On 2/6/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Could be done in theory but since I can spell wikipedia I'd rather people didn't mess around with the namspaces unless there is a very good reason. WP should be made into a real namespace mind. -- geni

On 2/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Cool! How about just "Project" ( in imitation of "portal" ). Dunno about WP, Geni. -SV

On 2/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Ah, but you must mean "the community cant have it" ;) I had thought Kirill was making some kind of epistemological point about "functional equivalency" - ie. semantics not syntax - as you apparently refer. Since you raised the point ... the question that comes to mind is... why? -SV

On 2/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Frankly, I don't see the point. WikiProjects are a type of Wikipedia-internal group/process/guideline-development area/whatnot, just as everything else in the Wikipedia: namespace is; trying to split them out seems artificial. We'd wind up with, for example, the central peer review page sitting in one namespace, but the WikiProject's peer reviews in another. I can't really see any benefits here. (As a practical point, the amount of work needed to move everything to a new namespace is staggering; it's not something to be done on a whim.) Kirill

It doesn't require the devs, a simple bot could do it.

On 2/6/07, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote: Er, isn't this what redirects are for?

On 2/6/07, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote: Well, while we're on the topic of namespace, why can't the reference desk be in a different namespace? I doesn't really pertain to wikipedia, so the Help: section or a new mainspace would be a better location.

On 2/6/07, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote: I assume you mean that there are template-bots which would need re-coding. WP has a large enough workforce that only a little planning for a single coordinated move would be required. Honestly, with the assistance of a banner message, I dont see the whole thing taking less than an hour. -SV

On 2/6/07, stvrtg <stvrtg(a)gmail.com> wrote: A message to all of the bot owners on their talk pages and said banner would make the entire process completely painless. A simple coding change such as changing "Wikipedia:WikiProject " to "WikiProject:" is no big deal. --Mets501

On 2/6/07, Rich Holton <richholton(a)gmail.com> wrote: [[Namespaces]], as any programmer can tell you, are a convenient and novel way to separate different kinds of data - to give indentify a kind of context for the data therin. On WP, the general principle has been to keep the main free of metadata. Meta stuff traditionally belongs in the Wikipedia: namespace. I suggest the idea because using a separate project namespace might be a way to feature projects to emphasise the idea of getting used to joining and working within certain projects . With WP growth the need for specialised meta namespaces seems a bit obvious to me - but thats one basic argument. As other wikis have done, maybe you might want to ask why those who have have already done so? -SV

On 2/7/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs(a)earthlink.net> wrote: I guess programmers were a bad example. :| I work in several wikiprojects, and have yet to hear someone say - "you Its not a matter of handicaps, its about facilitation of an annyoying problem of having two "wiki"s in the same title. The extra characters no doubt tax the servers. -SV

On 2/7/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hey, that's my argument, too. for the purposes of typing Oh? Why not? How about manageability, memorability etc. WikiProjects are really different to the Wikipedia namespace in general. They're strictly about content. They are strictly divided by theme. They deal very explicitly with actual articles. They provide oversight. They provide people to contact about certain topics (WP:TOL is a frequent "go to" page for identifying wildlife). Wikipedia: covers a much broader range of topics, like user behaviour, policy, processes such as deletion and creating adminships, and even junk like deleted nonsense, lamest edit wars etc etc. Lots of very much "off-topc" discussion. They are pretty different. Steve

stvrtg wrote: If I understand your arguments correctly, your main reason is to emphasize the existence of projects so people get used to working within them. Other ideas you mention: -because namespaces are novel -because namespaces are useful in separating data types -because as the size of Wikipedia grows, the need for more namespaces is obvious -because other wikis have created multiple namespaces (I'm not sure what to make of your "as any programmer can tell you..." lead in. If you're suggesting that any programmer would immediately agree with you, I can tell you that you are incorrect. I have over 15 years of professional programming experience, and am all too familiar with the idea, especially common among programmers, that "if a feature exists, we must use it.") Of your reasoning, the only one that seems to have any validity is the idea that having a separate namespace will draw attention to projects and encourage people to work in them. However, I don't really see how that will be true. -Rich Holton

On 2/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: In this case, it would make life easier: Wikiproject:Beer rather than Wikipedia:WikiProject beer (note the capital P). We effectively have a double namespace now: Wikipedia:WikiProject, which is pretty annoying. Steve