simplified archive bot parameter data, then it's time to reconsider the decision to merge the various archive-specific templates into this. Or rather more to the point: the decision this template now supplants those and that therefore those templates could (and were) deleted as redundant. The deal was never "let's merge into Talk header and later get rid of the info entirely", to exaggerate a tiny bit. CapnZapp (talk) 10:26, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Those templates should never have existed. Information presented at the top of ordinary talk page should be mercilessly culled to only the clearest and most essential. Shoving confusing and essentially useless information (such as how many threads the page will grow to before the bot archives it) in readers' faces is an attention tax on every page reader which is especially steep for new readers but also imposes a burden on long-time readers. –jacobolus (t) 20:34, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

text:  I don't mind this template getting its archive bot info dumbed down, just as long as the templates that used to show the full information are un-deleted (and properly updated to reflect recent improvements). Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that if consensus leads to simplifying output of this template, the merged ones should be recreated. At this point, I don't see who stands to gain from such simplification (especially since most of it is hidden) but I don't feel strongly about it either way. I can imagine requests going in the other direction, making explicit what is currently hidden, mostly from mobile users who don't have access to hidden info, iirc. Mathglot (talk) 02:01, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  purpose of the archiving bot information  

message: There was a complaint when I brought this up in response to some other conversation, so let me make a dedicated thread instead.
This template has suffered a very serious regression in recent months. It used to be that the template could be configured to show e.g. 
"Auto-archiving period: 3 years" or "Auto-archiving period: 8 months" by explicitly setting the  and  parameters. Now those parameters are ignored, and the the bot instead only directly shows human-irrelevant units as directly specified in machine-readable format for bot configuration, for instance "1095 days" or "243 days".
This is a reader-hostile change which was made without consensus and as far as I can tell without even much editor input.
Either (a) the template should continue to allow manually overriding these reader-hostile date displays, or (b) the template should be coded to convert machine-readable units to human-readable units.
The machine-readable units also appear separately, in the tooltip when someone hovers "Auto-archiving period". I don't care one way or the other if these remain in the precise format specified in the bot config. –jacobolus (t) 20:48, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive timing information appearing in the talk header should be human readable