I don't understand well the use of Namespaces. Why use them? And why use Extra Namespace? Thanks.
Giovanni Putignano Italy
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 11:10:35 +0100, Giovanni gputignano@tiscali.it wrote:
I don't understand well the use of Namespaces. Why use them? And why use Extra Namespace?
In general, namespaces are just a way of keeping different aspects of a site seperate within the database. This allows them to be searched independently, dumped to backups independently (e.g. for use by mirrors and forks), styled differently (so there is a visible distinction) and even have certain software features enabled and disabled (e.g. discussion namespaces have the "add a comment" tab enabled, you can switch "sub-page" behaviour on and off per namespace).
Originally, I think there were 4 namespaces used by Wikipedia when the concept was invented: one for encyclopedia articles, one for discussing each article [Talk:], one for "meta"-information about the project (policy documents and so forth) [Wikipedia:], and one for discussing those policy pages [Wikipedia_talk:]. Since then, others have been added, such as one for customising the interface [MediaWiki:], and one for storing reusable templates [Template:]; generally, each namespace has an attached _talk: namespace.
People have found various uses for extra namespaces: projects producing different kinds of content might want them to be seperated in the database this way, or tweaks to the software might be made to make different parts of the site behave differently based on being in a different namespace. (One of the most common extra features is more flexible user rights management, which should be coming soon; per-namespace permissions could probably be combined with this reasonably easily). On meta.wikimedia.org, extra namespaces have been created to draft the user's guide which will eventually go into the Help: namespaces of the software in various languages - in order to cope with all the translations on one multi-lingual wiki, there needs to be "Help:", "Aide:", "Hilfe:", etc, all nicely seperated.
So, you may well have no need for namespaces, and may well not have a use for any more than the software provides by default. But seperating content from discussion, and project/community content (policies, FAQs, welcomes, etc) from end-user content (whatever it is your community is producing - such as encyclopedia articles, pages of quotations, reviews, or whatever) is probably quite a good idea for most sites. There are some where it doesn't really make sense, if the discussion *is* the content, but MediaWiki is mainly useful for those where it does.
HTH
Hello,
So, is it possible to create namespaces? As I understood it, these namespaces were 'hard coded' on the mediawiki project... am I wrong? How can one create a namespace, like, say "Email:", which would store email information. And how would that be made different, like you said?
I've recently installed a wiki on my server and I'd like to separate information on two different languages, so I was thinking about using namespace (I read it somewhere at mediawiki's meta wiki that it was not really possible as of now...)
Thanks for all the info, Roberto.
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:37:20 +0000, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 11:10:35 +0100, Giovanni gputignano@tiscali.it wrote:
I don't understand well the use of Namespaces. Why use them? And why use Extra Namespace?
In general, namespaces are just a way of keeping different aspects of a site seperate within the database. This allows them to be searched independently, dumped to backups independently (e.g. for use by mirrors and forks), styled differently (so there is a visible distinction) and even have certain software features enabled and disabled (e.g. discussion namespaces have the "add a comment" tab enabled, you can switch "sub-page" behaviour on and off per namespace).
Originally, I think there were 4 namespaces used by Wikipedia when the concept was invented: one for encyclopedia articles, one for discussing each article [Talk:], one for "meta"-information about the project (policy documents and so forth) [Wikipedia:], and one for discussing those policy pages [Wikipedia_talk:]. Since then, others have been added, such as one for customising the interface [MediaWiki:], and one for storing reusable templates [Template:]; generally, each namespace has an attached _talk: namespace.
People have found various uses for extra namespaces: projects producing different kinds of content might want them to be seperated in the database this way, or tweaks to the software might be made to make different parts of the site behave differently based on being in a different namespace. (One of the most common extra features is more flexible user rights management, which should be coming soon; per-namespace permissions could probably be combined with this reasonably easily). On meta.wikimedia.org, extra namespaces have been created to draft the user's guide which will eventually go into the Help: namespaces of the software in various languages - in order to cope with all the translations on one multi-lingual wiki, there needs to be "Help:", "Aide:", "Hilfe:", etc, all nicely seperated.
So, you may well have no need for namespaces, and may well not have a use for any more than the software provides by default. But seperating content from discussion, and project/community content (policies, FAQs, welcomes, etc) from end-user content (whatever it is your community is producing - such as encyclopedia articles, pages of quotations, reviews, or whatever) is probably quite a good idea for most sites. There are some where it doesn't really make sense, if the discussion *is* the content, but MediaWiki is mainly useful for those where it does.
HTH
Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]
MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Yes, it is possible. I believe I described it at one point on this list, and then made a stub on it in meta.wikimedia.org. (can't remember the page off hand).
Basically, you set a couple of variables.
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:19:02 -0200, Roberto Winter rhwinter@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
So, is it possible to create namespaces? As I understood it, these namespaces were 'hard coded' on the mediawiki project... am I wrong? How can one create a namespace, like, say "Email:", which would store email information. And how would that be made different, like you said?
I've recently installed a wiki on my server and I'd like to separate information on two different languages, so I was thinking about using namespace (I read it somewhere at mediawiki's meta wiki that it was not really possible as of now...)
Thanks for all the info, Roberto.
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:37:20 +0000, Rowan Collins
rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 11:10:35 +0100, Giovanni gputignano@tiscali.it wrote:
I don't understand well the use of Namespaces. Why use them? And why use Extra Namespace?
In general, namespaces are just a way of keeping different aspects of a site seperate within the database. This allows them to be searched independently, dumped to backups independently (e.g. for use by mirrors and forks), styled differently (so there is a visible distinction) and even have certain software features enabled and disabled (e.g. discussion namespaces have the "add a comment" tab enabled, you can switch "sub-page" behaviour on and off per namespace).
Originally, I think there were 4 namespaces used by Wikipedia when the concept was invented: one for encyclopedia articles, one for discussing each article [Talk:], one for "meta"-information about the project (policy documents and so forth) [Wikipedia:], and one for discussing those policy pages [Wikipedia_talk:]. Since then, others have been added, such as one for customising the interface [MediaWiki:], and one for storing reusable templates [Template:]; generally, each namespace has an attached _talk: namespace.
People have found various uses for extra namespaces: projects producing different kinds of content might want them to be seperated in the database this way, or tweaks to the software might be made to make different parts of the site behave differently based on being in a different namespace. (One of the most common extra features is more flexible user rights management, which should be coming soon; per-namespace permissions could probably be combined with this reasonably easily). On meta.wikimedia.org, extra namespaces have been created to draft the user's guide which will eventually go into the Help: namespaces of the software in various languages - in order to cope with all the translations on one multi-lingual wiki, there needs to be "Help:", "Aide:", "Hilfe:", etc, all nicely seperated.
So, you may well have no need for namespaces, and may well not have a use for any more than the software provides by default. But seperating content from discussion, and project/community content (policies, FAQs, welcomes, etc) from end-user content (whatever it is your community is producing - such as encyclopedia articles, pages of quotations, reviews, or whatever) is probably quite a good idea for most sites. There are some where it doesn't really make sense, if the discussion *is* the content, but MediaWiki is mainly useful for those where it does.
HTH
Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]
MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org