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Copied my reply from the template's talk page, "@Sdkb &Vchimpanzee, in the issue raised above, it would be fairly straightforward to change the text to "This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Teahouse." but it would be more complicated to get "This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia talk:Teahouse." There was a change done in the past to link from talk page archive banners to the article page. This works pretty well for articles, but quirks have come up outside of article space. I believeAndy came up with the idea, so I'll ping him for his thoughts,Rjjiii (talk) 05:09, 10 September 2025 (UTC)"09:44, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are resolved questions getting immediately archived now? If so what's the thinking behind that? Mightn't it be helpful to mark a question as resolved but leave it up to get archived naturally, so that editors have a chance to ruminate on the the responses? --D'n'B-📞 --18:46, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
hi! this is to notify that i have formally retired from hosting for the meantime due to abysmal teahouse activity. as i was one of the hosts listed onFeatured Hosts, i have decided to also remove myself from the listing at/24, replaced by Cullen for now as a placeholder.
Thank you for your service,Melecie. Great as he is, we probably shouldn't haveCullen328 listed twice. We could either move everyone after 24 up a place, or perhapsPigsonthewing, who seems to have been particularly active responding to queries of late, would be interested in being added there?Cordless Larry (talk)21:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At the top of the page someone added the text "Why is there no Wikipedia page for Jacob Barnett in English?" Does anyone know who added this? I was going to reformat it as an actual topic so that person could get their question answered, but I looked through the page history and can't find who added it.🏳️🌈JohnLaurens333 (need something? Ping me!)16:27, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think as a Wikipedia grows it will naturally form the newbie help infrastructure it requires. From my hazy recollection...
First there wasWikipedia:Bootcamp. It also had an IRC channel #wikipedia-bootcamp; live chat can be an excellent way to communicate with a newcomer. At some stage that became #wikipedia-en-help. Jimbo Wales popped in the help channel one day and asked why is it so hard for (maybe theoretically) for his partner to ask for help on Wikipedia and someone created{{helpme}} for talk page assistance.
Bootcamp becameWP:New contributors' help page. Esperanza was around during all of this but I don't recall it having a newcomer focus.
The Teahouse became a thing, and now there is Mentorship as part of theGrowth Team features.
I am not sure what phase Greek Wikipedia is up to. Someone can be bold there, but don't be surprised if things evolve. Traffic will dictate help infrastructure for individual projects. I imagine a singular Help desk is more than enough for smaller Wikipedias.Commander Keane (talk)21:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This page is configured to archive sections older than two weeks if there are more than 14 sections present. At the moment, there aren't enough sections meeting that criteria to trigger the bot.SnowyRiver28(talk)08:46, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, some time ago I posted amessage about deploying temporary accounts here on English WP. The rollout is scheduled for October 7th, and right after it you may be getting questions. Just to be clear, temporary accounts are what will replace* IP addresses as user identifiers (*this is a simplification, andI "well actually" myself and others reminding that well, there are important differences). Anyhoo, precisely because of these differences, people may be expressing confusion all over the place, incl. Teahouse. So, you're most welcome to chime in on VPWMF. Thanks!SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk)00:01, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Several editors (myself included) have found that Andy's manual OneClickArchiving of Teahouse threads disruptive to the flow of The Teahouse. My reasons as follows:
Discourages additional answers that would expand upon the thread (especially annoying when in the middle of writing a reply, and suddenly the thread is gone!).
Confuses newbies through abrupt archiving which makes threads hard to find and could be mistaken for deletion (which is not very friendly or supportive).
Reduces reference value as answered or partially answered threads can be referred to by readers (I learnt Wikipedia guideline and policy by lurking at the various help boards and reading through answered questions).
Gives an impression that Andy gatekeeps archiving / owns the The Teahouse and/or threads (as he is the only person who uses this tool on The Teahouse).
Is inconsistent with most other boards, where archive bots archive based on thread staleness.
Fills up my watchlist with large negative byte changes.
only manually archive threads he has participated in.
only archive when the question has been fundamentally answered and no further replies are likely.
wait at least 24 hours after the last reply before manually archiving.
This keeps manual archiving available for clearly wrapped-up threads.
