[Mediawiki-l] Examples of Namespace vs. Category vs. Sub-page?

[Monahon, Peter B.]

He fellow mediawikilisteners,

Rob built a great start on an "instruction/reference manual" for "namespace" at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ManualNamespace

I, of course, have additional questions, which I've posted behind it at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual_talk:Namespace

And I thought I'd ask the same here.  My MediaWiki support plan is to copy everything I've learned (all 80 words!  No, just kidding...) to MediaWiki.org, so if you know something that's not here or there, please pitch in if you can.  I notice some inquiries are months old on MediaWiki and still unanswered, yet this group often responds pretty quickly.  As always, if you know links that answer this, links that I have missed, please redirect me - thanks!  Here goes:

I'm looking for examples of "namespace" features and benefits, for instance:

- How to export or print all articles in a namespace or group of namespaces? 
- How to control who can see or edit the articles in a particular namespace or group of namespaces? 
- How to restrict search to include or exclude a particular namespace or group of namespaces? 
- How to auto-build a table of contents for all articles in a namespace or group of namespaces? 
- How to export and import one or more namespaces? 
... more?!? 

In other words, what are the features and benefits of using the "namespace" function, and how (examples and or links, please) can a wiki admin or wiki user take advantage of those features and benefits?  

Versus Category?

Versus Sub-page?

I understand what I've read about each of these MediaWiki features, but I'm not sure I understand the benefits of each feature, especially comparatively.  Here's my goal (of any database system): I want to read, create, save, edit, search, sort, print, export, and import (is there more?) and I wonder how the features of Namespace vs. Category vs. Sub-page (or other?  Special:page-features?)  assist in organizing the contents of any MediaWiki such that I can execute each of those tasks over my own choice of a pre-organized subset of the main data.

An example: say I have a wiki with job descriptions, and each job description has a series of tasks.  I may want to see or print, say, all job descriptions, with no sub-tasks.  Or, I may want to see and print only one entire job description and all it's tasks, but no other job descriptions.  How would I organize that information best using Namespace vs. Category vs. Sub-page (or other)?  Each job description goes on it's own page (I presume).  Should I create a separate namespace for each job?  Should I create sub-pages for each job's tasks?  Would categories be helpful?  What search, sort, and select tools in the MediaWiki software have powers over Namespace vs. Category vs. Sub-page such that I would know in advance before I enter or organize all the data?  I'm not asking you to build my database and queries for me, I'm asking for examples of the MediaWiki features and benefits so I or anyone can know in advance how MediaWiki can manipulate it's contents (or not) if we pre-
 organize or data entry appropriately.

I'm imagining a table, but I may be way off base:

Benefit: → Show all pages: Auto table of contents: Read: Create: Save: Edit: Search: Sort: Select: Print: Export: Import: 
↓ Feature:                         
Page:   Y Y Y Y Y Y     Y Y Y 
Namespace Y ?             ? ? ? ? 
Category: ? ?             ? ? ? ? 
Sub-page:   ?             ? ? ? ? 
Search:                         
Print:                         
... And so on                         

How would YOU recommend organizing a Table of Benefits for every MediaWiki Feature?

I guess what I'm asking in a backwards way is, how powerful are the search, sort, select, report, print features, and also any auto-features such as auto table of contents or auto index features in MediaWiki? How would anyone using a MediaWiki database say, "show me and print all and only ... such and such"?

Or has no one evolved the search/sort/select and auto features over the database contents of a MediaWiki yet, and these are SQL/PHP challenges as yet unaddressed inside MediaWiki?

Thanks for taking a moment to explore this with me. 

-- Peter Blaise