Help:Archiving

Archiving of talk pages refers to removing completed discussions from the current talk page, and placing them in a separate page, known as an archive page. This is generally done when a talk page becomes excessive in length. As a basic guideline, a new archive page should usually be created when a page reaches either 30,000 bytes, or 30 sections, whichever comes first.

How to create an archive

1. Open the location at which you will create the archive page, and begin editing. These should ideally follow the format "Talk:Article/Archive X", where X is a number increased by 1 for every new archive page. Thus, the first archive of User talk:Moydow would be User talk:Moydow/Archive 1, the second User talk:Moydow/Archive 2, and so on.
2. In a separate tab or window, open the current talk page, and click "edit".
3. Cut the archive content out of the current talk page, and paste it into the archive page.
4. Place {{Archive|links to archive pages}} at the top of the archive page, and save it, with an edit summary such as "created archive".
5. Place {{Archivelinks|links to archive pages}} at the top the current talk page, and save it, with an edit summary such as "moved to archive".

Do not edit a talk page that has been marked as an archive. If you are having problems with a user/users continuously editing your archive pages, please contact an administrator, who can lock your archive pages from further editing, and warn and/or ban the offending user(s).