Template talk:Archives

Proposal to drop archiving params

Editors interested in this template may be interested in the discussion Template talk:Talk header#Proposal to drop archiving params. Template talk:Talk header has recently been updated to automatically derive archive bot params, and this is being imported here; the sandbox currently has a version of it, but it is not working yet. See Template:Archives/sandbox. Mathglot (talk) 10:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Support Once the code for Talk header is functional and bug-free, do feel free to implement the same functionality for this and any other alternative template. To clarify: the proposal I'm supporting is not merely to drop the support for those params. I am supporting the drop iff their role in the display of archiving params is replaced as mentioned. CapnZapp (talk) 12:13, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to further edits by Tollens, at first glance this appears to be working now, but there aren't any test cases for it yet, so it's not ready to be released until there are; I'll try and add some. Mathglot (talk) 07:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Initial remote test cases added here reveal one problem in the |banner=yes version, with the full caption squeezed into col 1; probably just needs a colspan=2 added at the right point. Mathglot (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

And to further edits by Aidan9382 as well to fix the banner issue. There has been little discussion in a month, so I verified test cases and released this to live. Remember that new param |nobot=yes will suppress the automatic bot notice; doc updates to follow. Mathglot (talk) 05:06, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I just added {{Archives}} to Talk:Gravity (2013 film) (only in the preview of course, I didn't save my edit), and it does not appear to handle |minthreadstoarchive= which is used there. I expected the text to say "This page has archives. Sections older than 120 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present if 2 or more threads are eligible for archiving." (my underlining). If you are still working on it, feel free to ignore this. I am just posting this because I got the impression from the previous comment development was considered finished. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 14:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

That is correct, it doesn't handle minthreadstoarchive, and never did, so that is the expected behavior. The {{Talk header}} template won't display it either, except in the sandbox version only developed yesterday, and remains pending further test case development and testing before it is released there. I think you might be confusing two things: the automation of the bot notice, which was released a while ago at {{Talk header}} and just released here, and the requested change to the bot notice wording which you proposed, which is a new feature now in testing at {{Talk header}}, but never developed here. Mathglot (talk) 18:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Of course I'd like this template to correctly display the same information as talk header. Once development of {{Talk header}} is complete, I hope the same or similar handling of |minthreadstoarchive= is implemented here as well. CapnZapp (talk) 17:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

This is a serious regression which makes me want to just ditch this template from pages I care about in preference for some more reader friendly template. Showing the name of the bot is usually distracting noise. Writing the archive age as "730 days" vs. "2 years" is much harder for readers to interpret. Is there any way to get the old behavior? –jacobolus (t) 21:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I would tend to agree somewhat for this template. The reason the change was made here was that a similar change was made at Template:Talk header, but the change there is just in a tooltip, unlike this one. I completely agree that the name of the bot should basically never be visible directly on the page, and somehow I don't think any of us considered conversion to months or years, though that wouldn't be difficult to implement. The importance of this change in my mind is that it prevents incorrect archive notices (and there are quite a number of those). I'm really not sure how to feel about this one.

One idea that might make everyone happy would be to display information only for parameters which have any value, rather than making it an all-or-nothing situation like nobot=. That way the information presented wouldn't be any more or less than what had already been set, and in the future a simple =yes or something along those lines would work for those parameters. Would that work in your case, assuming conversion to larger timescales was implemented as well, Jacobolus? Tollens (talk) 22:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

If the bot name (or other irrelevant config trivia) is in a tooltip that's fine with me. I just don't think we should be shoving these long and confusing bot names in every talk page reader's face. Anyone who cares about that can easily look at the page source.

Dates should ideally be rounded to the largest reasonably accurate unit, e.g. 30 or 31 days should be presented as "1 month" but 45 days should probably say either "6 weeks" or "1.5 months". Anything between 720–740 days should probably present as "2 years", but 550 days can plausibly be presented as either "1.5 years" or "18 months". I don't know if there's an existing facility in mediawiki/wikipedia for fuzzy time names. –jacobolus (t) 22:18, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see the value in spending a lot of effort in order to fuzzy our parameter reporting. I'm completely fine with reporting 30d, 60d, 90d, and 120d as "30 days", "60 days", "90 days" and "120 days" respectively. Seeing "1 month" reported only to have to look at the actual parameters in order to understand if the period set is 30d or 31d (or 28d or 32d) is what seems like a downgrade to me. If anything, how about instead upgrading lowercase sigmabot to accept the full gamut of date units (so you can write 1m for one month, or 4w instead of 28d and so on and so on) - then we can simply report exactly what's written, trusting the editor to have made the choice between 4w and 30d and 1m, say. CapnZapp (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Relatively few people care about the bot config whatsoever (nor should they), and effectively nobody cares even a tiny bit about the precise number of days before bot archiving will happen, when archiving is set to more than a couple weeks. The config is done in terms of hours or days because that was convenient for machines, but it's an illegible and irrelevant unit for humans, who should not be distracted by an excessively pedantic summary making them try to calculate precisely how many months or years are in 740 hours or 1800 days or whatever. The point of these archiving bots is to (ideally conservatively) prevent talk pages from ballooning to unwieldy length and to prevent people from answering decades-old stale discussions with irrelevant new comments, not to enforce some kind of precise bureaucratic deadlines. –jacobolus (t) 17:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

"convenient for machines" - no, it was done because it was convenient to the human programmer creating these bots. The "machines" can understand weeks and months just fine. effectively nobody cares - with that mindset, you're not only trying to discredit other viewpoints; you're effectively disqualifying yourself from constructive discussion, since your stance amounts to "let's not show any real useful data at all". As a counterpoint: while the majority of people might not care how and when talk pages get auto-archived, not every piece of information needs to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It's perfectly fine for a template like this to remain useful for those that need it, even though plenty others don't "care". What REALLY would be dumb, however, is to fuzzy the output enough so it's useless for those interested in it just to please those that will skip it anyway. CapnZapp (talk) 09:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

It's not "real useful data". It's configuration details intended for an automated bot which was never intended to be communicated to humans unless something malfunctions and they go hunting for it. If you personally care about these details they are very easy to find in the source, but forcing them into clear view in the talk page where they will distract every reader is reader-hostile; these details must be hidden behind a tooltip, collapsed section, or the like. If this template regression remains in place, I am going to start removing it from pages where I encounter it.

