Template:Archives is permanently
protected from editing because it is a
heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by
consensus, editors may use {{
edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's
documentation to add usage notes or
categories.
Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Archives template. |
|
This template was considered for merging with Template:UserTalkArchiveBox on 16 August 2021. The result of the discussion was "keep". |
Index
|
||
This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
Editors interested in this template may be interested in the discussion Template talk:Talk header#Proposal to drop archiving params. Template talk:Talk header has recently been updated to automatically derive archive bot params, and this is being imported here; the sandbox currently has a version of it, but it is not working yet. See Template:Archives/sandbox. Mathglot ( talk) 10:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks to further edits by Tollens, at first glance this appears to be working now, but there aren't any test cases for it yet, so it's not ready to be released until there are; I'll try and add some. Mathglot ( talk) 07:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
|banner=yes
version, with the full caption squeezed into col 1; probably just needs a colspan=2 added at the right point.
Mathglot (
talk) 02:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)And to further edits by
Aidan9382 as well to fix the banner issue. There has been little discussion in a month, so I verified test cases and released this to live. Remember that new param |nobot=yes
will suppress the automatic bot notice; doc updates to follow.
Mathglot (
talk) 05:06, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
{{
Archives}}
to
Talk:Gravity (2013 film) (only in the preview of course, I didn't save my edit), and it does not appear to handle |minthreadstoarchive=
which is used there. I expected the text to say "This page has archives. Sections older than 120 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present if 2 or more threads are eligible for archiving." (my underlining). If you are still working on it, feel free to ignore this. I am just posting this because I got the impression from the previous comment development was considered finished. Cheers
CapnZapp (
talk) 14:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
|minthreadstoarchive=
is implemented here as well.
CapnZapp (
talk) 17:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)This is a serious regression which makes me want to just ditch this template from pages I care about in preference for some more reader friendly template. Showing the name of the bot is usually distracting noise. Writing the archive age as "730 days" vs. "2 years" is much harder for readers to interpret. Is there any way to get the old behavior? – jacobolus (t) 21:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
nobot=
. That way the information presented wouldn't be any more or less than what had already been set, and in the future a simple =yes
or something along those lines would work for those parameters. Would that work in your case, assuming conversion to larger timescales was implemented as well,
Jacobolus?
Tollens (
talk) 22:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
effectively nobody cares- with that mindset, you're not only trying to discredit other viewpoints; you're effectively disqualifying yourself from constructive discussion, since your stance amounts to "let's not show any real useful data at all". As a counterpoint: while the majority of people might not care how and when talk pages get auto-archived, not every piece of information needs to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It's perfectly fine for a template like this to remain useful for those that need it, even though plenty others don't "care". What REALLY would be dumb, however, is to fuzzy the output enough so it's useless for those interested in it just to please those that will skip it anyway. CapnZapp ( talk) 09:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
shoving these long and confusing bot names in every talk page reader's facepart: bot names aren't necessarily longer or more confusing that human editors' names. I believe helping new editors to understand how to set up autoarchiving themselves is a net positive, and for me, it really helped that I could click the bot name (leading to archiving how to info) directly. Let's not assume our audience is dumb. CapnZapp ( talk) 09:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
I always found this page hard to understand, so I've done some reorganization for clarity. A few paragraphs stuck in the middle of the parameters section made no sense to me there, so I moved them down to section § Notes, but it seems a mixed bag of stuff and I don't think it belongs there, either. Probably it needs to be sliced and diced with pieces shipped off to different parts of the doc. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 08:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
The phrase "This page has archives" that starts off the bot notice in the bottom section predates the recent round of changes. I didn't really take much notice of it before, but I don't know what purpose it serves. This is more noticeable now, in those cases where new param |nobot=yes
is in use, because currently the bottom section ends up with that phrase and nothing else, which really seems pointless. But the whole phrase seems pointless to me, and I think we should just get rid of it.
