Template talk:Archives/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

An opportunity for doc clarification

 Courtesy link: Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2024 § Is minthreadsleft deprecated?

There is some understandable confusion in the role of the Miszabot/config in controlling the generation of Talk page archives on the one hand, and the role of the four deprecated bot notice params in generating the bot notice below the archive list on the other. This is exemplified by this discussion raised by Ivanvector. It may be worthwhile to mine that discussion for ideas on how to improve Template:Archives/doc so that this is clearer.

Ivanvector, I do spend a lot of time on documentation, and I am committed to getting this right so there is no confusion, but I might need your help. Sometimes, those of us who are too close to a template from long familiarity with it no longer see the pain points or missing or confused documentation as well as someone less familiar or new to it. So you can help out here by pointing out what areas don't make sense, or are vague, unclear, missing, or otherwise need attention; the linked discussion is a good start. Note that template doc pages are not protected the way some templates (like this one) are, so if you know what the doc page needs to say to be clearer, by all means just update it, rather than feel like you must explain it to someone else first. Where interaction with template writers is needed, there are several who do a great job and are willing to help out with documentation, Novem Linguae and Rjjiii come to mind, I count myself among them, and there are others. Mathglot (talk) 00:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

How about this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Are the points below correct:

1. When archiving with lowercase sigmabot III the config values are set by User:MiszaBot/config for backwards compatability with the older MiszaBot?
2. When archiving with ClueBot III the config values are set with User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis?
3. When manually archiving, |target= and |nobot=yes should be set with {{Archives}}? Does manually archiving include one click archiving?

If that's right, I'm thinking the "Archive bot config" section should explain those three config options at the beginning. People who need a different template should be pointed in that direction, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

1. yes, it is set by miszabot/config, but not really for compatibility with miszabot. More because all archive bots use it so it is the standard config template. Yes. Sounds like they wanted to avoid editing thousands of talk pages when the talk page archive bot switched from MiszaBot to Lowercase sigmabot III.
2. no, cluebot also uses miszabot/config. Yes.
3. i think nobot=yes tells template:archive to ignore the miszabot/config values, and miszabot/config will not be present on a page where only manual archiving is occurring. So in that situation nobots=yes should not be needed. Looks like Target is an optional parameter that just specifies the format of the archive links. If you are using the standard archive location of /Archive 1, you shouldn't need to specify this. Yes, all the advice here in number 3 should also apply to one click archivers.

Hope this helps! –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:34, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I just now learned that ClueBot III uses a different config template, so I edited some of my answers above. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! That is helpful. I've looked more into this, and the documentation for |target= seems wrong. All the usages I saw were transcluded via User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn and pointed at an index. This is apparently used by User:Legobot when archiving?

Also, the deprecated parameter |age= is still used in a couple of conditional statements. Should "age" be taken out of these? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• (aside) I'd be happy to help refresh the documentation, I do a bit of technical writing for a living, but today is my busy day in the office so I'll have to come back to this a bit later. I also would like to better understand how this all works so the initial discussion is helpful. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 10:35, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  One of the ways I learn about a template sometimes is by fixing up the documentation. This was the case for me with this template, whose parameter usage I really didn't understand (and I'm still not there 100%). Anyway, in trying to get a foothold, I took it from this to this (the Diff is long and messy; side-by-side is probably better) but please have a look and see if you think that is an improvement. That doesn't mean it is done, but for me, it was a minimal first step to get something comprehensible out there. It's very possible a completely different approach might be even better. Mathglot (talk) 16:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Since there are a number of related templates (and info pages) all under the aegis of archiving, and since they have overlapping roles and even some common parameters, I wonder if they would all benefit from some centralized doc snippets that could be transcluded into each one to avoid duplicating parts of the story, kind of the way like {{csdoc}} serves as a repository of doc snippets for all of the CS1 citation templates.

And since we are listing or mention archiving bots, there is also Legobot task 15 which creates archive indexes; instructions at HBC Archive Indexerbot. Mathglot (talk) 16:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• Inviting Sdkb and Trialpears to join in if they wish, based on this comment at an old Tfd about overhauling Talk archiving. Did that achieve the desired outcome, and did the doc page(s) keep up? Mathglot (talk) 17:03, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  I'd have to do some reading in order to catch myself up on what's happening here enough to meaningfully contribute. From a broad perspective, I support having a non-zero minimum-threads-left default value on talk pages. When setting an archive-after-X-days value for talk pages, the main consideration most editors have is "what value of X will cause this talk page to neither balloon in size nor shrink to zero?" Setting a minimum number of threads to keep (or perhaps a maximum number of threads, after which the oldest will be archived if its last activity is at least Y days old) is a better way to achieve that, since it'll dynamically adjust the archive period as a talk page becomes more or less active over time. Letting all threads on a talk page get archived isn't normally desirable (unless it's manually confirmed that none of them hold any relevance anymore) — when people go to a talk page, they normally want to see the most recent discussions on the topic, and there shouldn't be an extra barrier of having to go into an archive to find them.

  Not sure how much that speaks to the discussion here, but hope it's helpful for thinking about the direction we might want to take automatic talk page archiving overall. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 17:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the comment. I'm looking at a bigger picture now; I'm less concerned about the highly localized minthreads issue, and more focused on the question: How do we best document the various archiving templates, and the Help or info pages that deal with archiving, in order that it all be clear to users and not leave them confused? (The minthreads issue is still important to resolve, but just part of the larger picture.) Mathglot (talk) 17:29, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  True. The fact that there are various archiving templates in the first place is one big factor at the root. We should be continuing to pursue consolidation and simplification wherever possible — and that applies to documentation/help pages as much as to the templates themselves. Sdkb ^talk 17:33, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  A couple thoughts. Template:Automatic archive navigator was voted to merge into Template:Archive (not this template). That seems correct, and that merger would help some.

  Help:Archiving a talk page can be the main page for this subject. Any archiving documentation can start off early with a hatnote or piped link (archive) to that page. The lead there should likely be rewritten. To me it seems more like an article (answering what an archive is) than a documentation page (answering how to fix or set up an archive). Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if this has already been brought up:

1. ) the the four deprecated bot notice params were used to manually convey the parameter info from the archive bot template. This confusion suggests they should be removed altogether; perhaps deprecating them is counter-productive and they generating error messages ("unknown parameter") would be better?
2. ) I believe manual archiving should be specifically noted as such. Meaning that when a page tells you it is automatically archived, that means manual archiving is neither needed nor appreciated. Just let the bot do its job. Manually archiving means acting against the consensus that is represented by the bot parameters: if the page's editors have agreed to archive 90 day old discussions (say) then manually archiving some after only a week would go against that. Perhaps |nobot=yes could be repurposed to actually mean what it says: that no bots are allowed to archive that page (suggesting either archiving should not happen at all or that editors handle archiving manually).
3. ) the end goal is (or should be) identical functionality (archiving-wise) between Talk header and Archives. Not sure how complete that work is presently.
4. ) as long as we have multiple bots capable of archiving, with different setup configs, let's not consolidate archiving instructions onto a single page. Having one page attempt to explain the basics intermingled with more than one set of technical instructions would be a mistake. The current setup, with one non-technical help page, and then one page for each bot, is much more functional. Of course, should Wiki ever feature only one bot with only one configuration, this no longer applies.

CapnZapp (talk) 10:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I support having a non-zero minimum-threads-left default value on talk pages. Yes. And this number should be no less than 4. Why 4? Because Wikipedia automatically eats the Table of Contents on any page with less than four sections. Arriving at a talk page with no TOC and perhaps no discussions can be desorientating once you get used to how things usually look like; it can give off the impression the page is defunct or unused. I'm not talking special cases here, but in general, archiving is done to trim the size of the talk page, there is usually no good reason to trim it below 4 discussions: that loads fast enough. Getting rid of old discussions are not worth the potential confusion brought on by a "naked" (TOC-less) talk page. This goes both for automatic archiving (with bot parameters without 4 threads left) and manual archiving. Just leave enough sections for the TOC to stick around without having to manually insert it. CapnZapp (talk) 10:46, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding "let's not consolidate archiving instructions onto a single page", I agree but realize that it may sound like I mean something else. I think the lead section of Help:Archiving a talk page should contain clear links to:

1. User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo or User:Lowercase sigmabot III
2. User:ClueBot III
3. Help:Archiving (plain and simple)
4. Wikipedia:One click archiving

