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}}

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. 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 (increase this to lower 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 an archive: Default: {{Archive}}

|counter=

What to set the current counter at. Default: 1. This is necessary when archives already exist for a page. Set this to the current last archive number

|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 enabled:

|talk_search=: See Template:Talk header. Default: yes

|talk_arpol=: See Template:Talk header. Default: no

|talk_wp=: See Template:Talk header. Default: no

|talk_disclaimer=: See Template:Talk header. Default: no

|talk_bottom=: See Template:Talk header. Default: no

|talk_force=: See Template:Talk header. Default: true

|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=yes

Optional value which will make it display {{Archives}} if talk option is disabled. Default: disabled

Notes

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