On Apr 7, 2005 9:47 AM, CheekyGeek cheekygeek@gmail.com wrote:
If one is typing an article and put the double brackets around a word or phrase, that word or phrase becomes a link. Clicking on the link goes to that page (before editing, naturally, it is empty). Two questions:
How does one avoid getting (or handling) two pages that deal with the identical subject. For example, if I create a link to the term "supercell" and another author creates a link using the term "supercells", do I not end up with TWO pages that must be kept "in sync" with the same definition? I know that leaving the last "s" outside the double brackets solves the problem, but a) that option is not available for all plural words or for other suffixes b) it only takes one person to create additional pages that are duplicates of the first.
First, there is the practice of using "redirects". On [[supercells]] you would create a page where the entire content is:
#redirect [[supercell]]
Anyone going to the page "supercells" will be redirected to the page "supercell". See [[Wikipedia:Redirects]], which is itself a redirect to [[Wikipedia:Redirect]], where you can find more information.
Second is by merging pages. If you do end up with [[supercells]] and [[supercell]], the two pages should be merged into one, the other one then made into a redirect. Note that in the English Wikipedia, the correct page name would be [[supercell]] (the singular).
The process of merging is not necessarily trivial. See [[Wikipedia:Duplicate articles]].
Is this part of the "pruning" process that must go on in maintaining a wiki? (This could particularly explain the usefulness of the "What links here" Toolbox link. With that one could go to the supercells page and change all references to point to the supercell page. If this is the best way to handle it, does one delete the duplicate (plural) page after all references to it have been removed?
Also, "namespace" in MediaWiki seems to mean something different than I am using it above. I'm not sure I'm clear on that, but the "Special" pages are one example of that. "Special" seems to be called the "namespace" and the part after the colon is something else. Can anybody explain that further?
Darren Addy Kearney, NE
Namespaces are types of pages that have distinct usage and often distinct functionality built into the software. For instance, for article [[Supercell]] (which is in the default namespace, and has no specified prefix) will have a corresponding page in the Talk namespace: [[Talk:Supercell]]. You will note that on a talk page you can post a message to the bottom of the existing page via the "+" tab (using the default skin). This feature is not available in the default (article) namespace.
Other namespaces include: Wikipedia (see examples above), Wikipedia_talk, Category, Category_talk, Template, and Template_talk. Each has its own particular use.
I hope that this helps!
-- Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton