Click on change this page for the talk page you wish to archive.
In the edit box, select all the text you want to archive and then cut the text. The text will then be copied to your clipboard.
While you are still in the edit window, make a link to the archive you plan on creating – you can link directly to a subpage by putting a slash (/) in front of it.
If you're making an archive for a special topic, use the name of that topic, for example [[/Place of birth debate]].
If you're just archiving old discussion, use the next available number; so if the last archive was Archive 3, call it [[/Archive 4]].
If this is the first archive of the page, call it [[/Archive 1]].
When there are a lot of archives it can be useful to have a "box" of archive links. If the page already has one of these, add your link to it. Otherwise, you may want to add your own:
{{archive box}} generates a floating box for the archive links. Just place your link as a parameter, for example {{Archive box|[[/Archive 1]]}}. Multiple archives can be named, linked and labeled in various ways. See the example archive box higher up to the right. Example code from Talk:Al-Aqsa Intifada:
If all the archives are in the format /Archive 1, /Archive 2 etc. {{archive box|auto=yes}} or {{archive box|auto=long}} can be used to automatically update the archive box when new archives are created.
{{archive box collapsible}} is a visual modification of {{archive box}}, which generates a collapsible box that can be opened with a click. See the example below the {{archive box}} example higher up to the right. It works with the same parameters as {{archive box}}.
{{archives}} may be a good idea for pages with a very large number of archives (such as Talk:Main Page); this uses a separate subpage to list the archives.
Save the page. You should now have a page of recent discussion with a red link to your archive at the top.
Open the newly-created subpage by clicking the red link. Paste the old discussions from your clipboard into the edit box.
Add {{talkarchive}} to the top of the page. This adds a notice explaining that the page is an archive, and links back to the main talk page.
If this is a numbered archive, and there are already others, you can add a navigation template to make it easier to go through them.
{{archive-nav}} needs the archive number as a parameter – for example {{archive-nav|3}} on Archive 3.
{{archive nav}} similar to the above, but a dynamic list of links, – for example {{archive nav|33}} on Archive 33.
