There are several ways to think about namespaces. - Namespaces are containers for articles with a similar purpose. Unlike categories, which can be created by anybody, namespaces are created by the wiki administrator. - Namespaces let you give several articles the same title without clashing; one in each namespace. On my wiki, we have "Help:Deleting an article" covering that topic for users, and "Project:Deleting an article" for administrators. Just like in computer programming, where you can have several "classes" with the same name but in different namespaces, the same is true for MediaWiki articles. - Some namespaces have special features. Articles in the Category namespace automatically display a list of all articles in their category. Articles in the MediaWiki namespace are the "system messages" of the wiki (button text, menu text, etc.) that display in multiple spoken languages. Articles in the Template namespace get transcluded (embedded) into articles conveniently. And so on. - Some MediaWiki features can be turned on/off per namespace. For example, subpages are supported (or not) in each individual namespace. DanB -----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of briefer(a)cox.net Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 12:08 PM To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Mediawiki-l] Noobie Namespace help Hey all. I've been a subscriber for a few months and have been trying to learn about Wikis. One catch I have is that I simply have not gotten the concept of "namespace" drummed into my head. I know you can create them, and I've generally read the "help" on MediaWiki regarding namespaces, but I guess I'm just not cluing in on why they are useful and why I might want to create different ones (other than the defaults) on a wiki. Why are we separating different wiki pages out into different namespaces?? I'm not asking for anyone here to write me a big treatise on them; but if anyone can refer me to some online source that might have a good explanation, I'd appreciate it. Sorry the question is so general. Maybe it's too general to answer. I just think that this is just one of those basic concepts I've got to get a handle on before I can understand mediawiki. Thanks _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l