Editing Help:Archiving a talk page (section)

===For talk pages===
There are many templates that can be placed on talk pages to make the page's archives visible and accessible to editors. These can be broadly divided into "boxes" (which generally appear floating to the right of the table of contents), and banners. Some pages use one or the other, and some use both. Templates dedicated to archiving should generally be [[WP:TALKORDER|placed last]], after all other talk templates, but before the discussions proper.
==== Archive link boxes ====
{{Anchor|Archive box}}
On regularly archived talk pages, it is useful to have an "archive box" template. Common usage is to place the archive box below other header templates and before the first section heading so that the box appears to the right of the [[Help:Section#Table of contents (TOC)|table of contents]]. If the page already has a manual archive box, add the link to the new archive page to it. If there is no archive box yet, you may want to set one up.

The most common archive box template is {{Tl|Archives}}. It has a significant number of options. The <code>auto</code> option causes the box to automatically find your archive page list. If <code>auto=yes</code> or <code>auto=short</code> the links are shown as "<code>1, 2, 3</code>". If <code>auto=long</code> the links are shown as "<code>Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3</code>"). If the archives do not follow the standard naming scheme (/Archive #), or date labels are desired a manual list can be inputted in the first unnamed parameter as seen in example 2 below. There are also options which show a search field, permit the box to collapse/expand, start the box collapsed/expanded, etc. Many of these are shown in example 4 and all of them are explained in more detail at [[Template:Archive/doc]]. 
;Example 1
{{archives|root=Help talk:Archiving a talk page}}
For a box with an automatically generated archive list with a search bar. {{tl|Archives}} can be used without any extra parameters. 
{{clear}}
;Example 2
{{Archives|*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_1|2003–2006]] 
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_2|2006–2007]] 
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_3|2007–2009]] 
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_4|2008–2014]] 
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_5|2014–2019]]}}
For a box with a manual archive list and a search bar {{tlp|Archives|''List of archives''}} can be used. For the box to the right the code is: 
<br><syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">{{tlp|Archives|
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_1|2003–2006]]
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_2|2006–2007]]
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_3|2007–2009]]
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_4|2008–2014]]
*[[Help_talk:Archiving_a_talk_page/Archive_5|2014–2019]]}}</syntaxhighlight>
{{clear}}
;Example 3
{{Archives|auto=long|'''Archive box archives''':<br>[[Template talk:Archive box/Archive 1|Archive 1]], [[Template talk:Archive box/Archive 1|Archive 1]]|root=Template talk:Archives}}
For a box with both an automatic and manual list {{tlp|Archives|auto=long|''List of archives''}} can be used. The example below for [[Template talk:Archives]] where the archives for the old {{tl|archive box}} template are shown use the following code:
<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>{{Archives|auto=long|'''Archive box archives''':<br>[[Template talk:Archive box/Archive 1|Archive 1]], [[Template talk:Archive box/Archive 1|Archive 1]]}}</syntaxhighlight>
{{clear}}
;Example 4
{{archives
| auto        = short
| search      = no
| root        = Help talk:Archiving a talk page
| collapsible = yes
| collapsed   = yes
| style = background-color:#FFAAAA; width:140px
| title       = These are the archives!
| image       = File:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png
| image-size  = 60px
| bot         = Lowercase sigmabot III
| age         = 1
| units       = year
}}
This template just demonstrate a lot of the parameters. Most of them are quite self explanatory. <br>
<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">{{archives
| auto        = short
| search      = no
| root        = Help talk:Archiving a talk page
| collapsible = yes
| collapsed   = yes
| style = background-color:#FFAAAA; width:140px
| title       = These are the archives!
| image       = File:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png
| image-size  = 60px
| bot         = Lowercase sigmabot III
| age         = 1
| units       = year
}}</syntaxhighlight>
{{clear}}

==== Automatic archive boxes for year/month archives ====
Automatic archive boxes for Year/Month archives are a bit more complicated.

The most common method is by using the {{Tl|Archives by months}} template to generate links to your existing archives. It produces a live link for each existing archive month within a year. It is commonly used in something similar to:
{| border="0"
|-
| width="400" |<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">{{Archive box |search=yes |collapsible=yes |
bot=ClueBot III |age=90 |
title=[[Help:Archiving a talk page|Archives]]<!--
--> ([[{{#titleparts:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|1}}/Archive index|index]])|
{{Nowrap|'''2004''': {{Archives by months|2004}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2005''': {{Archives by months|2005}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2006''': {{Archives by months|2006}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2007''': {{Archives by months|2007}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2008''': {{Archives by months|2008}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2009''': {{Archives by months|2009}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2010''': {{Archives by months|2010}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2011''': {{Archives by months|2011}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2012''': {{Archives by months|2012}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2013''': {{Archives by months|2013}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2014''': {{Archives by months|2014}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2015''': {{Archives by months|2015}}}}
'''2016''': {{Archives by months|2016}}
}}</syntaxhighlight>
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{Archive box |search=yes |title=[[Help:Archiving a talk page|Archives]]<!--
 --> ([[{{#titleparts:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|1}}/Archive index|index]]) |collapsible=yes |bot=ClueBot III |age=90
| style=background-color:#F8EABA; border-color:#C0C090; <!-- This style parameter is so the box shows up in the same colors as would normally appear on a talk page. It is only for this as an example. -->
|
{{Nowrap|'''2004''': {{Archives by months|2004}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2005''': {{Archives by months|2005}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2006''': {{Archives by months|2006}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2007''': {{Archives by months|2007}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2008''': {{Archives by months|2008}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2009''': {{Archives by months|2009}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2010''': {{Archives by months|2010}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2011''': {{Archives by months|2011}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2012''': {{Archives by months|2012}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2013''': {{Archives by months|2013}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2014''': {{Archives by months|2014}}}}
{{Nowrap|'''2015''': {{Archives by months|2015}}}}
'''2016''': {{Archives by months|2016}}
}}
|}

The above code produces the archive box to the above right. The example here has no month names which are links because there are no archive files for this page. You can, of course, delete the lines for the years you don't want.

The default for the {{Tl|Archives by months}} template is that archive page names are in the format {{Nowrap|<code>YourPage/Archives/2013/June</code>}}, {{Nowrap|<code>YourPage/Archives/2013/July</code>}}, etc. However, {{Tl|Archives by months}} allows you to specify various naming conventions for your archives. Archives can have an arbitrary prefix by using the <code>archprefix</code> parameter (e.g. <code>archprefix=Archive/</code> instead of Archive<ins>s</ins>/). Months can be in four formats: A) the default uses January, February, March, etc.; B) <code>abbrev3=yes</code> months are Jan, Feb, Mar, etc.; C) <code>numbers=yes</code> months are 1, 2, 3, ... 12; D) <code>numbers0=yes</code> months are 01, 02, 03, ... 12.

If you are using ClueBot III, it has a couple of additional options for creating an archive box. These involve the use of either the <code>archivebox</code> or the <code>index</code> parameters. See the [[User:ClueBot III#How to archive your page|ClueBot III page]] for more information.

==== Archive link banner ====

Instead of putting the archive links in a box that floats to the right or left, some prefer the links in a banner like {{tl|Talk header}}. Yearly and alphabetic archives are automatically detected in addition to regular sequential archives. A search box is by default included and if the page is archived by bots an auto archiving notice can be included by specifying {{para|archive_age}} in days.  

<nowiki>{{Talk header}}</nowiki>
{{Talk header}}

'''The archive links show up in a row at the bottom of the above banner.''' For a real world example see [[Talk:Proxima Centauri]].