The current Help:Archiving a talk page lead is over 250 words with no links to any of those. The lead does contain links to Help:Using talk pages, Help:Page history, WP:BLANKING, and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#When to archive pages which don't really cover archiving. When it comes to one click archiving, the main page is not linked and the two linked scripts appear to be defunct. I think much of the current lead would make more sense in a "When to archive" section. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 14:21, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't favor "consolidat[ing] archiving instructions onto a single page" but rather have a pyramid with a brief intro at the top with links, and ensure that all of the pages contribute as part of an integrated whole, rather than as a set of unrelated one-man bands. On top of it all, would sit one page, Help:Archiving (currently a disambig page), with a *brief* intro to everything Archive related, and with links to all the more specific pages that describe different bots, different archiving methods, and templates, and would address questions like the interaction between them, such as your point about manual archiving not interfering with automatic archiving. We don't really have a page like that now.
Help:Archiving a talk page is the closest, and kind of performs that function, but it is way too long, and goes into way too much detail about the individual archiving methods for a top-level page. I think we could create a page (or strip that one down) with five sections (taken from the seven on that page), including: Manual archiving, Automatic archiving, Templates, Archive indexing, and Archive searching (not a fan of repeating the word 'Archiving' in every one, but can deal with that later) and a lead-off Intro section, and move out all the examples and detailed stuff (like Technical Overview) into other pages. The top level Help page should be a short and sweet intro, quickly lead the user through the available choices, and get them to the right detail page as quickly as possible, where they can find the technical info they need to do what they want. Mathglot (talk) 18:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Even with ideal documentation, a system with a ton of different archiving methods is inherently complex (and thus inherently confusing). We only need as many archiving methods as there are foundationally different use cases. I'd argue that we need only one. Sdkb ^talk 18:21, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but can we agree that that would be o/t as far as improving current doc is concerned? Reducing to one bot would be a heavy lift, and could stymie doc improvement efforts. Mathglot (talk) 18:24, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I've started updating Help:Archiving a talk page and will loop back around to this page. Help:Archiving was previously a redirect to Help:Archiving a talk page for over ten years. It would make a lot of sense to move Help:Archiving a talk page to Help:Archiving. The structure of the page though is that the sections have subpages that go into greater detail. So all of those also need to be moved. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 16:32, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like a perfectly valid approach. I had envisioned a slightly different one, expanding the redirect as top article into a brief intro with summary sections of the main alternatives in summary style. It sounds like your approach may end up at pretty much the same result via a different path, renaming the long page, cutting it back significantly, and moving detail into specific pages; do I understand you correctly? I'm happy to help, but don't want to increase the likelihood of edit conflicts; either lmk when you hit a stopping point, or consider use of {{in use}} for major re-orgs. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Mathglot, I'm at a stopping point for a bit. Feel free to change/fix anything that I've done there. Going forward I'll use {{in use}} since so many folks are involved now.

And yes, that's mostly what I'm thinking. One note though, I've only used the subpages approach because Help:Archiving a talk page already used that method. If it would work better to have a that material somewhere else, I don't have any objections. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:15, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I could think of a good reason why it would be good to have two bots, and that’s so we have one in reserve in case something happens with the other one. Anyone who is aware of what's happened with the page views graphs on article talk pages knows what I’m talking about. Mathglot (talk) 00:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I've felt for a long time that Help:Archiving a talk page is much too long and involved for the average editor just trying to set up typical talk page archives. Help:Archiving (plain and simple) is plenty of information for such editors and probably needs to be where 99% of editors land when trying to find instructions. (Full disclosure: I created that one initially for my own use.) Valereee (talk) 19:12, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I've also thought it is much too long, and it sounds like there is at least a kernel of agreement about that. It also sounds like there might be agreement to call the initial landing page Help:Archiving (the current disambig page) or Help:Archives (currently a redirect) and that whatever it contains, it should be short and simple, with links elsewhere for the gory details; do I have that right so far? This conceptualization reminds me somewhat of a WP:BCA, and that could be a useful abstraction here as we move forward. We should certainly take another look at '(plain and simple)' and see whether the content there could be moved to or mined for the initial page in combination with the modifications Rjjiii is making to the current one, but it sounds like we are generally in agreement, and generally on the right track. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 20:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

it should be short and simple, with links elsewhere for the gory details; do I have that right so far?. Absolutely! Even at the plain and simple page we've seen people want to add extra bits (like what the template renders as in code once expanded) that they, as someone comfortable with templates, thought seemed obviously helpful. And I'm like, no one using this cut-paste job understands what "format = %%i" means. If they do, or they want to understand, Help:Archiving a talk page is that way. :D

I actually had opened a discussion here about moving Help:Archiving (plain and simple) to Help:Archiving and moving Help:Archiving a talk page to Help:Archiving (technical), which those who commented approved of. I just wasn't sure at the time that I could make that move without screwing it up. Valereee (talk) 11:51, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee, there's {{beginner version}} to help point folks toward the simplification. Sdkb ^talk 03:23, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that's helpful, thanks! lol...I bet I've started archives at 100+ talk pages. I doubt I'll ever be moving on from the beginner version. :D Valereee (talk) 09:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I use Help:Archiving_a_talk_page#Example_with_sequentially_numbered_archives all the time to copy the miszabot config, so let's be careful to not damage/rewrite/delete that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:18, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's any intent to remove the highly useful copy-paste model code snippets, just to come up with a rational organization of the articles and sections, so that everything cam be found more easily by a reader interested in archiving. That code is not going away; at worst (best? ) it will be easier to find. Mathglot (talk) 20:31, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Automatic bot detection in Template:Monthly archive list

A popular archiving scheme is Talk:Article name/Archives/<year>/<Month> For this scheme, template {{Monthly archive list}} is used with parameter |root=Talk:Article name/Archives. E.g. at Talk:Paris metropolitan area (subpages).

The recently added automatic archival bot detection uses the parameter |root= as the name of the page, where the archival template is expected to be. The Archives part of the parameter |root= breaks this code.

I've come up with a workaround for Template:Monthly archive list (see Special:Diff/1222200740 and Special:Diff/1222200780), but it isn't great. Any ideas for how to improve the situation? —⁠andrybak (talk) 15:02, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

⁠Andrybak, Thanks for raising this. Only just glanced at this, but my first impression is that the root param usage at {{Archives}} after that change is overloaded, as it looks like prior usage was different. If that stands up to analysis, then the fix is to use a different param name for the new occurrences seen in the right side of the diff, while leaving the old ones alone. I need to understand better what the previous usage was for, and whether there really need to be two params, or just one with better template code to deal with it. A complication is that I'm a bit overextended, with an #Edge case involving double bot configs already in the sandbox and in testing here, as well as a related change to template {{Talk header}} about to be released, followed by dealing with the edge case there, as well. On top of that, I'll be away for a month soon. So, my question is, can you hang on with the workaround until, say, late June or would that be too annoying? If not, there could be a quick fix of just renaming the new occurrences of that param to something else (base?) which will likely fix your issue, but the problem is it would have to be thoroughly regression tested to make sure it doesn't break anything. (I wish your case had been in the test cases previously; it would've avoided this.) One approach could be, to code that change quickly in the sandbox without releasing it, and then invoke the sandbox from Template:Monthly archive list. That would fix it there, but not in other templates where it appears (apparently few to no others), without risking breaking stuff all over if an insufficiently tested sandbox version is released to live, but buy us time for a thoroughly analyzed and tested fix. Lmk what you think. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:34, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Mathglot, of course, there is no rush. For the page Talk:Paris metropolitan area, we could even restore the previous manual listing of the archives as in Special:Permalink/1212170688. Parameter {{{root-override}}} could be dropped from {{Monthly archive list}}, so that it doesn't confuse people – page Talk:Paris metropolitan area is its only usage.

The interactions between the templates are indeed tricky, especially since a single usage in one place affects multiple pages at once. Semi-related: yesterday, it took quite a while (one, two, three debug outputs) to diagnose a bug in {{Annual archive}}. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:49, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Parameter {{{root-override}}} could be dropped from {{Monthly archive list}} – done: Special:Diff/1222425107 + Special:Diff/1222424982. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks. I hear you. In this comment at a template Talk page recently I alluded to a missing WP shortcut with a red link there, that will likely resonate with template editors. Maybe it should be turned blue and point somewhere... If you want to take a look at previous usage of 'root' here and comment, that might speed things along, and in the meantime, the live-test-using-sandbox approach might be a good one, given the low number of other templates that transclude this one (that 'few' link above). Mathglot (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

How were you able to drop the override param? Isn't that (temporarily) needed for the Paris page, until the problem here is fixed? Mathglot (talk) 22:40, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

The notice about the bot is not strictly necessary. Editors at Talk:Paris metropolitan area will manage without it. —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:46, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Got it; thx. Mathglot (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Need to take another look at this soon. Mathglot (talk) 08:10, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The dual-archive box case should be completed soon, and then we can address this again. Mathglot (talk) 19:18, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Why have "alt" and "link"?

