Help:Archiving a talk page

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Archiving a talk page is an important aspect of Wikipedia maintenance. It involves moving old or resolved discussions from a talk page to an archive page to keep the talk page manageable and up-to-date while preserving past discussions for future reference.

Reasons for Archiving

Archiving is necessary to:

• Reduce the length and loading time of talk pages.
• Keep discussions manageable and relevant.
• Preserve historical discussions for future reference.
• Maintain a clean and organized discussion area.

When to Archive

There is no strict rule on when to archive a talk page, but common practices include:

• Archiving when the page becomes too long (e.g., over 75,000 bytes).
• Archiving discussions that have been inactive for a certain period, typically 1 month.
• Archiving resolved discussions to clear space for new topics.

How to Archive

Archiving can be done manually or automatically using various tools and scripts.

Manual Archiving

To manually archive a talk page:

1. Create a new archive page, typically named something like "Talk:Page name/Archive 1".
2. Cut the old discussions from the talk page and paste them into the archive page.
3. Provide a summary in the edit summary box and save the changes.
4. Link to the archive page prominently at the top of the original talk page for easy access.

Automated Archiving

Automated archiving can be done using bots such as User:ClueBot III or scripts like User:MiszaBot/config. These tools can automatically move discussions based on specific criteria such as age or size of the discussion.

Best Practices

• Always provide a link to the archive on the main talk page.
• Clearly label archives and maintain a consistent naming convention.
• Consider leaving a notice explaining the archiving policy on the talk page.
• Check links and references within discussions to ensure they are not broken during the archiving process.

See Also

• Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines
• Wikipedia:Bot
• Wikipedia:Scripts