Template:New archival link needed

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{{new archival link needed}} is a template used to identify references that are archived using deprecated archival repositories, including (but not limited to) archive.today and archive.is. The template produces the superscripted message and is installed with no spaces after a reference that links to a deprecated archival repository.

Background

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5 was an RFC concerning archive.today, archive.is and related sites. The RFC resulted in deprecation for those sites and removal of links to those sites. This template can be used to highlight where existing archive.today links are present on Wikipedia, or where they have been removed without a replacement archival link. See below for more information on why this is an issue:

Usage

• {{New archival link needed|date=October 2026}} appears as
• {{New archival link needed|date=October 2026|reason=your explanation here}} appears as

Sample

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Deleting Archive.today

Deleting archive.today links requires care and caution. Do not rely on fully automated search/replace tools.

1. Three fields need to be removed: <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|archive-url=, <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|archive-date=, and <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|url-status=. If any are not removed, the page is added to an error tracking category and other editors will need to return and clean up the incomplete orphaned parameters.
2. Usurped/Unfit. If a citation has <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|url-status=usurped or <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|url-status=unfit that means the primary URL is porn or gambling spam. The <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|url-status=usurped hides the primary URL from displaying a clickable blue link, only the <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|archive-url= is clickable. However, when you delete the <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|archive-url=, the porn/gambling spam becomes a blue link again ie. in effect you are adding porn and gambling spam back into Wikipedia that had previously been removed. See WP:USURPURL for how to deal with this situation, most of the time you need to completely delete/replace the entire citation when no suitable archive URL is available.

Notes

• The <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|date= parameter consists of the full English name of the current month (with initial capital and rest lowercase), a space, and the year. For example, "January 2013" but not "jan13" or "January 23, 2013". Deviation from this rule will place the article in Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template.
  • To automatically add the current date, you can use substitution like this: <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>{{subst:New archival link needed}}</syntaxhighlight>.
• The <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|reason= parameter is for an explanation why you think the material needs a source. It is optional but very helpful. It is displayed as a tooltip in some browsers (hover the mouse here to check behaviour of your browser). For example, the following usage might be appropriate if a reference links to archive.today:
  <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline></syntaxhighlight>
  • Use only plain text for the <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|reason= parameter. It does not support wiki markup like wikilinks, which can mess up the tooltip.
  • Double quotation marks used within the <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline style="display: none;" />|reason= parameter will likewise mess up the tooltip; use single quotes or the HTML code " instead.
  • If omitted, the tooltip "This claim is referenced, but links to a deprecated archival repository. Please replace it to help prevent link rot." is used by default.
• The |bot= parameter should be used when a bot is placing the template like so: {{new archival link needed|bot=<bot name>|date=October 2026}}.
• This template should usually be installed directly after a reference that links to a deprecated archival repository.
• Use of this template will place the article into Category:Articles linking to deprecated archival repositories and Category:Articles linking to deprecated archival repositories from October 2026.
• Remove the template when you update the archive link for a reference.

Tracking categories

• Category:Articles linking to deprecated archival repositories (1)

See also

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Deprecating and blacklisting archive.today
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5
• Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Using a bot to apply Template:New archival link needed to references
• Template:Dead link

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:New archival link needed/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.