These two parameters just seem like something for editors to trip on. The link can be determined from the |image= parameter, and the alt text should consistently be something like "archive icon" or "filing icon", right? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I've removed them in the sandbox and placed examples on this testcases subpage:

Template:Archives/testcases/Remove alt and link

These are both easy to mess up and offer little value to most editors, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 08:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Why have "alt" and "link"? Here's the edit that added the documentation for these two parameters: [1] I'm too lazy to go through the code, but this should give you a starting point in answering the question. CapnZapp (talk) 08:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I feel like I understand the purpose now, but I think the parameters should be taken out. Together they are asking an editor to understand Web accessibility and intellectual property laws (which are both complex) in order to change the icon (which could be simple). I think this sets an editor up to cause confusion. I have previously noticed something similar with the typographic character templates {{dagger}}, {{double-dagger}}, and {{hash-tag}}. These all had |alt= parameters but they were pretty widely misused. The alt paramters are still present in articles even though they no longer do anything. If active they could produce alt attributes that are confusing, unhelpful, not valid, misused to create tooltips, awakwardly verbose, or bad for accessibility. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Based on responses at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Alt text for icons in templates, I think both parameters should be deprecated and removed. I'll hold off until the more complicated issues above are addressed. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 00:22, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Finally came back around to removing these. It should simplify the template and improve accessibility on a small handful of pages. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

What does TemplateData do on the doc page?

Funandtrvl added TemplateData to the documentation subpage in 2021.[2] TemplateData is used mainly by the Visual Editor. For some templates it is used by other visual interfaces (like ProveIt) or bots (like Citoid). The Visual Editor doesn't work on talk pages though, so I'm not sure what it's for. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Confused about your question. A doc subpage like {{Archives/doc}} is in Template space (e.g. ,{{NAMESPACE|Template:Archives/doc}} ⟶ Template, not Talk) and the doc page is transcluded onto the Template page, so also Template space. Can you clarify? Mathglot (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The 2017 wikitext editor uses TemplateData as well, and works on Talk pages. Tollens (talk) 17:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Rjjiii, VE does in fact work on talk pages. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

It's also useful for the template parameter report which I used several times when I worked on this template. Trialpears (talk) 22:30, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try to update it soon. I wasn't initially sure if it should be removed or updated, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 00:38, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

@Trialpears: before I touch the TemplateData, do you know why the template parameter report only shows 19 pages? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii Half a year late but if anyone still wonders it's because the template parameter report doesn't run on talk pages so it misses 99.9% of uses. Trialpears (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Missing archives message

User talk:Thriley has some 92 archives numbered in the standard way, but the 'This page has archives' message does not appear. Mathglot (talk) 10:08, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

That's because they don't use a bot, and the message only shows if the module returns a "bot" parameter. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:59, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Specifically, the message only appears if either {{User:MiszaBot/config}} or {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis}} are found on the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:06, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Doh! Self-trout. Thank you. Mathglot (talk) 19:27, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Category:Archive boxes with unusual parameters has been nominated for deletion

Category:Archive boxes with unusual parameters has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 19:16, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Edge case

@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)

 Checking... Mathglot (talk) 17:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Aaron Liu, thanks for adding this bug report. When the auto-generate upgrade was designed, it did not foresee the case where a page (like your Talk page) would have two separate archive configs on the page, and so when it looks for the config, it just picks the first one it finds and assumes that's the right one. For most pages, that works, but obviously for your page, which has two configs, it does not. The fix will involve a new optional parameter (name t.b.d. but maybe |config_number=; suggestions welcome). So after the fix, in your second archive config, it will look like this:

{{archives|title=Notifications|config_number=2|...}}

Brief analysis: Template:Archives calls Template:Talk header/archivebotparse to do the parsing, and in a couple of places, archivebotparse calls {{Template parameter value}} to grab the config. The third positional parameter (TEMPLATE-COUNT) currently is hard-coded to 1, which causes the problem in your Notifications archive box.

Repair design: archivebotparse should pass the value of the new config_number parameter to {{tmpv}} in position 3, passing 1 as the default value if there is no such parameter.

Testing: The design and implementation of the fix is quite simple at the sandbox level, but because the change affects both the {{Archives}} and {{Talk header}}, both highly visible templates, careful testing is needed before release – it needs to have a new test case added (ideally, a few contrasting ones) and both templates will have to be checked. I don't anticipate any problems with that, it's just that it may take some time. Are you okay with this for the time being?

A good way to proceed imho, as well as to get you up and running sooner rather than later, is to go ahead and make the sandbox changes (one to archivebotparse/sandbox, and one to Archives/sandbox to invoke it), which could be done fairly quickly and then use your page as a tester. This would involve changing your {{Archives}} invocations on your page to {{Archives/sandbox}} instead, and adding the new param. If it works, great, and you'll be the first/only one to benefit from it for a while, while testing is ongoing. When it's fully tested and the new version is finally released, you just self-revert (i.e., go back to the regular, non-sandbox version on your Talk page) and it will continue working as desired. How does this plan sound to you? Adding Aidan9382. Mathglot (talk) 18:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Adding a template count to grab a specific instance would be fine. Also, you don't need to pass 1 as a default value if config_number isnt specified, since tmpv will default to 1 itself. The only remaining edge case that wouldn't (couldn't) solve would be if they used 2 different archiving bots actively, but that's very rarely done, and generally for good reason, since it can get messy. You could potentially just allow the user to specify a certain bot if that's a case you also want to worry about. Aidan9382 _(talk) 19:11, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

So TL;DR what I would need to do is change my archives templates to their sandbox versions after you lovely people finish construction? That sounds good to me.

In my opinion there should be a way to actually disable the auto-generation. Currently I can't specify the archival age after disabling. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Right, but we're not quite there, yet. There is a way to disable it: add |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)

What I want is for the statement in the first box to say 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)

You don't need to (and shouldn't) add that parameter; it is deprecated. The autogeneration derives it automatically from the config, preventing it from getting out of sync. Previously, it didn't work for multiple configs as in your case, but now that the sandbox version has been created and is in testing, it is usable on an alpha-test basis. See how your Talk page looks now, calling the sandbox instead of the live template, and if the page now looks the way you want it. Mathglot (talk) 01:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Having nobot actually turn off the features would still be useful in 1. edge cases we haven't seen yet 2. my talk page, where the "Index link" currently links to the indices for the normal archives, yet is linked to in the notifications box.
Anyways, thanks for the help! This is still tremendously better. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad it's better, though I admit to not understanding the rest of that comment. I also don't understand the edit summary here about not wanting the "95 days", and something about instant archival; how can the archival be instant if you've specified 95 days in the config? Feel free not to explain if you're happy with how it is now, just wanted to say I'm pretty much in the dark, here, and if there might still be bugs that would affect performance for others with two configs, it would be better to know about it sooner rather than later. (I do understand my earlier mix-up in the links in the two configs which you subsequently fixed; no explanation needed there.) Mathglot (talk) 02:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The notifications config (theoretically) instantly archives anything that contains certain pieces of text. It has a longer duration than the other 30 days duration, so that Cluebot doesn't archive any normal messages to the notifications subpages.

The notifications config also has nogenerateindex. As a result, Cluebot's generated indices are for the normal config only. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:55, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Don't worry about this anymore, I've discovered the |index=none parameter. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:19, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Note for Aidan: the long name of the parameter |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)

I think just |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)

How about just |cfg=? Aaron Liu (talk) 14:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

That works for me; stand by... Mathglot (talk) 19:43, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, that change is in, now. This is a breaking change with respect to your Talk page, so if you wish to pick up the changes, please change your UTP sandbox call to use |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)

Unrelated sandbox changes

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)

Well, I didn't make any changes to the wording. The diff displays weirdly when inline, but all I did was take the nobot if condition out and wrap the entire td body instead, plus unindenting the originally wrapped part. I don't think it'll cause any problems. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right, and if you want to take over this development and release the multi-config upgrade along with your changes at the same time, I am fine with that and I'll stop and hand it off to you, and you can revert my change and continue as you wish. But I won't continue or move anything to live under my sig with both sets of changes in there at the same time. Please lmk how you would like to proceed. Mathglot (talk) 20:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Either is fine to me, though I'd prefer you deploy the multi-config upgrade first, as I am unfamiliar with such things and can always do an edit request later. Thanks again for your timeliness. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:04, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I'll carry on with the initial plan; thanks. Mathglot (talk) 21:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Mathglot, how's it going? What things do we need to test before this is merged to the main template? Aaron Liu (talk) 11:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi, Aaron. Not forgotten, but somewhat in suspension for a couple of reasons: one is, I’m away for a few weeks and I can thumb-type Talk messages on my phone, but wouldn’t dare do template changes of this nature that way. But more importantly, there’s some stuff going on at Template:Talk header that should complete before this; it may be done already and then I can tackle this when I get back. Remind me around 20 June if you haven’t heard anything before that. And, thanks for the reminder! Mathglot (talk) 11:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Back, and should be able to look into this again soon. Mathglot (talk) 23:18, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Mathglot, how's it going? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Continuing

