Editing Help:Archiving a talk page (section)

== Archive indexing ==
Having an archive index makes finding old discussions on a given topic easier, particularly in pages with many archives, or when the archives are of considerable size. An archive index, when one exists, is typically stored on the page <code>Talk:YourPage/Archive index</code>. While it is possible to generate an index by hand, the <code>/Archive index</code> page is normally generated automatically. There are two bots which automatically create indexes: [[User:Legobot|Legobot]] and [[User:ClueBot III|ClueBot III]].

[[User:Legobot|Legobot]], formerly [[User:HBC Archive Indexerbot|HBC Archive Indexerbot]], can create an archive index page based on a set of archives. See '''[[User:HBC Archive Indexerbot#Instructions|the bot's instructions]]''' for details on how to set up archive indexing. Legobot generated archive indexes are the most commonly available type of index. To set up Legobot archiving you  have to create your <code>Talk:YourPage/Archive index</code> page and '''need to place''':<br /><code><nowiki><!-- Legobot can blank this --></nowiki></code><br /> on top of the index page. The following is a Legobot configuration that works with numbered archives which you can place on the page you are archiving:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan="2" | Example Legobot configurations
|-
! Numbered archives !! Archives/Year/Month
|- valign="top" <!-- This is intended to be able to be copied while you are viewing the page, not while editing. -->
| <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">{{User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn
|target=/Archive index
|mask=/Archive <#>
|leading_zeros=0
|indexhere=yes
}}</syntaxhighlight><!-- This is intended to be able to be copied while you are viewing the page, not while editing. -->
|| <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">{{User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn
|target=/Archive index
|mask=/Archives/<year>/<month>
|indexhere=yes
}}</syntaxhighlight>
|}

[[User:ClueBot III|ClueBot III]] automatically creates an archive index when archiving. ClueBot III stores the archive indexes it creates on unique pages in its user space. The archive index for the page you are archiving can be [[WP:TRANS|transcluded]] onto your <code>Talk:YourPage/Archive index</code> page by putting the following text in that page:<br />
<code><nowiki>{{User:ClueBot III/Master Detailed Indices/{{NAMESPACE}}:{{BASEPAGENAME}}}}</nowiki></code><!-- This is intended to be able to be copied while you are viewing the page, not while editing. -->