Marking a talk-page discussion as archived
Sometimes, discussions can get very long, and it gets very difficult to see what is happening. In such cases, it may be helpful to mark the old debates as 'archived', and to try and summarize the lengthy discussions. This must be done with care, to ensure that the summary is neutral and that all views are fairly represented.
When a debate is having trouble reaching a WP:CONSENSUS, it can often help to ask others to contribute - by asking previous contributors to the article (shown in the history), by asking on the talk page of associated project groups, or via Wikipedia:Third opinion.
Done correctly, in good faith, archiving the lengthy discussions and summarizing the outstanding key points can help to clarify the situation.
In this example talk page, there has been a lengthy discussion about the shape of sausages.
It has been marked as archived by adding this text to the top of the section " Argument about sausages "...
{{Discussion top|1=Closed, as some issues resolved, some are outstanding but will be discussed in a new section}}
...and this to the end...
{{Discussion bottom}}