Hi, Aaron. I'm reviewing this again to remind myself where we are and see what needs to be done to bring it to completion. Sorry for delays and thanks for the ping. Iirc, everything is already in place in the sandbox, we needed a (or some) test case(s), and the sandbox testing version has been on your page for a while now, I believe. So, let's start there, first: has the sandbox version of the {{Archives}} template been on your Talk page during this entire time, and what's your general impression? Has it been doing what it ought to, for both boxes, and have you have observed any issues? Have you tried fiddling with the params to observe different results, and if so, how did that go? Mathglot (talk) 19:14, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I've fiddled with it a bit and it's been alright on my talk page, though the sandbox talk using sigmabot seems to have broken. Aaron Liu (talk) 04:01, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look at that. There's a {{void}} template around the two configs, which shouldn't affect it, I don't think, so it may be something else. Mathglot (talk) 04:29, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

The {{void}} has nothing to do wit it, as I thought. There are some layers of issues, starting with the fact that the Archives sandbox had moved on, so I restored it to the proper test version for testing this. (If others are working simultaneously on it, we might have to switch to sandbox2.) Next step, I have to look at the config parsing routine, to see if it is handling parsing of hours correctly, but I'm done for today. Mathglot (talk) 07:53, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that having two {{User:MiszaBot/config}} on the same page is permitted. At best, one of the two will be ignored, but it's possible that the bot will use some parameters from one and some from the other. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:44, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Reading the source code, it indeed doesn't support that. It just reads the first config and takes it (at least that's how I assume next() to work for Python iterators).
@Mathglot I guess we could just change it to a preview warning if |cfg= points to a Sigmabot config. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:21, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Interesting; I had been testing and doing some searching around, and had started to compose a message over at User talk:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo, which might still be worthwhile, although I'd have to change it now. I wanted to compile some data first before writing it, and so here are two advanced searches showing 39 Talk pages and 50 user talk pages with MiszaBot configs. (The searches will likely return results and time out before completing, so your numbers might be different.) I like the Preview warning idea. Am going to take a break and think about all this and where to go next, but I'm interested in your thoughts. Mathglot (talk) 00:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Regarding, "If others are working simultaneously on it", I don't have anything to test right now. I will likely post to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility at some point in the future about best practices for "alt" parameters for icons. Also, a ping to andrybak in case I interrupted anything. Take care, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:04, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

And at this moment, neither do I, as I have to switch gears and think about a possible new direction here. I've left a dummy edit welcoming a revert of my restoration of the test version for this; would have undone so myself, but there was a subsequent edit. Mathglot (talk) 07:19, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Mathglot, how's it going? Since no errors have arisen, my personal opinion is that we should just test it on a few more talk pages and merge it, especially since there are very few talk pages these changes would affect. We can always work on the bug reports later. That said, you're still the experienced one and I trust your judgement, whatever it is. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:08, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder, and sorry for the delay. I think I was trying to juggle too many things at once, and there was one other feature here that also dragged out that just got released finally, which should make it easier to attend to this one. Still a bit overwhelmed, but this is now top of stack for this template. Bear with me, and don't hesitate to ping again if it drags on. Mathglot (talk) 00:00, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Mathglot, sorry to bother you again (especially with all the other wonderful things I see you've been doing), but what's the current status of this? Also, would it be more productive if we tested the changes of sandbox2 at the same time? Thanks in advance. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:47, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Acck, I forgot! Sorry. After the holidays? Ping me Jan 2 or 3? Mathglot (talk) 04:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

sure lol Aaron Liu (talk) 14:15, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot doot Aaron Liu (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Acknowledged; will have a look. Mathglot (talk) 11:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

reboot

{{Aaron Liu}} Let's start up again. I'm actually not sure where we should pick up, but maybe with summarizing what there seemed to be agreement about. Perhaps one point is just to confirm that we agree that we don't support having two {{User:MiszaBot/config}} on the same page. If there is agreement on that (is there?) then we don't need the idea of the |cfg= param, iirc. But that leaves you with your Archives boxes not displaying the correct information, whereas before, they used to. Is that the gist of the problem? I may have to come back up to speed on this.

I apologize for all the delay and confusion. I think it is partly that a number of change issues hit Template:Talk header at the same time, and the more high-profile and visible a template is, the more careful (paranoid?) I am about making changes and testing them (we are up to four test case pages there, because we hit some template limits just having one of them. And then, when the automatic bot message thing came up there and the commonalities between that template and this one was mentioned, making changes there and importing them here got even stickier. I think that unfortunately, the issue here with the two Archives boxes was essentially collateral damage of the complexity of the Talk header template issues, the common issues between that one and this one, and my rather cautious way of proceeding. And on top of that, sometimes I just need to flee templating for a while and clear my head. Very possibly another TPE could've done this a whole lot faster (and you're always welcome to ask around; it's not like I own this or anything; I don't feel proprietary or OWN-y about any of it). But I feel I can look at it again now, so let's figure out where we were, or at least, where we want to get to, and put this to bed. Mathglot (talk) 04:14, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we agree that we don't need to support multiple Misza configs, as the sigmabot doesn't handle that. I use Cluebot, which can handle it and which the sandbox archives template currently supports. I don't think there's any conflict here.
The talk header is definitely more important than a rare edge case for the archives box. Keep up the good work! Aaron Liu (talk) 13:32, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot (re)boot Aaron Liu (talk) 18:59, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot In my own limited testing on various pages, I haven't seen any problems. I'll start an edit request on the weekend if you don't mind. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm good with that, if they get to it before I do, which given my history on this, seems likely. I seem to be spread too thin and should have allocated my resources better; apologies. Mathglot (talk) 07:23, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Edit request

Please replace the live templates with their sandbox versions, which adds a feature for selecting the desired config to show from multiple ClueBot configs on one page. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:00, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:15, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Don't display end matter if "nobot=y" is enabled

Please replace with sandbox (except for the |archive = Template:Archives/sandbox/ line).
When |nobot=y is passed, the part after the horizontal rule in the box form (which normally says things like This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III when more than 2 sections are present.) will only say the meaningless This page has archives. which yeah, that's why we're using this tempalte. This is a deviation from the previous behavior where one could hide this end matter and pointlessly takes up space. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:24, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu: The sandbox also needed other fixes, as you invoked {{Th/abp/sbx}} instead of {{Th/abp}}, but overall I think your request makes sense. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 17:15, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 17:22, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

minthreadsleft is deprecated

...but the template does not appear to extract/display this information. The documentation doesn't say whether this is a bug or because it's simply upcoming.

I suggest we either implement this or undeprecate the parameter. Currently there seems to be zero way to express:

• your talk sections aren't archived despite being old enough because the bot is instructed to always leave N sections
• either to not empty the talk page outright, or to prevent the disappearance of the Table of Contents (which only automatically appears when 4 or more sections are present)

CapnZapp (talk) 12:03, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

It is displayed, though: minthreadsleft is 2 on my talk page and the box says when more than 2 sections are present. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:41, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken your user talk uses {{archives/sandbox}} Not sure what's up with that. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 18:40, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

CapnZapp, there's no difference. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:50, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

That was a testing thing no longer needed. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:00, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Where is this deprecation explicitly stated? I don't see it at User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:42, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

He's talking about this template, archives. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:00, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

No. I don't get that. Template:Archives should follow the implementation of the archiving bots, not dictate how they operate. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:21, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

This does follow. It's just that the original manual inputting of archive parameters was replaced by automatically finding the archive parameters. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:38, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Yes, what was deprecated was the manual addition (to Archives and Talk header) of what the instructions told the bot to do. When these templates was updated to automatically look at those instructions, the ability to (and need for) manual parameters disappeared.

Okay, so back to the matter at hand. The people that updated these templates to automatically extract the bot parameters for display to the reader forgot about or outright skipped |minthreadsleft= but still deprecated the template, thus leaving us with no way to convey the above information to the reader (illustrated by the bulleted examples in the first post of this section above).

People with the technical know-how, please extract - and display - the |minthreadsleft= bot parameter to the reader as well. Or, if that is somehow deemed impossible, undeprecate the "manual" parameter (and display that) so the ability to display minthreadsleft isn't lost. Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 21:51, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

It is displayed, thougH? Again: minthreadsleft is 2 on my talk page and the box says when more than 2 sections are present. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:13, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@CapnZapp, on what page do you see it missing? The template on this talk page says, "This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present." The template seems to check the bot's config via {{Th/abp}} at line 49. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 23:50, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

Horizontal examples needed

I don't see any. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:29, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

@Timeshifter like this? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:01, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! --Timeshifter (talk) 22:12, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Archive bot config

Does the automatic bot settings work if age is expressed as years (param value in y's)?

