Scratchpad:Archiving talk pages

Archives of talk pages are made when a talk page becomes too long for either the user to easily find a past conversation or for one's web browser to render the talk page in a timely manner. An archive is simply a subpage of the user talk page where old conversations are stored (e.g. ).

To create an archive, simply cut (Ctrl + X) all the old conversations from your talk page from the beginning to the end of it. Then, create a new page in your user talk space and paste (Ctrl + V) the old conversations there. If you already have one archive, create a second archive page (e.g. ) to avoid having the same issues that cause you to create an archive in the first place affect the archive page itself. You may also consider using the for auto-archiving the pages.

When archiving old discussions, it is customary to leave current, ongoing discussions on the existing Talk page. In some cases, a header text is also preserved. Also, it is good to leave a link near the top of your talk page to the archive so users can easily find previous discussions.

It is recommended that you do not attempt to archive another user's talk page. These are not subject to the recommendations on this page, and each user may choose alternate means of archiving their own talk page, including choosing not to archive at all, but to instead remove old messages. Although, since those messages are other users' contributions, this is generally rude to do and in bad taste, with archival being more polite and considerate of what others say.

When archiving your talk page by moving it, be aware that this causes the newly-created archive to be added to the watchlist of any user who was previously watching your talk page. This could be annoying for people who have no desire to watch your talk archives.