Mathglot (
talk) 17:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
|nobot=
is used, then by all means remove the phrase too (along with the suppressed bot parameters). If the bot parameters are there, I don't see the harm in having a friendly introductory phrase; perhaps tweak it from "This page has archives" to "This page is archived automatically" in order to say something relevant to the following information.
CapnZapp (
talk) 17:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
Just as an aside, |nobot=yes
may have a name that suggests "no bot" but as documented, really means "suppress the bot param display". That is, "there ARE bot params active, just don't show them". I don't think there's a parameter to say "this page is manually archived". The only way to determine that is to not find any bot setup on the page. (If the page isn't archived automatically, then the only explanation for any archives is that they were/are created manually) Do tell me if I'm wrong, though.
CapnZapp (
talk) 09:12, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
|nobotnotice=
if it isn't clear. There are
currently 9 Talk pages that use it under the name 'nobot' so those would have to be updated if we make a param name change.
Mathglot (
talk) 19:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)A template with 28 parameters needs a lot of examples; currently there are two. On the other hand, we don't want to have dozens of examples in that section, making the page needlessly long. I would propose something like four or five examples showing some of the most popular param combos, and then a subpage Template:Archives/doc/Examples (or maybe Template:Archives/Examples) linked from the #Examples section, for more detailed examples of all of the parameters, or at least the params needing one. Mathglot ( talk) 17:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Can someone teach me how to change the template's background color to my preference? Thanks in advance. 98 𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 17:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
#archivebox {
background-color: #EE82EE;
}
@ Mathglot The change to auto-generate broke my user talk page, where I use two archiving configs to archive certain messages instantly to a separate notifications subpage. The two configs have two different ages to prevent normal messages from being automatically archived to the notifications subpage. Currently, I set one of the boxes to not auto-generate, but I can't get the correct age to show. Aaron Liu ( talk) 12:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
|config_number=
; suggestions welcome). So after the fix, in your second archive config, it will look like this:
{{
archives|title=Notifications|config_number=2|...}}
1
as the default value if there is no such parameter.|nobot=yes
to the invocation. Just tested this in Preview mode (without saving) on your UTP, and it works. (It leaves a rump statement, 'This page has archives' which should probably be removed, but the bot notice about archiving is suppressed.) This is documented at
Template:Archives#Archive bot config, with an illustration in the #Usage section, but TemplateData needs to be updated for those using VE.
Mathglot (
talk) 19:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III.I have added the
|age=30
parameter but it does not work.
Aaron Liu (
talk) 21:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)|config_number=
causes some undesirable line wrapping in the view window that I'd like to eliminate or minimize as much as possible; am thinking of shortening it to cnbr, cno, cf, or just n. It will be used so rarely I don't think a highly mnemonic param name is needed for this param, and the shorter the better, to keep the preview code more legible for editors. How about just |n=
?
Mathglot (
talk) 01:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
|n=
might be a bit ambiguous when overlooking usages of the template ("n of what?"). |config_n=
could be a good middle ground between the two.
Aidan9382 (
talk) 13:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
|cfg=
?
Aaron Liu (
talk) 14:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
|cfg=
instead of 'config_number'; thanks.
Mathglot (
talk) 20:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Next step: create some test cases. (Aaron, your UTP is a kind of live test case, and an initial hint that the code might be working, at least in that one case, but not anything like a complete demonstration of it at the level of confidence that we would need for a highly visible template.) I may not get to the test cases immediately, but anyone is welcome to create them. One idea would be to add a dozen or so configs to the
/testcases page, and have the test cases link to them via the new |cfg=
param. We would also have to have some regression tests to make sure that the far more usual case of only a single config per page still works properly.
Mathglot (
talk) 21:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Aaron: I have undone
your changes to Archive template bot notice wording and the way param |nobot=
works in
Template:Archives/sandbox. Once the current changes for the multiple-config upgrade have been tested and released to live, then you can pick up the sandbox and make other changes to wording or to functionality of the params. Or, feel free to make your changes to
Template:Archives/sandbox2, and develop them there. Thanks.