Have a look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images. I can't understand why the template doesn't say "...when older than 1 year". Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 11:59, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: For {{User:MiszaBot/config}}, |algo=old(1y) is not a valid value. You should use |algo=old(365d) or similar. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Thanks. I now understand that while the bot code understands the y unit, the template code that too looks at the same parameters does not. CapnZapp (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@CapnZapp Actually, the bot code does not:

sigmabot doesn't actually support years as a unit - it's either days, hours, or no suffix (which gets treated as seconds) - see User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Source.py where is says def str2time(s: str):
— User:Aidan9382 07:02, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Aaron Liu (talk) 11:16, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Wow. Thank you. CapnZapp (talk) 15:04, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu and Aidan9382: Where was the error in my post of 19:48, 11 June 2025 (UTC)? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:30, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

You didn't say anything wrong (infact you said exactly the same thing I said, just in a different context). Aidan9382 _(talk) 20:43, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

There was no error; it's just that CapnZapp's response to you clearly showed that he misunderstood you as saying "not a valid value for Archives to parse" instead of "not a valid value for configuring the archival bot". Aaron Liu (talk) 21:31, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

A narrower banner would help declutter the top of talk pages

On talk pages without a {{talk header}} there is no way to know of the archiving unless one adds {{archives}}.

People may prefer a horizontal archive banner instead of the right-floating archive box. It would be nice if the banner was narrower. Especially if there are other top of the page notices and banners.

One way to narrow the banner is to remove the filebox icon: {{archives|banner=yes|image=none}}

The banner could be made narrower by decreasing the space above and below the row of archive numbers.

We could also move the small text mentioning ClueBot or Sigmabot, the archiving period, and the minimum number of threads.

It could be moved next to the archive list. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:27, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

The software wraps that line in a paragraph element. The default paragraph style is a 1em margin above and .5em margin below. This is where the spacing comes from. I tried putting a div there in the sandbox which seems to only work some of the time:

You're welcome try ideas out in the sandbox, but the template already feels a bit complicated. Good luck, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:20, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking the same about it being too complicated. I suggest making it a duplicate of the bottom of {{talk header}}.

I don't know how to do that though. {{talk header}} is complex and uses Lua too. But someone with knowledge could just copy the parts dealing with the archive banner at the bottom of {{talk header}}.

--Timeshifter (talk) 11:43, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

The sandbox version currently creates Linter errors on the /banner testcases page. I tried to sort it but was unable to do so in a helpful way. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:09, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I saw that; thanks! At first, I thought there would be a quick solution, but I'm not interested in trying to puzzle out the template if it means rewriting some large chunk of it, and so I will move on to something else. Timeshifter is probably right about how the template should display if someone else wants to puzzle through it, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:40, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: I left a request for help here:

Template talk:Talk header

--Timeshifter (talk) 14:45, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Fixed the lint errors. For some godforsaken mysterious reason the static list's new table row was hacked in as an interruption to the existing table row instead of sanely after it: Special:Diff/1296357316 Aaron Liu (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the banner style uses pretty much the same code as the bottom of {{talk header}}. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:02, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Aaron Liu The result is different though. {{talk header}} uses a tooltip to make things more compact. See it in use here: Template talk:Talk header.

Would it be possible to get the same result for the {{Archives}} horizontal banner? --Timeshifter (talk) 22:41, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

It's probably possible (with a little wrangling because currently the footer area is shared between the box and banner versions), but I wonder why you would not want a talk header, not want the ultracompact box version of the archives, and not want the single footer line at the bottom? I understand not liking the vertical whitespace that RJJ removed but what's wrong with a single, small line more banner height? Aaron Liu (talk) 00:07, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

On my screen the small-print takes up 2 lines. Many people don't feel the need for the {{talk header}} on all talk pages. Some people dislike the box version of {{archives}}. I prefer the horizontal version because it doesn't mess up the talk, no matter the screen width. Many talk pages have a lot of stuff at the top, and saving every line counts. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:50, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Aaron Liu. You wrote at Template talk:Talk header that Lua is not used for the archive-banner part of {{talk header}}. So I guess that makes it easier for someone to copy over the code for the archive-banner part to here. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm doing that right now. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:33, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Of note is that this wrangling duplicates the code used to generate the message describing the archival scheme. But it would make sense to make the template look like the bottom of talk header, which could also transclude this template so we don't have much duplication. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:35, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that would make things a lot simpler in the long run. I hope this template shows itself even before the archive is created. To let people know that archiving has been set up. It would be missing the search bar and archive list of course, at that point. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:12, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Does it not show? Aaron Liu (talk) 16:16, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Nothing shows until an archive is actually started. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:57, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Could you give an example? I'm fairly sure it shows as soon as User:MiszaBot/config or User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis is put on the page. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Here is an example with {{talk header}} and Cluebot:

Talk:List of counties by U.S. state and territory

In case someone reverts me here is the revision:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_counties_by_U.S._state_and_territory&oldid=1296394849

--Timeshifter (talk) 19:21, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Okay, that's talk header's independent version's fault. You're right that that's the behavior for talk header and I think that should be changed as well, though I think the best way to change things is replacing TM:Archives with TM:Archives/sandbox, and then replacing the duplicate implementation in TM:Talk header with {{archives|image=none|tooltip=yes}}. If you think the sandbox version (shown below) is good to go, I'll file an edit request! Aaron Liu (talk) 19:28, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I think I've got it

See Template:Archives/testcases/Smoke test#Talk:France. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:27, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu: Thanks! I like the horizontal banner with the tooltip:

{{Archives/sandbox|root=Talk:France|banner=yes|tooltip=yes}}

Some wikitext coding is showing in the tooltip.

I think if the tooltop parameter is not used, then the tooltip should be used by default. I am still seeing 2 lines of small text sometimes on my monitor. If people want the longer text, then maybe do it via a parameter like text=yes, or something.

--Timeshifter (talk) 19:07, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we should make that the default as I like big banners to seem "fulfilling" and this is the first time objections against the footer were brought up, so more editors probably prefer the footer.

Some wikitext coding is showing in the tooltip.

Should be fixed now. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:26, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I suggest asking at Template talk:Talk header if they want the default to be the narrower version. That is what they have now. I have seen some animated discussions there about making the talk header bigger for this and that suggested addition. They like the thing as a whole to be narrower.

So if this is to possibly be a template that is transcluded into the talk header, then I am pretty sure they will want it be narrower as a default. When the small text takes 2 lines as it does now on this 1080p monitor sometimes that means the banner without the tooltip is 4+ lines tall. Versus the tooltip banner at 2 lines total. That's a big difference on a talk page with a lot of other project banners, contentious topic banners, and so on.

Maybe the transclusion can transclude the narrow version, and allow the taller version as a default for the separate horizontal {{archives}} banner.

But I think {{archives|banner=yes}} is easy to remember, and so it should have the tooltip.

Maybe show the longer text only when no archives have been created yet. Because there will be no search form or archive list to make the banner taller. The text could be normal size in that case. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:35, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's sensible to ask Talk Header what they think about Archives's configurations they don't use. No matter what the default is, it doesn't affect them. I think you should gain consensus to make that the default at somewhere more visible than Talk Header's talk page, perhaps Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines. In the meantime, if you have no other suggestions, I'll make this an edit request!

Because there will be no search form or archive list to make the banner taller.

There will. As I said above the hiding of the template is something only done by Talk Header and not Archives.

Maybe the transclusion can transclude the narrow version, and allow the taller version as a default for the separate horizontal {{archives}} banner.

That is what I would do Aaron Liu (talk) 00:35, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

I guess since {{talk header}} could transclude whatever version its editors decide on, then what you do with the {{archives}} banner by default doesn't matter to them.

I am confused by one thing you said. Are you saying there will be a search form and archive list when there are no archives created yet? I wasn't saying to show nothing. You can show the text or the tooltip still. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:50, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Are you saying there will be a search form and archive list when there are no archives created yet?

Yes. There is no mechanism within Archives itself to hide those by itself and I don't see why you would want to hide those. Though now that I think about it that probably needs consensus at Talk Header first; I'll ask. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:53, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu: I like this banner you created:

I think you can put just Sigmabot or Cluebot as the link label. The full name can be used as the link under the label. That will keep it all shorter, and on one line in most cases.

As I suspected might happen, some of the {{talk header}} editors are allergic to change. So maybe the deduplication can only happen when archives already exist.

But allow people to use the above banner by itself. But block it somehow from being incorporated into {{talk header}} when there are no archives yet. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:40, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

The Talk Header was always just a parallel thing. But I don't think I can implement that into this template that well. It's a bit much customization in terms of template size. Is there a reason the other example I gave isn't sufficient? And when Lowercase sigmabot is put in the two-sided thing you prefer, it displays a bit weirdly, splitting the tooltip side into a separate line. I really thing just having the short summary is much better. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:52, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

I just realized there is no need to left align one half, and to right align the other half. That makes more sense when separating out the actual archive links. But when there are no archives maybe conjoin the halves, and center align it all. Or left align it all.

