Help:Archiving a talk page

This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect of Bharatpedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Bharatpedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

It is customary to periodically archive old discussions on a talk page when that page becomes too large. Bulky talk pages are hard to navigate, contain obsolete discussion, and become a burden for editors with slow internet connections. Archiving moves resolved or stale discussions out of the way while keeping them available for reference.

This page explains how and why to set up archiving. A simplified step-by-step version is at Help:Archiving (plain and simple).

Why archive

Talk pages grow over time. An article talk page may accumulate years of discussion, much of it long since resolved. Left in place, this material:

• Makes the page slow to load and hard to read.
• Buries current discussions among old ones.
• Discourages editors from reading past discussions before raising a point again.

Archiving solves this by moving older discussions to subpages. The talk page stays focused on current matters, and the archive preserves the history.

Regular articles are not archived, because previous versions are available in the page history. Archiving is unique to talk pages and noticeboards.

When to archive

The talk page guidelines suggest archiving when a talk page exceeds roughly 75,000 bytes, or when it has multiple resolved or stale discussions.

However, when to archive is a subjective decision. Ongoing discussions, and nearby sections they reference, should generally be kept intact. Where a question keeps recurring, it may be better to summarise it in a FAQ than to archive it and have it raised again.

Archiving your own user talk page is optional. Some editors simply blank their user talk page, since the history remains available. That is not considered best practice, because it makes old messages harder to find and link to.

Archive naming conventions

Archive pages are subpages of the talk page. There are two common naming methods.

Sequentially numbered archives

The most common and simplest method, and the default used by OneClickArchiver. Name the archive by taking the talk page name and adding /Archive #, where # is the archive number.

• The twentieth archive of Talk:Earth would be Talk:Earth/Archive 20.
• The first archive of User talk:Example would be User talk:Example/Archive 1.

Note the conventions carefully: the word "Archive" has a capital A, there is a space before the number, and there are no leading zeros. Templates such as {{Archive list}} and the OneClickArchiver gadget rely on this exact format to find archives automatically.

Year and month archives

Archives may instead be named by date:

• Talk:YourPage/Archives/2025/June
• Talk:YourPage/Archives/2025/July

Note that this method uses /Archives/ in the plural, because some navigation templates depend on it. This method is more complex to set up manually but works well with automated archiving.

When archiving your own user talk page, remember to use the correct namespace: User talk:, not Talk:.

Checking for existing archives

Before creating a new archive, check whether any already exist. Type the following into the search bar:

Special:PrefixIndex/Talk:Pagename

For example, Special:PrefixIndex/Talk:Earth lists every subpage of Talk:Earth, including existing archives. If archives exist, add new sections to the most recent one, or create a new one numbered one higher.

Archiving with OneClickArchiver

OneClickArchiver (OCA) is a gadget that adds an Archive link next to every section heading on a talk page. Clicking it moves that section to the configured archive page in one step[reference:1]. It is an optional gadget, and you can enable or disable it at any time. It only affects your view and your actions.

Enabling the gadget

To enable OneClickArchiver:

1. Copy the line of JavaScript provided on the gadget's help page.
2. Open your common.js page — the link on the help page takes you straight there.
3. Click edit, and paste the line.
4. Click Publish changes.
5. Clear your browser cache:
   • Windows / Linux: press Ctrl+⇧ Shift+Delete, choose "All time", tick "Cached images and files", and click "Clear".
   • Mac: press ⌘ Cmd+⇧ Shift+Delete and do the same.
6. Then hard-reload any talk page with Ctrl+⇧ Shift+R (or ⌘ Cmd+⇧ Shift+R on Mac).

Disabling the gadget

To turn it off:

1. Open your common.js page in edit mode.
2. Remove the mw.loader.load(...) line for OneClickArchiver.
3. Save, then clear your cache again.

The Archive links will disappear.

Using the gadget

Once enabled:

1. Go to any talk page.
2. Next to every section heading you will see a small [ Archive ] link.
3. Click it.
4. A popup appears showing progress. The section is copied to the archive page and removed from the talk page.
5. The page reloads automatically.

By default, sections are archived to /Archive 1, /Archive 2, and so on.

Things to know

• The Archive link only appears on talk pages — namespaces 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15[reference:2]. It does not appear on article pages.
• If the script does not appear, clear your browser cache first. This solves the problem in almost every case[reference:3].
• The talk page should have a talk header at the top, so that editors arriving at the page understand what it is for[reference:4].
• If a section is marked with {{Do not archive until}}, it will not be archived until that date passes[reference:5].
• Do not click Archive on a section you want to keep. The action is immediate and cannot be undone with a single click; you would need to restore it from the archive page's history[reference:6].

Reporting problems

Post on the gadget's talk page with:

• The page where it failed.
• Your browser and operating system.
• Any error messages from the browser console — press F12 and open the Console tab[reference:7].

