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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
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)
I thought you meant an article Talk page, not a User Talk page. There is a lot more leeway in what users do in their own space. It is acceptable to not even, archive old discussions at all, and Help:Talk page states that only "Most users users treat their user talk pages like regular talk pages, and archive the contents periodically to a personal subpage". Removing recently added comments is impolite, and Help:Talk page mentioned it as uncivil, and removing recent vandalism warnings is not acceptable. — Centrx→ talk • 19:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
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)
I see the history remaining with the archive to be an advantage. It is much easier to show that the information copied back as active discussions is a true copy (because there is less of it and because if it were not, those taking part in the conversation are likely to notice). It is much harder to show, (and less noticeable because of an assumption of good faith) that an archive is a true copy of the page as it was at a certain point. Also unlike viewing a current conversation, it may be months or years until someone questions the validity of an archive by which time the editor who made the archive may not be available to explain. -- PBS 10:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
The move method not only allows the easy validation of the final version of the archive, it also allows an editor to follow easily the edit history from the first entry of the archive page. So anyone who argues that even though the final archive was a true copy of that day's enrty, but the entry they put on months before that was altered by someone else some time before the final move, can check in the archive history using diff to find who and when. This would be more difficult to do with a copy archive. -- PBS 09:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Hmm, old discussion, but same idea. I get the general impression that a user's talk page is not just for their benefit, but for others. I'm starting to see users archive stuff (usually via Werdnabot) that is only a day old. Archiving that often pretty much makes the user talk page useless. -- Ned Scott 05:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The prevalent archival strategy seems to be rather unsophisticated. I'd suggest to assign an optional archival hint to each section on a talk page. The suggested archival strategies could be:
Different authors could leave contradictory archival suggestions. The decision would be left to the person bothering to archive the page.
A standardized remark section at the top of a talk page, which would never be archived, might also be a good idea. (Example: de:Diskussion:Anti-Pattern). The purpose of the section would be to summarize and to refer to discussions that could be interpreted as to affect the application or applicability of wikipedia policies to the specific article. -- Fasten 20:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Centrx (below) When a talk page is archived it should be copied verbatim otherwise the it is wide open to manipulation by interested parties. It is to protect myself from such accusations that I always move the page. If a party then then wants to place a summary on the current talk page they are of course free to do so. -- PBS 08:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
From the history of the page:
Well I nearly always move talk pages to archives ;-) I think that we should see what others think about your rearrangement of the page, (that in my opinion puts back too much emphasis back onto the Cut and Paste method), and see if there is a consensus for such a reorganisation before it is made.
See here for the difference: before and after Centrx's rearrangement. -- PBS
I am not claiming that it is or that it is not, you are claiming that it is and I asked how do you know given the number of articles on the English Wikipedia. As for why the move method is better or worse see the article where that question is addressed. As I said lets see what other people think about your reorganisation and if there is consensus to do so. -- PBS 21:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
As the guideline template says "When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus." To date there is no consensus for a large re-organisation. What is the hurry to make sucg a change? -- PBS 23:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
Are you going to respond to the reasons I have given rather than revert warring? — Centrx→ talk • 18:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
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)
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, Dall ben 23:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering if some sort of "locking" policy couldn't be enacted at this. I've occasionally come across IPs vandalizing archives which aren't watched all that much, and I'm not sure I see the benefit in leaving them editable. Once archived, they shouldn't ever be edited anyway (once you've moved on to your next archive). Manually it would be a bit of work, but if there was an automated way to set it up it might be handy. Yes I realize the vandalism excessive, but nor is the need to edit the archives afterwards.-- Crossmr 06:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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:
{{usertalk}} <!-- old discussions --> 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 <includeonly></includeonly> 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.
19:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I created a template {{ atnhead}} for the top of archive pages... it is just the normal {{ talkarchive}} with the navigation features from {{ atn}} 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 {{ atn}} there should be no problems. Any opinions? -- Merzul 21:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I noticed on some of the archives, see here for example, that very little discussion has been preserved in the archive. I was wondering if in these cases if some of the adjacent archives could be combined?-- Sefringle 06:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to edit talk page archives when performing maintainance such as userbox migration? I noticed Metsbot ( talk · contribs) 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 Mets501 ( talk · contribs) 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)
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) ← ROCKS C RS 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
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).
I removed from the guideline the undiscussed change which was originally made by UtherSRG on February 20, 2007:
The first sentence of which had been edited to read:
While I understand the intention is to get across that users aren't forced to keep all comments, deleting legitimate material from one's talk page is controversial, and the general practice is archiving. WP:TALK#User_talk_pages says, "Policy does not prohibit users from removing comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred," which is likewise restated at WP:USER#Ownership_and_editing_of_pages_in_the_user_space. We should clarify that while not required, archiving user talk pages is a positive thing, because it benefits the community to be able to follow on-going Wikipedia-related discussions; and in particular, when there may be concerns about problematic users. -- Leflyman Talk 19:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
Actually, a lot more than just talk pages are archived. Simply south 18:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
Shouldn't we make a rule for how long talk pages can be? I mean, is there any such guideline/policy? What prevents users form having talk pages thousands and thousands and thousands long. -- PaxEquilibrium 22:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
←What's the purpose of keeping talk pages short? While discussions may get old, new editors coming to the discussion can benefit from seeing the older topics. Most are not likely to root around in the archives just out of curiousity, unless there is a hot-button issue under discussion to motivate it.
