Help:Namespaces

A namespace is a type of page in the wiki. Each page belongs to exactly one namespace. The corresponding namespace to a page is indicated the by the word preceding the colon in the address line. If there is no such word, the page belongs to the Main namespace of that Wikia.

Namespaces are used for the following reasons:


 * allows separation of wiki content from help and policy pages about the creation of content;
 * allows separation of different kinds of unrelated content;
 * several namespaces have special features related to their intended purpose
 * provides facilities to limit searches to a particular area
 * allows easy exporting
 * allows for feature separation



What namespaces do all wikis have?
By default, every Wikia has 18 namespaces, and 2 special namespaces. Custom namespaces can also be created.



What are the basic namespaces?
The Main namespace ( i.e., ns:0), or article namespace is the informational content of the wiki. In Wikipedia, this would be the encyclopedia article. It is the default namespace and does not use a prefix.

The Project namespace has the prefix of the title of your Wikia. On some wikis, this is used to give information about the project. Other wikis have less need to separate the content from information about the content so may choose to put these pages in the main namespace. You can use the prefix "Project:" if you do not know the real prefix to use. This will be converted automatically. For example, Community Portal will link to the same page that Project:Community Portal does.

The User namespace has the prefix User: and is used for information about users of the wiki. A user has a main user page and possibly some subpages. The main user page is linked from page histories and from recent changes. A user page has links to a user's contributions and a link which allows you to email them.

The Image namespace is prefixed with Image:. Pages here are also called image description pages. This namespace is for information about images or other files. Every image uploaded will show the information given in the upload summary on the image description page.

The MediaWiki namespace (prefix MediaWiki:) is a namespace containing interface texts such as link labels and messages. These are only editable by admins. An automatically generated list of all interface messages is at Special:Allmessages.

The Template namespace can be used for small standard texts which need to be inserted on a number of pages.

The Category namespace contains categories of pages, with each displaying a list of pages in that category and optional additional text.

The Help namespace is for help pages on wikis which want to separate these from the main content of the wiki.

The Forum namespace is a namespace that you can use for forum messages so that they do not mess up the main article namespace.



What are the talk namespaces?
Except for special pages, each namespace has an associated talk namespace. The talk namespaces are designated by adding talk: to the normal prefix. For example, the talk namespace associated with the main article namespace has the prefix Talk:, while the talk namespace associated with the user namespace has the prefix User talk:. Most of the pages in the talk namespaces are used to discuss changes to the corresponding page in the associated namespace. Pages in the user talk namespace are used to leave messages for a particular user since they will get automatic notification of any messages left there, see Help:User page.



What are virtual namespaces?
There are two virtual namespaces that do not relate to pages stored in the database.

Special pages, or the special namespace, are automatically generated and uneditable pages, such as Special:Recentchanges or Special:Userlogin. They're vital to the MediaWiki software.

The Media namespace can be used to link directly to an image or sound clip, rather than to the image description page.



What else can I see for help?

 * See MetaWikipedia:Help:Namespace, from which this page was derived, for further details on the namespace feature of MediaWiki.

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