Manual archiving

If you prefer not to use a gadget, archiving can be done by hand. This requires no scripts and works on any wiki.

1. Open the talk page for editing.
2. Select the text of the sections you wish to archive.
3. Cut the text, and save the talk page. The sections are now removed.
4. Open the archive subpage for editing. If it does not exist, create it.
5. Paste the text into the archive. Add {{Talk archive}} at the top.
6. Save the archive page.
7. If the talk page does not already have an archive box, add {{Archives}} near the top, and save.

A few points of practice:

• Archive resolved discussions first. Sections with no recent replies, and no prospect of further replies, are the best candidates.
• Do not split a discussion. Keep a whole thread together in one place. If a discussion is ongoing, leave it on the talk page.
• Use an informative edit summary, such as "archived 3 resolved sections to Archive 4".
• Link to the archive from the talk page, so readers can find it.

Automated archiving

For busy talk pages, a bot can archive sections automatically once they have received no comments for a specified period.

How automated archiving works

The bot checks the talk page periodically. Any section whose most recent comment is older than the configured age is moved to an archive. Sections are not deleted; they are relocated, and a link to the archive is maintained.

Example configuration

The following configuration archives sections older than 90 days, keeps at least four sections on the talk page, and archives into sequentially numbered subpages:

{{User:BharatwikitalkBot/config
| algo = old(90d)
| archive = Talk:YourPage/Archive %(counter)d
| counter = 1
| maxarchivesize = 100K
| archiveheader = {{Talk archive}}
| minthreadsleft = 4
| minthreadstoarchive = 2
}}

Key parameters:

• algo — how old a section must be before archiving. old(90d) means 90 days.
• archive — the naming pattern for archive pages. %(counter)d is replaced by the archive number.
• counter — the current archive number. Set this to the next number in the series if archives already exist.
• maxarchivesize — the maximum size of an archive before a new one is started.
• archiveheader — the template placed at the top of each new archive.
• minthreadsleft — the minimum number of sections to leave on the talk page.
• minthreadstoarchive — the minimum number of sections to archive in one run.

For date-based archives, the pattern is:

| archive = Talk:YourPage/Archives/%(year)d/%(monthname)s

This produces archives named Talk:YourPage/Archives/2025/June and so on.

Before setting up automated archiving

Establish that archiving is actually needed on that page. On low-traffic pages, using OneClickArchiver occasionally is sufficient, and a bot adds unnecessary complexity.

Also check whether the talk page has a consensus in favour of archiving. Where editors have objected, or where the page carries a notice asking that discussions be retained, set up archiving only after discussion.

Preventing a section from being archived

To stop a specific section being archived by a bot, place {{Do not archive until}} at the top of the section, with a date. The template works by placing a hidden HTML comment containing a future date; the bot will not archive the section until that date passes.

Archive navigation templates

Once archives exist, readers need a way to find them. Two templates are commonly used.

Archive box

The {{Archives}} template adds a box listing the archive subpages. Placed near the top of the talk page, it links to each archive.

Basic usage, which detects sequentially numbered archives automatically:

{{Archives}}

A manual list, for archives that do not follow the standard naming scheme:

{{Archives|auto=no|
* [[/Archive 1|2023–2024]]
* [[/Archive 2|2024–2025]]
* [[/Archive 3|2025–2026]]
}}

Useful parameters:

• auto — set to yes or short to list archives as "1, 2, 3"; long to list them as "Archive 1, Archive 2"; no for a manual list.
• search — set to yes to add a search box for the archives.
• collapsible and collapsed — set to yes to make the box collapsible, or collapsed by default.
• box-width — width of the box.

Talk archive header

Each archive page should carry a notice at the top, making clear that it is an archive and should not be edited.

{{Talk archive}}

This renders a notice explaining that the page contains past discussions, and links back to the current talk page. {{Automatic archive navigator}} does the same and additionally provides "previous" and "next" links between archives.

Best practices

• Archive, do not delete. Archiving preserves the discussion for reference. Deleting it loses the record.
• Keep whole threads together. A discussion split across a talk page and an archive is hard to follow.
• Link both ways. The talk page should link to the archives, and each archive should link back to the talk page.
• Do not archive ongoing discussions. A thread that is still active belongs on the talk page.
• Do not archive to hide inconvenient discussion. Archiving is a housekeeping task, not a way to remove a discussion you dislike.
• Tell other editors. When you archive manually, say so in an edit summary and, where useful, in a note on the talk page.

See also

• Help:OneClickArchiver — the one-click archiving gadget
• Help:Archiving (plain and simple) — a simplified step-by-step guide
• Bharatpedia:Talk page guidelines
• Help:Using talk pages
• Bharatpedia:User scripts
• Template:Archives
• Template:Talk archive
• Template:Archive list
• Template:Do not archive until