But I would like it all to fit on one line in 1080p monitors. It's funny, I have a 39 inch 1080p monitor on my kitchen table. I have a 4K 43 inch monitor on my bedroom desk. The large monitors help my tired eyes.

People frequently complain about multiple banners taking up too much space at the top of talk pages. That is why I prefer a one-line banner on talk pages without archives.

--Timeshifter (talk) 01:12, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

It fits just as well as what you suggest, does it not? Most desktop browsers have a feature to simulate other screen dimensions and that's what I did. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:01, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

OK, sorry about the duplication. This is pretty short below. In a table since I don't know how to do a banner. Removed "automatically". Kept full bot names.

Lowercase sigmabot III will archive sections older than 30 days when more than 4 are present.

Cluebot III will archive sections older than 30 days when more than 4 are present.

--Timeshifter (talk) 02:30, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

Narrowingdit request

Please replace the live template with its sandbox version, which disables extra paragraphing in the banner style and adds an option to display the footer as a tooltip instead, akin to {{talk header}} Aaron Liu (talk) 02:50, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

Where are the test cases for the new parameters? – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:49, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Template:Archives/testcases#Talk:France Aaron Liu (talk) 13:55, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Maybe I am misreading the diff or the testcases page. I see new parameters like |noarchives= and |inlinelist= in the sandbox, and I do not see test cases for those. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:15, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 Ah, I thought you meant just the |tooltip= parameter. Those parameters have testcases at the bottom of Template:Archives/testcases/banner and Template:Archives/testcases/box. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:52, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

It seems like "noarchives" doesn't match with the current behavior. Is this intentional? Were these parameters discussed somewhere? And inlinelist looks odd. Maybe you could show these new parameters in action on a page where they would actually apply. I am marking this edit request as answered, since it does not appear to be ready for a template editor to implement pending some explanations. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 Not sure what you mean by "doesn't match with the current behavior". New parameters always add new functionality. You can see these parameters in action on TM:Talk header/sandbox and thus TM:Talk header/testcases. There's debate on Template talk:Talk header is over whether Talk Header's behavior should be changed to show a certain thing when there are no archives, but there also seems to be consensus for the change of transcluding Archives to replicate Talk Header's behavior, which is what TM:Talk header/sandbox currently does. I've previously notified WT:TPG of those discussions. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

When I compare the live template to the sandbox, they output different text. I don't see that discussed. On the talk page you linked to just now, I see only sandbox renderings, which doesn't help me compare to ensure that desired output will remain intact. At that discussion, I also see a template that outputs the nonsensical phrase "Index no archives yet". A template edit request is supposed to be structured so that a template editor who has not seen the template can somewhat easily determine whether the proposed change will break existing functionality and will do what is intended. I am having a difficult time seeing that here. The best way to demonstrate your change is side-by-side (or vertically stacked) examples of what the template does now and what it will do after the changes are implemented. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:50, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

The link to Template talk:Talk header is meant to show consensus, not examples of the template.

outputs the nonsensical phrase "Index no archives yet"

That's existing behavior:{{Archives|root=User talk:Aaron Liu/sandbox|banner=yes|tooltip=yes|image=none}} →

It's not nonsensical as it would indicate a page has an index of archives but no actual archives, an admittedly rare situation that in this case results from a bug. But that bug was always there and some mysterious force compels me to only fix it in a separate edit request.

The best way to demonstrate your change is side-by-side (or vertically stacked) examples of what the template does now and what it will do after the changes are implemented.

I've linked to those. I think you already saw the smoke-test cases for tooltip, and the other two parameters are tested at the bottom of the box and banner testcases pages. They're side-to-side comparisons. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:39, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey @Jonesey95, what do you think? Aaron Liu (talk) 15:39, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

After experimenting with integrating this into {{talk header/sandbox}}, I've added parameters for hiding the archives list and using an inline custom list as well. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:12, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Reopening as Jonesey hasn't responded. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:54, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Another template editor is welcome to make some or all of these changes. I have been unable to make heads or tails of the many pages linked from this request. Sorry for the inaction. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:28, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

To clarify: just see Template:Archives/testcases/banner#27 and #30, Template:Archives/testcases/box#27 (and #30, but that one's pretty moot in this case), and Template:Archives/testcases#Talk:France. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:40, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Suggestions from FaviFlake

It seems Jonesey95 was confused.

I like most of the edits (especially 90 days → 3 months, and removal of redlinked archives) but I don't think this change is uncontroversial for a few reasons:

• The sandbox version removes the word "automatically" and shifts the focus from "the topics are automatically archived" to "it's this USERNAME that archives topics". I think we should keep the focus on the fact that the topics are automatically archived; people shouldn't care which bot does it.
• In the examples {{Archives/sandbox|root=Talk:France|banner=yes}} and {{Archives/sandbox|root=Talk:France|banner=yes|tooltip=yes}}, I think the image of the drawer isn't vertically centered and should be lowered. Same for Template:Archives/testcases/banner#27
• In the example {{Archives/sandbox|root=Talk:France|tooltip=yes}}, I believe these should be more vertical padding around Auto-archiving period: 3 months, both above and below it. It feels too cramped to me.
  • Additionally, when hovering over the text Auto-archiving period, there are two whitespaces next to each other instead of one. Before, they were rendered as one space, but with the tooltip enabled, they are visible.

In my opinion, if these things are changed, I think this version should be approved! FaviFake (talk) 16:45, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful comments!

• This change was from a user above complaining about screen real estate and wanting the banner to be short. and only one-or-two lines tall. I kind-of agree with him here, since "Bot" in the username implies "automatically". Though I can revert to the previous wording with "automatically" if you think it's important enough.
• This bug existed before my changes, which it wasn't affected by. However I agree that it's enough of a nuisance. Should be fixed.
• I've added some below the tooltip. I don't think the space above it is any cramped; it's the exact same spacing as between the rows of the list of archives.
  • Fixed.

Overall, I feel like while this change isn't necessarily uncontroversial, there should be consensus behind this change. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:40, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

No problem!

• I agree the old sentence in the template is too long and should be shortened. However, I think the new version of the sentence should be changed to retain the old meaning. The old one was written in the passive tense to highlight that "sections may be automatically archived", and then proceeded to add technical details such as the name of the bot who performs the action. The new version instead starts with "Lowercase sigmabot III may archive...". If i were a new user, it's possible I wouldn't read the entire username, and, even if I did, it's possible I wouldn't think the process happened automatically, possibly because the username doesn't immediately seem to belong to a bot, because it is not stated explicitly in the rest of the sentence, or because of the use of the verb "may" instead of "will". A possible way to do this could be to keep the passive tense instead of the active tense, hyperlink some of the words to point them to the bot's userpage, and then remove the name of the bot from the sentence. I wouldn't personally mind this change, but idk if the bot's username needs to be displayed in full for other reasons.
• I noticed, but the new version, being shorter, makes it more noticeable. I think you may have fixed it now?
• Thanks! "[T]he space above [is] the exact same spacing as between the rows of the list of archives"; this is one of the reasons I felt it was cramped, it wasn't visually separated. But your change already looks good and this issue doesn't really matter now.
  • Thanks!

FaviFake (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there's much of a difference in meaning for including "automatically" (the bulk of the length shortening) here or not. Since we say that sections are archived when {bolded conditions}, it results in the same conclusion of a trigger causing archival. I think removing the bot's name would be a bigger change to the status quo as it's a bigger subtraction in meaning than the absence of "automatically".

Also, when in tooltipped form, the box already says "Auto-archiving period" anyways.

On "may" vs "will": "may" is, as you say, the original wording and "will" would cause people to ask when the archival when happen, while most archiving bots are inconsistent in when they archive things. Cluebot, for example, can occasionally not archive anything despite it being archivable for half a week.

I think you may have fixed it now?

yea i did lol Aaron Liu (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Well, I guess we agree to disagree :D ㅤ What about this compromise?

Sections older than 3 months may be auto-archived by SigmaBOT if there are 5 or more.

(added "auto-", used passive tense, rephrased last part and shortened bot name [could be done for all bots {are bots' names hardcoded?}])

Compare to:

1) your proposal:

Lowercase sigmabot III may archive sections older than 3 months when more than 4 are present.

2) current version:

Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

3) my compromise but with "more than 4 are present" instead of "there are 5 or more":

Sections older than 3 months may be auto-archived by SigmaBOT when more than 4 are present.

