NANOGWiki:Namespaces
From NANOG
The NANOG wiki is divided into several namespaces. These namespaces can be determined by the prefix at the beginning of the wiki page's full name. So:
Category:Organizations
In this case, the prefix is Category - this page is in the Category namespace.
This page lists the namespaces currently in use on this wiki, and what they are generally used for.
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Article namespaces
These namespaces have no special characteristics - they are used as standard editable pages.
Main namespace (no prefix)
Pages without any prefix are considered to be in the main namespace. These are generally informative pages, but any type of page that does not have a specific namespace attached to it is generally placed in the main namespace. There are restrictions on what can be placed in the main namespace, this generally being "stuff that belongs in other namespaces doesn't belong here".
User: namespace
Pages in the User: namespace are used by users as personal pages - users can place information about themselves on the User page that corresponds to their user name.
NANOGWiki: namespace (or Project namespace)
NANOGWiki: namespace is used for pages relating to the workings of the wiki - such things as policy documents, style guides, etc, are stored on this namespace.
Help: namespace
Pages in the Help: namespace constitute the technical Help files of the wiki, allowing users to find out how to use the features of the wiki software.
Talk namespaces
The Talk namespaces are used as places to discuss the page they are attached to. This is done mostly to keep the discussion off the main article. For the most part, Talk pages are exactly like their Article equivalents, and every namespace (with the exception of Special:) has a corresponding talk page.
User talk: pages have the additional benefit of letting the User they are attached to know whenever it is edited. As such, they are a useful system for leaving messages for other users within the wiki.
Special namespaces
These namespaces are used by the wiki for certain special abilities on the wiki. Pages under these namespaces do not act the same as usual articles in one form or the other because of this (although they are all perfectly editable, much like the Article namespaces).
Category: namespace
Category: Pages are used for creating lists of related pages. By placing a regular link to a category page on any other page, a user can indicate that the page belongs in that category. This includes other categories (allowing subcategories to be created). For actual links to Category pages, a colon must be placed at the beginning of the link (so [[:Category:Category]]. Categories can be edited like any other page - editing the Category page itself edits the Category's page text, but not the lists themselves.
Image: namespace
Image: Pages aren't supported in this wiki.
Template: namespace
Template: Pages are generally used for boilerplates and message boxes for inclusion in other pages. Any page can be included in any other page (by using curly braces instead of square brackets in the link), but files in the Template namespace do not need their namespace specified - {{template}} will work as well as {{Template:template}}.
Virtual namespaces
Pages in Virtual namespaces are not correctly pages - they are not editable directly by users, and typically link to utilities or variables within the wiki software.
Special: namespace
All pages within the Special: namespace are utilities that are dynamically generated each time they are requested. Special: pages are not editable by users in any fashion, and attempts to create new pages in the namespace will instead create pages in the Project namespace. These utilities can be linked like any other page, though if any parameters are included in the Project's url, it will have to be typed in like an external URL.
MediaWiki: namespace
Pages in the MediaWiki namespace are used as variable definitions in the wiki's internal workings (for an example, MediaWiki:Cannotdelete defines the message the system provides if a deletion cannot be performed successfully. All pages in the MediaWiki: namespace are protected by default, and cannot be edited by normal users. A list of all MediaWiki: pages can be found at Special:Allmessages.
Pseudo-namespaces
Some categories of pages have, by convention, had a namespace-like prefix in their names. However, these prefixes do not have a corresponding entry in the wiki's namespace table, and thus will not act like a usual namespace (the most obvious note is that their talk page is in Talk:Prefix:Page Name instead of Prefix talk:Page name.