In addition, Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance tells us not to be concerned about server load, and for comparison, Amazon.com's main entry page is around 600KB tonight and eBay.com is around 500KB. They depend on customers to load those pages to make profits, so certainly they've tested every possible size and found those to be optimum numbers. Even if we assume more of our users have slower computers or connections than the average customer of those two mainstream companies, we can figure that 150KB to 200KB, a third of what eBay nad Amazon use, are still easily loaded.
There is also an advantage to allowing talk pages to keep the older discussions visible in that newly arriving editors won't bring up old topics again, starting something over again that has been on the table previously. -- Parsifal Hello 07:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I created the instructions list at the suggestion of another editor, who then suggested I share it with the Wikipedia community. To be sure the steps were 100% accurate, I followed them and successfully archived the James Randi talk page. They definitely work and produce a simple archive box. Instead of being called "subpage move method," it might be easier to call it the "move to subpage method." It would be nice if checkboxes could be installed, but that's probably not a feature Wiki supports. Writing down the numbers on a slip of paper and then crossing them off as each step is completed would help. Printing out the list first, too. I think the entire help page needs a cleanup, but for now I'm restoring the list (an editor removed it) because the instructions, as I said, do work. Also, in any case, the list can also be found on my User Page (click link): 5Q5 19:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
-- PBS 22:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I am still confused, are not your instructions cut and past instuctions not instuctions that use the move tab that appears at the to ps the page assuming that one is using the MonoBook (default) skin? -- PBS 22:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Update: Both of you are correct. I have renamed my instruction list on my User Page to "Cut-and-Paste to Subpage Method." Regarding the "Move" tab button, I am personally leery about using it to archive a talk page. Supposedly that would just rename the current talk page "Archive 1" (or 2, etc.) and then the current talk page link would redirect to Archive 1. Of course, that would definitely not be good. The Move help page: Help:Moving_a_page does not even have the word "archive" in any form on it and it only mentions Talk pages in saying that if you move (rename) an article, the talk page automatically moves with it. It actually doesn't even use the word "article," calling everything "pages." That lack of specificity is why this is all confusing (to me included!). These "Help" pages could use a "clean-up" or "expert needed" notice at the top. I'm getting some good feedback on my step-by-step instructions. 5Q5 18:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
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)
I thought you meant an article Talk page, not a User Talk page. There is a lot more leeway in what users do in their own space. It is acceptable to not even, archive old discussions at all, and Help:Talk page states that only "Most users users treat their user talk pages like regular talk pages, and archive the contents periodically to a personal subpage". Removing recently added comments is impolite, and Help:Talk page mentioned it as uncivil, and removing recent vandalism warnings is not acceptable. — Centrx→ talk • 19:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
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)
I see the history remaining with the archive to be an advantage. It is much easier to show that the information copied back as active discussions is a true copy (because there is less of it and because if it were not, those taking part in the conversation are likely to notice). It is much harder to show, (and less noticeable because of an assumption of good faith) that an archive is a true copy of the page as it was at a certain point. Also unlike viewing a current conversation, it may be months or years until someone questions the validity of an archive by which time the editor who made the archive may not be available to explain. -- PBS 10:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
The move method not only allows the easy validation of the final version of the archive, it also allows an editor to follow easily the edit history from the first entry of the archive page. So anyone who argues that even though the final archive was a true copy of that day's enrty, but the entry they put on months before that was altered by someone else some time before the final move, can check in the archive history using diff to find who and when. This would be more difficult to do with a copy archive. -- PBS 09:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Hmm, old discussion, but same idea. I get the general impression that a user's talk page is not just for their benefit, but for others. I'm starting to see users archive stuff (usually via Werdnabot) that is only a day old. Archiving that often pretty much makes the user talk page useless. -- Ned Scott 05:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The prevalent archival strategy seems to be rather unsophisticated. I'd suggest to assign an optional archival hint to each section on a talk page. The suggested archival strategies could be:
Different authors could leave contradictory archival suggestions. The decision would be left to the person bothering to archive the page.
A standardized remark section at the top of a talk page, which would never be archived, might also be a good idea. (Example: de:Diskussion:Anti-Pattern). The purpose of the section would be to summarize and to refer to discussions that could be interpreted as to affect the application or applicability of wikipedia policies to the specific article. -- Fasten 20:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Centrx (below) When a talk page is archived it should be copied verbatim otherwise the it is wide open to manipulation by interested parties. It is to protect myself from such accusations that I always move the page. If a party then then wants to place a summary on the current talk page they are of course free to do so. -- PBS 08:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
From the history of the page:
Well I nearly always move talk pages to archives ;-) I think that we should see what others think about your rearrangement of the page, (that in my opinion puts back too much emphasis back onto the Cut and Paste method), and see if there is a consensus for such a reorganisation before it is made.