FaviFake (talk) 16:53, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I like this one from you, FaviFake, since it is the shortest, and is a good compromise:

Sections older than 3 months may be auto-archived by SigmaBOT if there are 5 or more.

--Timeshifter (talk) 00:17, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Yeah it took me a while but I think that's the shortest I can make it FaviFake (talk) 10:54, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Feels a bit awkward but I can't tell if it really is awkward or it's just me ol' familiarity biases all kicking in. I've updated the blurb generation to your recommendations. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:58, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I think 5 or more is clearer than more than 4 (and also shorter!) but that's a very small change and I don't mind it either way. I noticed the bot name isn't shortened (e.g. Lowercase sigmabot iii → Sigmabot): is that because of technical limitations? Or for other reasons?

Nevertheless, I like the current sendbox version enough and I think this edit request can be implemented in its current form. FaviFake (talk) 12:09, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

That seems misleading. The bot responsible is Lowercase sigmabot iii, not User:Sigmabot or a possible future SigmaBOT. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:01, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Where are you both seeing this exactly? I prefer shortness to avoid wrapping in as narrow a screen as possible. I think Sigmabot and Cluebot are good enough without the full name. Especially since the full name is in the internal link. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:30, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

You're not the first one to be confused, so I'll put a big notice with links all the changes (taken from Aaron's replies above):

@Timeshifter I agree that the shorter it is, the better, and also that the bot name looks better shortened (if that is techically possible). FaviFake (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

See this insource search to see talk pages with horizontal banners. For example:

• Talk:iOS

In my 1080p monitor with larger text size that horizontal banner has the equivalent of 6 lines of text when counting the blank space as lines too. That icon takes up a lot of space because it seems to set the boundary on the left. It would be better it it were inline at the top left, and the rest of the template wrapped around it. So there would be no indented left side boundary.

I would like to see what the new, improved banner looks like with the shortest lines:

Sections older than 3 months may be auto-archived by SigmaBOT if there are 5 or more.

Sections older than 3 months may be auto-archived by ClueBot if there are 5 or more.

If the archives list and the blurb were on the same line, then I don't see why the banner couldn't be done with a total of just 2 lines in my 1080p monitor. 2nd line being the search form.

Also, what does "Narrowingdit" mean? :) --Timeshifter (talk) 15:03, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

(As mentioned above I'm not going to shorten the bot names.) Talk:iOS would look like this:{{archives/sandbox|root=Talk:IOS|banner=yes|index=/Archive index|collapsible=yes|bot=lowercase sigmabot III|age=90}} →

{{archives/sandbox|root=Talk:IOS|banner=yes|index=/Archive index|collapsible=yes|bot=lowercase sigmabot III|age=90|tooltip=yes}} →

The new banner has to be merged into the actual template before you see its changes reflected; not to mention you need to add |tooltip= if you want to see the tooltip syntax.

I was going to name this subsection "edit request" before I realized that could result in two headings with the same name on the same page, which is not something I particularly like, so I mashed in "Narrowing" to the front as a disambiguator. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:13, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

That looks much better. I wasn't aware there was another Signmabot, I agree it would be misleading. I disagree that the archive icon should go inline; that's not how we deisgn templates. (Still not sure why it doesn't say "5 or more" but, as I said, i think it's ready to be implemented in its current form.)

Should we ask Jonesey95 to implement it? FaviFake (talk) 15:31, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't think Jonesey will ever understand this unfortunately. The edit request banner is already calling everyone who can implement it. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:04, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

That's alright, we'll wait. FaviFake (talk) 16:06, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Suggestions from Timeshifter

I think the unnecessary line separator should be removed. Also, some of the blank space. I convinced some template editors to put an icon inline on a Commons template. There is no reason it can't be done. It would be at the beginning of a line. So the icon would still be on the left side of the template.

OK. I figured how to view the banners outside their talk page locations. Via root=

{{Archives|root=Talk:iOS|banner=yes}}

And then I just add /sandbox to see what you are proposing. {{Archives/sandbox|root=Talk:iOS|banner=yes}}

I see that using the blurb (even my shortest suggestions) on the same line as the archive list will result in 4 lines total (counting the unnecessary line separator and blank space) in my 1080p monitor. Especially if you keep "This page has archives." as part of the blurb. Could it be removed? Then the blurb could be put on the same line as the archive list. Thus arriving at a 2-line template.

What shows up if there are no archives yet? Say I add {{archives}} and the bot code to a talk page with a few sections in anticipation of the next section added tripping the bot. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:13, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're suggesting, but I don't think this should be discussed inside the edit request topic. We already expanded the scope of the edit request earlier and luckily managed to establish consensus quiclky enough, but these changes are more complex and should be discussed in a separarate topic before being included in an edit request. Edit requests are no for establishing consensus. FaviFake (talk) 16:22, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

This footer style currently used absolutely everywhere Archives is used has been the status quo for a decade and would need far more consensus than us to change by default. Just append |tooltip=yes on the talkpages you come across if you wish.
Just removing "This page has archives. " has a much higher chance of getting consensus, but again is not something I'm comfortable with doing without further input from others. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:31, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. And besides, this shouldn't be discussed in an edit request. FaviFake (talk) 16:39, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

You have made numerous requests for changes in this edit request. And Jonesey95 said this edit request was not ready for prime time.

I mentioned this before: I like this from Aaron Liu:

It is on one line, and would be great for pages where {{archives}} has been added, along with the bot code, in anticipation of the next section tripping the bot. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:57, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I also believe that this can be discussed in an edit request as part of the consensus behind it, but I'd like to get the current changes out of the way first before looking at that, especially since Jacobolus has objected to the one-liner. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:04, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the proposed changes should probably be done in chunks. Jacobolus comments were at Template Talk:Talk header, not here. I hope we are no longer trying to integrate the 2 templates.

See User talk:Timeshifter/Sandbox291.

{{Archives}} will show up on a talk page without enough sections to trip the bot code to start an archive. Unlike {{talk header}} which shows nothing about future archiving in that case. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:05, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

>You have made numerous requests for changes in this edit request.

I have pointed out the flaws i noticed in the proposed design, specifying I didn't think it was uncontroversial and thus shouldn't be discussed in an edit request. You, Aaron, and I have managed to come to an agreement quickly enough that solved the issues. What you're proposing is a much more radical change that needs consensus.

>Jonesey95 said this edit request was not ready for prime time.

They actually said the opposite: "Another template editor is welcome to make some or all of these changes."

I, for one, might disagree with your proposal, partly because the tooltip message displays comments in plaintext, and because I haven't seen test cases for it nor understood its purpose. FaviFake (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Jonesey95's very next sentence was: "I have been unable to make heads or tails of the many pages linked from this request. Sorry for the inaction." --Timeshifter (talk) 18:53, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the failure of one editor to understand on which pages the test cases for the sandbox version of a template are located could be interpreted as the sandbox version itself being flawed. FaviFake (talk) 18:57, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Edit requests here must be understood and fulfilled by a template editor like Jonesey95. See:

Wikipedia:Protection policy#template

Hopefully, the box of links you created (shown in the next section) will help in that endeavor. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:14, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Precisely. FaviFake (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I abandoned this request because I no longer understood what was being proposed or whether there was consensus. There has been much discussion since then, along with many changes to the proposal. I have no opinion on the changes or the proposal, and any template editor who wants to dive in and attempt to understand what has been discussed and proposed here is welcome to do so. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:34, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Conversion to months

(I moved down the Edit Request subsection, since this seems to have veered off from the scope of an edit request. The messages below are replying to Aaron Liu's proposal FaviFake (talk) 16:14, 4 August 2025 (UTC))

Looking at the France testcases, what's up with the change from 90 days to 3 months? What is the change and why did you decide to implement it? (Feel free to point me upthread if this has already been hashed out) CapnZapp (talk) 22:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Honestly I completely forgot. I've reverted it, though the shortened version right outside the tooltip after the colon still uses "3 months" to conform with the TalkHeader version. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:21, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Aw, I liked it. I guess we can discuss that too once this version gets implemented. FaviFake (talk) 22:24, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry for asking stupid questions but where is the date change discussed and/or documented? (I'm not opposing anything here, just asking questions) CapnZapp (talk) 13:36, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

It wasn't discussed; I had a reason when I made the change but have since forgot what the reason was and I can think of reasons against it. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:47, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Maybe the reason was that it's easier to understand if the time is between 2-3 months and 12 months. For example, you wouldn't know off the top of your head that 274 days corresponds to exactly 9 months. This is the reason why I liked it, at least. FaviFake (talk) 13:55, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

The archiving bots don't operate in terms of months, but in terms of days or hours. This is, I think, because a day is exact but a month is imprecise - it can be 28 to 31 days. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:08, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, of course. I believe it was merely a visual change meant for readers, not editors. The number of days in the underlying configuration would have remained the same. FaviFake (talk) 22:36, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

As somewhat of a nitpick, that argument isn't completely accurate, User:Redrose64. We discussed earlier the date units accepted by the code; I was genuinely surprised it only accepted hours and days (I think it's only those two). I can't remember off hand right now, but I am positive I've seen Wikipedia code utilize the full range of php date units (yes, I know that's not the language used). Certainly computers can handle months, and with ease, and even more to the point: without getting confused over how many days there's in a month. What I am saying is that a programmer could easily have made the bot accept months as a unit, in addition to somewhat frivolous units like "fortnight" or "week". If a human says "archive every three months" that just isn't the problem for a computer you appear to make it out to be, assuming proper library support, which, again, I am certain other functions around here have used. (I probably could find out where I saw it; can't just remember off hand). Again, this is something of an aside and should probably be ignored. Best regards CapnZapp (talk) 16:18, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

The argument I thought of against changing it to months is the loss of precision. How is one to know if "3 months" means 90 or 100 days?