As for the dates: the over-precise dates are strictly inappropriate for human readers. The fuzzy dates are not "dumb": They are comprehensible at a glance, at the level of detail relevant to humans. (The extreme precision is not necessary for bots either; if bots were, say, 10% late to archive a page vs. whatever its configuration says, nobody would care.) As a compromise though, one thing you could do if you really care about the precise number of hours or days is you could put that information in the tooltip, and leave a fuzzy human legible date in plain view. –jacobolus (t) 15:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

And as for the shoving these long and confusing bot names in every talk page reader's face part: bot names aren't necessarily longer or more confusing that human editors' names. I believe helping new editors to understand how to set up autoarchiving themselves is a net positive, and for me, it really helped that I could click the bot name (leading to archiving how to info) directly. Let's not assume our audience is dumb. CapnZapp (talk) 09:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

This does not remotely "help new editors to understand how to set up autoarchiving". Come on. Perhaps more importantly: new editors do not need to set up auto-archiving. That's a task for someone who has been around for at least months if not years, and it's really not hard to figure out from the page source where to find relevant info. –jacobolus (t) 15:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Doc update

I always found this page hard to understand, so I've done some reorganization for clarity. A few paragraphs stuck in the middle of the parameters section made no sense to me there, so I moved them down to section § Notes, but it seems a mixed bag of stuff and I don't think it belongs there, either. Probably it needs to be sliced and diced with pieces shipped off to different parts of the doc. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Without having looked at your changes yet, probably best would be to mirror the documentation section from Talk header. So we document the same thing the same way, I mean. CapnZapp (talk) 14:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

In its current state, that would be difficult, but a useful task to attack. My changes to doc amounted to an overhaul of the whole page structure including heading names and where they were placed, and not very much on changing any of the parameter descriptions. I definitely wasn't concentrating on the bot-notice part of the doc here, but everything else not involving parameter descriptions, which was one big mess and hard to navigate. The re-org gives the doc a comprehensible ToC with logical subsections, and shorter and tighter intro sections or paragraphs, with more info added where needed in a couple of cases. Except for wikicode reformatting which did not affect the rendered page, I hardly touched the actual parameter descriptions at all. It's very long (28 parameters) and there's a lot of clunky descriptions which could be improved, but I have barely touched them, except to add a couple of explanatory notes in two cases. If you want to improve that section, with or without making them look similar to the Talk page template doc, be my guest; that would be a help. Mathglot (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"This page has archives"

The phrase "This page has archives" that starts off the bot notice in the bottom section predates the recent round of changes. I didn't really take much notice of it before, but I don't know what purpose it serves. This is more noticeable now, in those cases where new param |nobot=yes is in use, because currently the bottom section ends up with that phrase and nothing else, which really seems pointless. But the whole phrase seems pointless to me, and I think we should just get rid of it. Mathglot (talk) 17:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree: remove it. I recommend just copying the language from {{talk header}} of something like "Auto-archiving period XX unit", with other config metadata in a tool-tip on auto-archiving period. –jacobolus (t) 00:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

If it seems pointless to keep the phrase when |nobot= is used, then by all means remove the phrase too (along with the suppressed bot parameters). If the bot parameters are there, I don't see the harm in having a friendly introductory phrase; perhaps tweak it from "This page has archives" to "This page is archived automatically" in order to say something relevant to the following information. CapnZapp (talk) 17:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

If you want the phrasing to be "This page is automatically archived after XX unit", with the tooltip on "This page is automatically archived", that also would be fine. If there's no bot config, it could maybe say "This page is manually archived". –jacobolus (t) 17:41, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Just as an aside, |nobot=yes may have a name that suggests "no bot" but as documented, really means "suppress the bot param display". That is, "there ARE bot params active, just don't show them". I don't think there's a parameter to say "this page is manually archived". The only way to determine that is to not find any bot setup on the page. (If the page isn't archived automatically, then the only explanation for any archives is that they were/are created manually) Do tell me if I'm wrong, though. CapnZapp (talk) 09:12, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we could change it to |nobotnotice= if it isn't clear. There are currently 9 Talk pages that use it under the name 'nobot' so those would have to be updated if we make a param name change. Mathglot (talk) 19:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

More examples needed

A template with 28 parameters needs a lot of examples; currently there are two. On the other hand, we don't want to have dozens of examples in that section, making the page needlessly long. I would propose something like four or five examples showing some of the most popular param combos, and then a subpage Template:Archives/doc/Examples (or maybe Template:Archives/Examples) linked from the #Examples section, for more detailed examples of all of the parameters, or at least the params needing one. Mathglot (talk) 17:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Change color

Can someone teach me how to change the template's background color to my preference? Thanks in advance. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 17:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@98Tigerius: You can do it using this CSS rule:

#archivebox {
  background-color: #EE82EE;
}

in your CSS. This will alter the background to  . --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:03, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

 Thank you very much! 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 19:15, 14 April 2024 (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)

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)

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)

What does TemplateData do on the doc page?

Funandtrvl added TemplateData to the documentation subpage in 2021.[1] 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)