Template:Setup auto archiving/doc

A template to easily set up archiving with lowercase sigmabot III, the most commonly used archiving bot on the English Wikipedia.

Follow the help page on deciding which bot is best used for setting up archiving on a talk page.

For the other commonly used Cluebot III, see {{Setup cluebot archiving}} for quick setup.

Usage

Basic usage:

{{subst:Setup auto archiving}}

Without including {{Archives}} box, which is useful when template {{Talk header}} is already present on the page:

{{subst:Setup auto archiving|archives=no}}

Optional parameters are:

|age=

How many days old a thread should be before archiving. Default: 90 (very active talk pages might need a lower frequency)

|size=

How many bytes an archive should be before a new one is created. Use the K suffix to express this in kilobytes. Default: 400K (this is a recommendation suitable for most pages; very active pages might need a larger value to avoid generating very many archives; many existing pages were set up using lower values)

|minthreadsleft=

The minimum number of threads that the bot will leave on a page. Default: 4 (this keeps some discussion on a page even if older; not emptying out the talk page entirely is often considered welcoming to new editors)

|minthreadstoarchive=

The minimum number of threads to archive at one time. Default: 1 (if 2 is used it lowers the edit frequency of the bot; sometimes editors don't want the bot to step in each and every time a new talk section is created)

|header=

Any templates that should go on top of each archive page: Default: {{Archive}}

|counter=

What to set the current counter at. Default: 1. You should supply this parameter when more than one archive already exists for a page to avoid the bot adding archived sections out of order (to the first archive instead of the most recent one). Set this to the current archive number — so if three pages already exist, and you want the bot to add to the end of the third archive, use 3.

|talk=yes

Optional value which will make it display {{Talk header}}. Default: disabled. If you enable the Talk header by using |talk=yes, the following parameters are also available:

• |talk_search=: See |search= at Template:Talk header. Default: yes
• |talk_arpol=: See |arpol= at Template:Talk header. Default: no
• |talk_wp=: See |wp= at Template:Talk header. Default: no
• |talk_bottom=: See |bottom= at Template:Talk header. Default: no
• |shortcut1=: See Template:Talk header. Default: null
• |shortcut2=: See Template:Talk header. Default: null
• |shortcut3=: See Template:Talk header. Default: null
• |shortcut4=: See Template:Talk header. Default: null
• |shortcut5=: See Template:Talk header. Default: null

|archives=no

Optional value which will disable the inclusion of {{Archives}}. Default: yes, unless |talk=yes option is set. If {{Archives}} is enabled, the following parameters are also available:

• |auto=: See Template:Archives. Default: null
• |collapsible=yes: See Template:Archives. Default: no
• |collapsed=yes: See Template:Archives. Default: no
• |banner=yes: See Template:Archives. Default: no
• |search=no: See Template:Archives. Default: yes

Examples

• Find subst count and examples of this template on Talk pages using this advanced search.

See also

• Help for choosing a bot to help decide which bot is best used for a particular talk page
• Cluebot III, another archiving bot, see {{Setup cluebot archiving}} for instructions