Help:Archiving

Archiving

Archiving a talk page cleans up and shortens an excessively long talk page and provides easily accessible references for past discussions. Archives can be added to any talk pages on Guild Wars Wiki. This help article will explain how to archive and offer some tips on what to avoid.

[edit] When to archive

A talk page should be archived when it is generally too large or cluttered for comments to be easily added and read. It is recommended that you leave active discussions on the talk page and only archive the stale ones.

[edit] How do I archive a talk page?

There are two simple ways in which a talk page can be archived:

• Copy and paste all the talk page source content that needs to be archived into a separate page.

or

• Move the whole talk page to another name and replace the resulting redirect with a link to the archive(s).

The new archive page should be suitably named and in the correct namespace. For example, User talk:Example/Archive X (archive for User:Example's talk page) or Talk:Article/Archive X (archive for article named "Article"), where X can either be a numerical count or date.

See Help:Editing on how to create or move a page.

[edit] Archiving guidelines

• Archiving a talk page should be done by sections or completely. Avoid archiving a section partially, so continuity is preserved.
• Avoid continuing discussions in an archive. If a subject needs to be revived, it can be taken out of the archive and put back onto the talk page.
• Empty remnants of sections moved to other talk pages need not be archived if they are irrelevant.
• Personal attacks can be removed without archiving as per Guild Wars Wiki:No personal attacks. (Note: You should always contact an administrator before removing a comment on a talk page)
• After archiving, add a visible link on the original talk page to the newly created archive.
• Explain that you're archiving in the edit summary.

[edit] User talk pages

• Users should only archive talk pages in their own user space. If a user's talk page is in need of an archive, ask that user politely.
• An archived talk page is still a talk page. The user page policy still applies.

[edit] Tips

• Use an {{Archive-box}} on a talk page to make the archive links more consistent and appealing.
• Use the {{archived}} template (or a similar notice) at the top of the archive to inform others that it is an archive and should not be edited.