Template talk:Webarchive

Archives

This page has archives. Topics inactive for 28 days are automatically archived 1 or more at a time by if there are more than 4.

Quick reference

WP:WEBARCHIVES gives details of (all?) available web archiving services. This may be helpful when discussing this template and its Lua module.

Yeah I made that page, and this template, the template is largely up to date displaying those archives. But thanks for linking to that page it is relevant. -- GreenC 15:48, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deprecation of archive.today

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 09:22, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I'm a goof. This tracking category Category:Webarchive template archiveis links just needs to be maintenance category. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 15:11, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Rjjiii, I've coded a fix at Module:Webarchive/sandbox that would hide the archive.is links from users until they can be replaced. Gives intended results on all test cases, and I added a few more to test behaviors (like with addlpages) that weren't being tested in the current ones. Should it be pushed? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 04:15, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Chaotic Enby: Awesome! So that will suppress the URL but still render the date and so on? I was looking at this and just added a piped link on "archive.today" so that it will point to Wikipedia:Archive.today guidance. Does that work alright with your plan to suppress the link but display "Archived"? I also added "deprecated = '(Error: Deprecated archiving service)'," but don't have any strong opinion on the wording. I think suppressing the links should come first. The discussions around this look like folks are still figuring out the best ways to resolve the issue, so it may be premature to flag people down with an error message. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:46, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Chaotic Enby, nvm, revert my changes to the module subpage when you push yours live. I just noticed "Deprecated link" pointing to the same page. Momentary lapse of literacy there. In the future, the updated text in the module should probably be placed in Module:Webarchive/data to make translation easier (for Portuguese and Vietnamese and other Wikipedias once they begin dealing with the archiving issue). Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:11, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Didn't realize that we were storing data for multilingual use, but that makes sense! I'll move it there. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:56, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Done both (the push, and placing the text in the module), thanks again! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:08, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

add megalodon.jp

Since this seems to be one of the leading backup services after the .today debacle, it should be added as a recognized source. It might need a little extra work beyond just adding this to the service list since the timestamp format is https://megalodon.jp/YYYY-MMDD-hhmm-ss ~ฅ(ↀωↀ=)neko-chan^nyan 19:34, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at it, thanks! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:52, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaand it's done! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:19, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"seems to be one of the leading backup services" not really. It has less than a thousand usages on enwiki, it is by that count one of the most obscure. It is a Japanese-language website designed for Japanese users. The captchas and error messages are in Japanese. The idea they will be, or want to be, a primary archive service for English Wikipedia is fallacious. If they gain in size, they will become targets of AI scrapers and take-down requests from American companies. The few vocal people on Wikipedia pushing it (and Ghost), as supposed alternatives to Archive.today, are engaged in wishful thinking. There will only be more problems in the future, I wouldn't use these services. In the past 10 years we have lost 8 archive providers, almost 1 a year. -- GreenC 02:39, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Verbose shortdesc

The short description on this page is awfully verbose:

template for linking to web archiving services such as the Wayback Machine, WebCite and all other web archiving services

It's even redundant, with "web archiving services" mentioned twice.

Could we cut it down to this?

Template for linking to web archiving services such as the Wayback Machine

I tried to do it myself, but I can't see what's inserting the shortdesc since that text isn't present in the template itself, the module, or the doc page.

Thanks — W.andrea (talk) 14:31, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

likely comes from wikidata Q27850769.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:35, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, that's done it! I edited it and it's reflected on Wikipedia. Thanks. — W.andrea (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]