If you want the bot to accept months as a unit, you have to ask yourself what that even means. Is a month 30 days, 4 weeks, or whatever it takes to land on the same day of the month; in other words, is one month from today going to be 1 September, 30 August, or 2 September? I don't think there's a good answer to this choice, as whatever it is will lead to some unnecessary confusion. Plus, any additional feature is additional complexity in the code to maintain and adds to the difficulty of successor maintainers understanding the codebase, so every new feature needs to have its benefits weighed against the code complexity. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:26, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I have to agree with Aaron about the months, it's too vague for a bot. But I don't see why weeks couldn't be implemented; you'd just take the number and multiply it by 7. FaviFake (talk) 16:33, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

First off, let me be clear: I'm not arguing for/against support for months. I am merely clarifying that the "bot" (or rather, the computer code that controls it) has zero problems handling months: it simply is supported as a date unit. This is PHP so the syntax is different, but $date->modify('+3 months'); adds three months to some date. It just isn't too "imprecise" or "vague", not for the bot at least. And I believe most humans that would choose to use |algo=old(3m) (MiszaBot config example) to say "archive every three months" wouldn't obsess over the exact frequency. In fact, I'd note that the "loss of precision" is probably viewed as a feature and not a bug here - in fact, it's probably the exact reason someone would choose |algo=old(3m) over |algo=old(90d) 🙂. Take care, CapnZapp (talk) 23:44, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

The bot uses Python. And the issue is more interfacing with humans. However the bot actually implements it, the human wouldn't be able to guess.
I find having at least one place to see the precision better. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:19, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

I know Python modules support PHP date units, as I've said. And the human interface is not the problem you think it is, which I also explained. Still, my persistence isn't about getting this implemented but to cut through the conjecture and misunderstandings. Months may be vague, but this is likely a feature and not a bug for humans, and the bot/computer handles it just fine. Don't avoid adding this based on uninformed thinking it can't be done or that it's difficult to comprehend or use (for either man or machine). Do, however, avoid adding this based on a consensus it's really not necessary, should that be the case. Either way, at this point y'all either choose to believe me or you persist in not taking in what I'm writing. I'm repeating myself, so I'll end here. This was, after all, a giant side track. Keep up the good work, CapnZapp (talk) 09:33, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

I support allowing months. It is easy to see when a thread is due to be archived. —Timeshifter (talk) 15:27, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 28 July 2025

Please replace the template with its sandbox version. To compare the two versions of the template, you may see the following testcases:

• Template:Archives/testcases#Talk:France
• Template:Archives/testcases/banner#27 (only #27 and #30)
• Template:Archives/testcases/box#27 (only #27 and #30)

At first the scope of the edit request was solely to disable extra paragraphing (and therefore padding) while adding an option to display the footer as a tooltip instead, akin to {{talk header}}. Then it grew with discussion to also include some parameters for hiding the archives list and using an inline custom list so that {{talk header}} could use this template instead of a custom implementation. There is no need to read the above discussion, though you're welcome to if you wish. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:13, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

For other editors: to be clear, there is consensus among the people involved in the previous discussion to implement the changes that are currently in the /sandbox version. FaviFake (talk) 18:49, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Looking through the examples where the sandbox version is used alone, it all seems to be working. The edit request mentions "using an inline custom list so that {{talk header}} could use this template instead of a custom implementation", but in some examples under Template:Talk_header/testcases#arpol=yes_/_noarchive, the templates render at two different widths (on Firefox/Chrome, Vector-2022, and Linux Mint). Also, it adds some extra padding on the bottom of the banner at Template:Talk_header/testcases compared to the current setup. Looking at the talk page discussion there, I see some consensus to transition to a single template. All of the talk page debate there seems to be about whether or not to show a banner at all before the first archive is created. @Aaron Liu, do you want to work out the kinks on the combined template idea over there first, or would you like to push the changes live here in case that discussion drags on? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:18, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough testing.

I kept the padding because otherwise it just looks weird when you transclude it with the properly-wide page width. The borders of the search box/button and of the banner don't collapse and would be ugly close to each other, something you do not see with the default mbox styling.
The width thing might be an issue, but it seems to be only present at very small screen sizes (where the user would've been using the bannerless mobile interface instead), and is something that should be fixed in TalkHeader instead: Archives is at the width every other banner would be at, while TalkBanner is overlong. Having Archives grow to match TalkHeader would still make them inconsistent with the rest of the banners on the talk page.

Since I don't think there's changes needed to Archives, I feel like the best course of actions is to push the changes first. Thanks in advance! Aaron Liu (talk) 21:55, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I've moved the sandbox changes live, as there is consensus above. I see that there is a new template to create text (I believe so that multiple archive templates will have consistent text); that template will soon be protected by a bot as it is transcluded by the live template. If anybody not following this page notices the changes and turns up here, feel free to post below with questions or concerns. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Here is what it looks like on a talk page without any archives yet:

User talk:Timeshifter/Sandbox291. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:31, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Discussion notice

There is a discussion over at Template talk:Talk header#Reminder: minthreadstoarchive you might be interested in. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 09:43, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

The discussion remains relevant for viewers of this talk page: Template talk:Talk header#Proposal to proceed with Archives (only) , and should probably continue here instead... Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 13:08, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Line wrap for 3-digit numbers

{{archives|auto=yes}} displays poorly here with 132 numbered archives. Lines of 3-digit numbers are wrapped for me. 100+ archives is rare and the user can add a width parameter but I suggest doing something automatically if there are 108+ archives. 107 should be OK. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:01, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any wrapping - every line begins with a number ending in 1, every line (except the last) ends with a number ending in 0. This is one of those situations where different users have different experiences depending upon multiple factors, including (but not limited to) operating system, browser, fonts installed, skin, customisation. In short: we can't see what your setup is like, all we can do is aim to give the majority of users a reasonably satisfactory experience. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:47, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

I have tried logged out in four browsers on Windows 10: Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera, all with default settings. The same happens in all four: All lines above 100 have a wrap while no lines below have it. There may be skins and user settings where it doesn't happen but as far as I can tell, the large majority of desktop viewers will see wraps above 100. Did you try logged out? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:28, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Template:Archive list inserts the HTML line break after |links=. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 01:43, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

I like a line break after every ten links if those ten fit on one line like they do below 100. Module:Message box/tmbox.css sets width: 238px which is usually not enough for ten comma-separated 3-digit numbers. 271px is the smallest which works for me in Firefox with Vector 2022. I suggest automatically setting something a little larger for 108+ archives, but it's rare to have so many archives. We could also just mention in the documentation that |style=width:300px; may look better for more than 100 archives. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:59, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter, I don't have an issue with either the automatic change or the update to the documentation. I was just explaining what causes the line break. If other editors don't see it break at "108" they may have a smaller default font, a font with a thinner "1", or a different theme. I made a section at User_talk:Rjjiii_(ii)#For_testing_large_numbers to test and the line breaks at different numbers when I change the Wikipedia skin. Since Module:Archive list is already dealing directly with counting the number of archives, it could add "white-space: nowrap" and maybe a small margin when the archives exceed 100. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 17:42, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Not crazy about line breaks every N, that is kind of anathema to HTML. But I get the need for an organizing principle so one's eye doesn't get lost in a sea of numbers, where it is hard to pick out the tens; I just don't think fixed line breaks is the way to do it. What about just highlighting the tens, either through bolding, a preceding bullet or dingbat, or other styling?

Sample archives box with bold tens

There are plenty of other styles that could be used, e.g. 115% font-size, etc.

Do users even know that they want exactly 'Archive 87'? Why not list, say, all of the last 20-or so archives, and then before that, just every tenth one. When they click an even ten, they get a set of ten navigation links at the top that get them to the nearest ten archives. Mathglot (talk) 23:42, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Or, this?

Sample archives box with a completely different approach

Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 00:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)