See here for the difference: before and after Centrx's rearrangement. -- PBS
I am not claiming that it is or that it is not, you are claiming that it is and I asked how do you know given the number of articles on the English Wikipedia. As for why the move method is better or worse see the article where that question is addressed. As I said lets see what other people think about your reorganisation and if there is consensus to do so. -- PBS 21:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
As the guideline template says "When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus." To date there is no consensus for a large re-organisation. What is the hurry to make sucg a change? -- PBS 23:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
Are you going to respond to the reasons I have given rather than revert warring? — Centrx→ talk • 18:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
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)
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, Dall ben 23:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering if some sort of "locking" policy couldn't be enacted at this. I've occasionally come across IPs vandalizing archives which aren't watched all that much, and I'm not sure I see the benefit in leaving them editable. Once archived, they shouldn't ever be edited anyway (once you've moved on to your next archive). Manually it would be a bit of work, but if there was an automated way to set it up it might be handy. Yes I realize the vandalism excessive, but nor is the need to edit the archives afterwards.-- Crossmr 06:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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:
{{usertalk}} <!-- old discussions --> 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 <includeonly></includeonly> 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.
19:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I created a template {{ atnhead}} for the top of archive pages... it is just the normal {{ talkarchive}} with the navigation features from {{ atn}} 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 {{ atn}} there should be no problems. Any opinions? -- Merzul 21:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I noticed on some of the archives, see here for example, that very little discussion has been preserved in the archive. I was wondering if in these cases if some of the adjacent archives could be combined?-- Sefringle 06:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to edit talk page archives when performing maintainance such as userbox migration? I noticed Metsbot ( talk · contribs) 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 Mets501 ( talk · contribs) 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)
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) ← ROCKS C RS 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
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).
I removed from the guideline the undiscussed change which was originally made by UtherSRG on February 20, 2007:
The first sentence of which had been edited to read:
While I understand the intention is to get across that users aren't forced to keep all comments, deleting legitimate material from one's talk page is controversial, and the general practice is archiving. WP:TALK#User_talk_pages says, "Policy does not prohibit users from removing comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred," which is likewise restated at WP:USER#Ownership_and_editing_of_pages_in_the_user_space. We should clarify that while not required, archiving user talk pages is a positive thing, because it benefits the community to be able to follow on-going Wikipedia-related discussions; and in particular, when there may be concerns about problematic users. -- Leflyman Talk 19:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
Actually, a lot more than just talk pages are archived. Simply south 18:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
Shouldn't we make a rule for how long talk pages can be? I mean, is there any such guideline/policy? What prevents users form having talk pages thousands and thousands and thousands long. -- PaxEquilibrium 22:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
←What's the purpose of keeping talk pages short? While discussions may get old, new editors coming to the discussion can benefit from seeing the older topics. Most are not likely to root around in the archives just out of curiousity, unless there is a hot-button issue under discussion to motivate it.
In addition, Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance tells us not to be concerned about server load, and for comparison, Amazon.com's main entry page is around 600KB tonight and eBay.com is around 500KB. They depend on customers to load those pages to make profits, so certainly they've tested every possible size and found those to be optimum numbers. Even if we assume more of our users have slower computers or connections than the average customer of those two mainstream companies, we can figure that 150KB to 200KB, a third of what eBay nad Amazon use, are still easily loaded.
There is also an advantage to allowing talk pages to keep the older discussions visible in that newly arriving editors won't bring up old topics again, starting something over again that has been on the table previously. -- Parsifal Hello 07:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I created the instructions list at the suggestion of another editor, who then suggested I share it with the Wikipedia community. To be sure the steps were 100% accurate, I followed them and successfully archived the James Randi talk page. They definitely work and produce a simple archive box. Instead of being called "subpage move method," it might be easier to call it the "move to subpage method." It would be nice if checkboxes could be installed, but that's probably not a feature Wiki supports. Writing down the numbers on a slip of paper and then crossing them off as each step is completed would help. Printing out the list first, too. I think the entire help page needs a cleanup, but for now I'm restoring the list (an editor removed it) because the instructions, as I said, do work. Also, in any case, the list can also be found on my User Page (click link): 5Q5 19:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
-- PBS 22:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I am still confused, are not your instructions cut and past instuctions not instuctions that use the move tab that appears at the to ps the page assuming that one is using the MonoBook (default) skin? -- PBS 22:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Update: Both of you are correct. I have renamed my instruction list on my User Page to "Cut-and-Paste to Subpage Method." Regarding the "Move" tab button, I am personally leery about using it to archive a talk page. Supposedly that would just rename the current talk page "Archive 1" (or 2, etc.) and then the current talk page link would redirect to Archive 1. Of course, that would definitely not be good. The Move help page: Help:Moving_a_page does not even have the word "archive" in any form on it and it only mentions Talk pages in saying that if you move (rename) an article, the talk page automatically moves with it. It actually doesn't even use the word "article," calling everything "pages." That lack of specificity is why this is all confusing (to me included!). These "Help" pages could use a "clean-up" or "expert needed" notice at the top. I'm getting some good feedback on my step-by-step instructions. 5Q5 18:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
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