Mathglot (
talk) 20:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Template:Archives is permanently
protected from editing because it is a
heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by
consensus, editors may use {{
edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's
documentation to add usage notes or
categories.
Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Archives template. |
|
This template was considered for merging with Template:UserTalkArchiveBox on 16 August 2021. The result of the discussion was "keep". |
Index
|
||
This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
Editors interested in this template may be interested in the discussion Template talk:Talk header#Proposal to drop archiving params. Template talk:Talk header has recently been updated to automatically derive archive bot params, and this is being imported here; the sandbox currently has a version of it, but it is not working yet. See Template:Archives/sandbox. Mathglot ( talk) 10:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks to further edits by Tollens, at first glance this appears to be working now, but there aren't any test cases for it yet, so it's not ready to be released until there are; I'll try and add some. Mathglot ( talk) 07:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
|banner=yes
version, with the full caption squeezed into col 1; probably just needs a colspan=2 added at the right point.
Mathglot (
talk) 02:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)And to further edits by
Aidan9382 as well to fix the banner issue. There has been little discussion in a month, so I verified test cases and released this to live. Remember that new param |nobot=yes
will suppress the automatic bot notice; doc updates to follow.
Mathglot (
talk) 05:06, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
{{
Archives}}
to
Talk:Gravity (2013 film) (only in the preview of course, I didn't save my edit), and it does not appear to handle |minthreadstoarchive=
which is used there. I expected the text to say "This page has archives. Sections older than 120 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present if 2 or more threads are eligible for archiving." (my underlining). If you are still working on it, feel free to ignore this. I am just posting this because I got the impression from the previous comment development was considered finished. Cheers
CapnZapp (
talk) 14:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
|minthreadstoarchive=
is implemented here as well.
CapnZapp (
talk) 17:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)This is a serious regression which makes me want to just ditch this template from pages I care about in preference for some more reader friendly template. Showing the name of the bot is usually distracting noise. Writing the archive age as "730 days" vs. "2 years" is much harder for readers to interpret. Is there any way to get the old behavior? – jacobolus (t) 21:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
nobot=
. That way the information presented wouldn't be any more or less than what had already been set, and in the future a simple =yes
or something along those lines would work for those parameters. Would that work in your case, assuming conversion to larger timescales was implemented as well,
Jacobolus?
Tollens (
talk) 22:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
effectively nobody cares- with that mindset, you're not only trying to discredit other viewpoints; you're effectively disqualifying yourself from constructive discussion, since your stance amounts to "let's not show any real useful data at all". As a counterpoint: while the majority of people might not care how and when talk pages get auto-archived, not every piece of information needs to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It's perfectly fine for a template like this to remain useful for those that need it, even though plenty others don't "care". What REALLY would be dumb, however, is to fuzzy the output enough so it's useless for those interested in it just to please those that will skip it anyway. CapnZapp ( talk) 09:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
shoving these long and confusing bot names in every talk page reader's facepart: bot names aren't necessarily longer or more confusing that human editors' names. I believe helping new editors to understand how to set up autoarchiving themselves is a net positive, and for me, it really helped that I could click the bot name (leading to archiving how to info) directly. Let's not assume our audience is dumb. CapnZapp ( talk) 09:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
I always found this page hard to understand, so I've done some reorganization for clarity. A few paragraphs stuck in the middle of the parameters section made no sense to me there, so I moved them down to section § Notes, but it seems a mixed bag of stuff and I don't think it belongs there, either. Probably it needs to be sliced and diced with pieces shipped off to different parts of the doc. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 08:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
The phrase "This page has archives" that starts off the bot notice in the bottom section predates the recent round of changes. I didn't really take much notice of it before, but I don't know what purpose it serves. This is more noticeable now, in those cases where new param |nobot=yes
is in use, because currently the bottom section ends up with that phrase and nothing else, which really seems pointless. But the whole phrase seems pointless to me, and I think we should just get rid of it.