I'd like Andy to voluntarily stop manually archiving and agree to the above conditions, if there is community consensus he does so.qcne(talk)16:14, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I dig deep in the archives I possibly still have the script that I used to determine the amount of time elapsed between their manual archiving and the most recent comment. It was less than a minute in some cases iirc. They refused to explain why they thought manual archiving was a good idea when the bot will do it automatically. The Teahouse is supposed to be a welcoming place for new users, not a place where your questions instantly disappear into a black hole because some grumpy guy decided it did not meet his unknowable (and probably arbitrary) criteria.Polygnotus (talk)16:28, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the purpose of manually archiving... Well-used noticeboards can become quite long, and thus take longer to load on slower Internet connections. Some people just don't want to do all that scrolling. Clerking noticeboards manually like this makes sense in a lot of cases, especially for boards likeWP:COIN. But you do it to be helpful, and if the regulars of a noticeboard don't think it's helpful, well it shouldn't be done. Surely we don't need to have guidelines for Teahouse conduct or something to resolve this. I wouldn't have used the term "disruptive" myself, but overall I'm not sure why this is escalating the way it is.MediaKyle (talk)16:38, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a pattern where Pigsonthewing is not swayed when the consensus is against them. A very admirable trait, but it can be annoying in a collaborative environment. Historically, what has worked with Pigsonthewing is topic bans and editing restrictions. That sucks, but discussions haven't led to the desired result.Polygnotus (talk)16:43, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed that some questions disappear quite shortly after they've been first answered. It is frustrating because (a) questions asked and answer(s) given can sometimes be informative to me and possibly other users; and (b) it assumes that users only wish to contribute to a discussion, or digest it more fully, at the immediate time they first come across it, which (in my case, at least) is untrue. 24 hours should be a minimum; 48 would be nicer.
If a newbie asks a question like "How do I make a link", "Can someone fix this reference error" or "Where can I read about Foo", in answered, and then comes back and says something like "That was just what I needed, thank you", it seems perfectly reasonable to me, and i would suggest it would to most people, to archive the discussion as resolved. Why does it not, to you?Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits16:58, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a shame that my suggestion to determine consensus about when and how the page should be archived, generally, has resulted in a non-neutrally worded post that so badly fails to assume good faith, repeats a baseless smear about "ownership" that I already objected to on my talk page (and adds another about "gatekeeping" to it at the same time), and misrepresents me.
As I said on my talk page, several of the six numbered points are false, and/or without foundation.
I note also that there were no objections when I used this page, in April this year, to propose removing the block on manually archiving this page (and which is not used on most other noticeboards).
I still maintain that, if there are concerns, the correct approach is to determine consensus about how this page should be archived (my requests to links to such consensus, if it already exists, having proved fruitless), rather than to attack an individual who has acted in good faith.Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits16:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing We are all assuming your good faith. But when you keep doing something after a bunch of people tell you that they don't want you to do that, and instead of having a normal conversation where you explain your reasoning you post messages such as the above, people feel forced to address it.
I can't speak for qcne but I am a trillion percent sure they would rather have a normal conversation where you explain why you do the manual archiving, and then stop it because you see the consensus is against you.Polygnotus (talk)16:57, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"We are all assuming your good faith"—That is clearly not the case.
"a trillion percent sure they would rather have a normal conversation where you explain why you do the manual archiving"—Funny, then, that they astarted with a posttelling me not to archive the page, rather than asking that question.Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits17:00, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@PigsonthewingThat is clearly not the case. If we all thought you were a bad faith evil person you would be blocked right now.
You already know that the consensus is against you. But you seem to think you can just ignore that fact. So of course people will tell you: "this is the consensus, follow it". But they would prefer a much gentler and nicer approach.Polygnotus (talk)17:02, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing I am very sorry that you interpret this post, and my post on your Talk Page, as a personal attack. That is not my intention. I have been told by another editor I could have gentler language. Communication and tone is hard to interpret over text.
Then I suggest that (and would take it as sign of retuning to good faith if) you hat this thread and start again by asking that question, in neutral terms and without personalising the discussion.Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits17:02, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In any case, your question did work; I answered you, giving examples of why I consider threads ready for archiving.
You seemed to be upset at the time because I archived a thread (which you then restored) where you told someone to go see a doctor, per per WP:NOTFORUM. I through that a better response to your comment than reporting it at WP:ANI.Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits17:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The desired effect was that you stopped manually archiving threads on the Teahouse. You didn't stop doing that, despite me pointing out why it is a bad idea.
I predicted the future:if you continue it may be necessary to prohibit you from doing that. But I am asking nicely first, and I hope that that is enough.Polygnotus (talk)17:13, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not tied to any particular conditions, but I have also found this frustrating. I feel newcomers especially are more likely to need a thread up longer to see it, and reading older threads (resolved ones) helped me as a newbie as well, because I could see answers to many common questions without having to ask them. Of course we don't want the Teahouse to betoo long, and conversations likethis one are not likely to be very helpful to newcomers, but in thinking about it, my ideal archiving time would be about 2-3 days... which is what the bot is already supposed to do (with the added bonus that such edits are hidden from editors like me who don't want simple archiving/bot edits filling their watchlists). I really don't think it does much harm to leave threads up for that time (beyond maybethis stuff, whose archiving was probably beneficial). Pigsonthewing, would you be willing to just hold off on the manual archiving of normal conversations on the Teahouse?Perfect4th (talk)16:58, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have found the manual archiving to be irritating on many occasions with questions disappearing quite abruptly and would prefer the more leisurely regime of Bot archiving.Theroadislong (talk)17:18, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I concur that Pigsonthewing's approach is disruptive, but what is worse is their continued claims to be the victim of incivility and bad faith when appraoched in a civil and good faith manner about the issue. Such continued aspersions without evidence or standing constitute personal attacks in their own right and are unbecoming of a clerk called to the mat... I do not think that this is a wider issue which requires any real changes, nothing here appears broken except Pigsonthewing's approach to editing and conflict resolution.Horse Eye's Back (talk)17:23, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Bot archiving is superior to human archiving, because it explains where in the archives to look
If someone is just posting a bunch of swearwords/threats/gibberish/gore it can be deleted without archiving. DeletingWP:BANREVERT stuff can be a good idea (it depends). Anything else can be archived by the bot.Polygnotus (talk)17:48, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mentioned them as archivals I don't consider to be as big an issue, but I do agree that there's no issue with letting them get bot-archived either. Anything truly egregious should be reverted anyway.Perfect4th (talk)19:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus?
Username
Quote
Polygnotus
Hi! Can weslow down stop the manual archiving on the Teahouse please?
Qcne
Stop manually archiving threads on The Teahouse
MediaKyle
But you do it to be helpful, and if the regulars of a noticeboard don't think it's helpful, well it shouldn't be done.
Bazza 7
It is frustrating because (a) questions asked and answer(s) given can sometimes be informative to me and possibly other users; and (b) it assumes that users only wish to contribute to a discussion, or digest it more fully, at the immediate time they first come across it, which (in my case, at least) is untrue.
Timtrent
I'm with @Bazza 7 and @MediaKyle on this.
Perfect4th
my ideal archiving time would be about 2-3 days... which is what the bot is already supposed to do
Theroadislong
I have found the manual archiving to be irritating on many occasions
Horse Eye's Back
I concur that Pigsonthewing's approach is disruptive
I don't think I have commented on any of the related discussions but will do so now in the hopes that it helps demonstrate consensus. Isupport delegating Teahouse archiving to the bot(with the usual exceptions, e.g. blatant vandalism, personal attacks, and copyvio) so that discussions stay up for a reasonable time and the bot can deliver those archived-discussion messages to the discussion-starters. I also want to remind Andy that Teahouse discussions can be helpful for all newcomers, not just those who have participated in the discussion; that we are an international community distributed across many timezones; and that some editors don't even visit Wikipedia every day (I know this may come as a shock to some 😉).ClaudineChionh(she/her ·talk ·email ·global)22:22, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, I am disappointed in this reply. I hatted my original thread in good faith after you asked me to, to defer to this thread to build consensus, but this reply is obviously not in good faith and isn't constructive.
I truly don't understand the rush to archive threads. Just because the OP replied with something along the lines of "Thanks, that helped," doesn't mean the thread needs to be immediately archived. As somebody said above, the thread can still be helpful to uninvolved new users and allows the OP to quickly ask follow-up questions on the same topic, even if their original query has been resolved. I originally did not intend to comment onyour archiving habits specifically, but... "Clearly 72-hour archiving is too quick": This is sarcastic, right? It's funny you'd say that because you so clearly don't take into account the timing of OP's last comment when archiving. In your last few hundred manual archives, the highlights include the record times of2 minutes 9 seconds and2 minutes 22 seconds; these happen typically immediately after a "Thank you" from the OP. —DVRTed (Talk)11:17, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing Can you please please confirm that you will stop manually archiving noticeboards, now that the consensus is 11 v 1?
We are all hoping we'd be able to avoid having to create yet another editing restriction. Because we all believe you are a good-faith user.
But the consensus is now 11 v 1 and you are still making a sarcastic comment instead of saying: "Oops, I was trying to do the right thing, but if everyone else asks me to stop then I will". So please please confirm that so we can all move on and do something more fun. Thank you!Polygnotus (talk)11:24, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I was talking about on your talk page when I said that in regards to civility and good faith you demand the benefit of the doubt of others while refusing to extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone besides yourself[1]. You expect us to believe that this comment is civil and in good faith but that the much less sarcastic and derogatory comments made towards you aren't civil and in good faith.Horse Eye's Back (talk)17:46, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are invited to join the discussion atWikipedia talk:Citing sources § WMF seeking feedback on Reference Check.Sdkb-WMF talk18:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]