Mathglot (
talk) 17:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
|nobot=
is used, then by all means remove the phrase too (along with the suppressed bot parameters). If the bot parameters are there, I don't see the harm in having a friendly introductory phrase; perhaps tweak it from "This page has archives" to "This page is archived automatically" in order to say something relevant to the following information.
CapnZapp (
talk) 17:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
Just as an aside, |nobot=yes
may have a name that suggests "no bot" but as documented, really means "suppress the bot param display". That is, "there ARE bot params active, just don't show them". I don't think there's a parameter to say "this page is manually archived". The only way to determine that is to not find any bot setup on the page. (If the page isn't archived automatically, then the only explanation for any archives is that they were/are created manually) Do tell me if I'm wrong, though.
CapnZapp (
talk) 09:12, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
|nobotnotice=
if it isn't clear. There are
currently 9 Talk pages that use it under the name 'nobot' so those would have to be updated if we make a param name change.
Mathglot (
talk) 19:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)A template with 28 parameters needs a lot of examples; currently there are two. On the other hand, we don't want to have dozens of examples in that section, making the page needlessly long. I would propose something like four or five examples showing some of the most popular param combos, and then a subpage Template:Archives/doc/Examples (or maybe Template:Archives/Examples) linked from the #Examples section, for more detailed examples of all of the parameters, or at least the params needing one. Mathglot ( talk) 17:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Can someone teach me how to change the template's background color to my preference? Thanks in advance. 98 𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 17:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
#archivebox {
background-color: #EE82EE;
}
@ Mathglot The change to auto-generate broke my user talk page, where I use two archiving configs to archive certain messages instantly to a separate notifications subpage. The two configs have two different ages to prevent normal messages from being automatically archived to the notifications subpage. Currently, I set one of the boxes to not auto-generate, but I can't get the correct age to show. Aaron Liu ( talk) 12:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
|config_number=
; suggestions welcome). So after the fix, in your second archive config, it will look like this:
{{
archives|title=Notifications|config_number=2|...}}
1
as the default value if there is no such parameter.|nobot=yes
to the invocation. Just tested this in Preview mode (without saving) on your UTP, and it works. (It leaves a rump statement, 'This page has archives' which should probably be removed, but the bot notice about archiving is suppressed.) This is documented at
Template:Archives#Archive bot config, with an illustration in the #Usage section, but TemplateData needs to be updated for those using VE.
Mathglot (
talk) 19:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III.I have added the
|age=30
parameter but it does not work.
Aaron Liu (
talk) 21:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)|config_number=
causes some undesirable line wrapping in the view window that I'd like to eliminate or minimize as much as possible; am thinking of shortening it to cnbr, cno, cf, or just n. It will be used so rarely I don't think a highly mnemonic param name is needed for this param, and the shorter the better, to keep the preview code more legible for editors. How about just |n=
?
Mathglot (
talk) 01:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
|n=
might be a bit ambiguous when overlooking usages of the template ("n of what?"). |config_n=
could be a good middle ground between the two.
Aidan9382 (
talk) 13:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
|cfg=
?
Aaron Liu (
talk) 14:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
|cfg=
instead of 'config_number'; thanks.
Mathglot (
talk) 20:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Next step: create some test cases. (Aaron, your UTP is a kind of live test case, and an initial hint that the code might be working, at least in that one case, but not anything like a complete demonstration of it at the level of confidence that we would need for a highly visible template.) I may not get to the test cases immediately, but anyone is welcome to create them. One idea would be to add a dozen or so configs to the
/testcases page, and have the test cases link to them via the new |cfg=
param. We would also have to have some regression tests to make sure that the far more usual case of only a single config per page still works properly.
Mathglot (
talk) 21:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Aaron: I have undone
your changes to Archive template bot notice wording and the way param |nobot=
works in
Template:Archives/sandbox. Once the current changes for the multiple-config upgrade have been tested and released to live, then you can pick up the sandbox and make other changes to wording or to functionality of the params. Or, feel free to make your changes to
Template:Archives/sandbox2, and develop them there. Thanks.
Mathglot (
talk) 20:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)