Jan Hidders wrote:
Why not [[George Washington (person)]]. I thought that was the whole point of having namespaces. That reminds of something else I wanted to ask. Why do we now have two namespace concepts? (We have "X:Y" and we have "Y (X)".) I would vote for one namespace concept with one notation: X (Y).
I think the two are different: the software enforced name spaces are there to separate the encyclopedia proper from all the cruft surrounding it. Your parenthesis notation serves mainly to distinguish several concepts with the same name: [[Cardinal (bird)]], [[Cardinal (person)]]. I don't think people want to or should be required to universally slap on "(person)" to every title that describes a person.
Jimbo's "tagging" idea is different still. I agree with Magnus: if such a tagging is to take place, it would have to happen on the article level, maybe easiest as a little choice list when you edit and submit an article (Place, Idea, Person, etc.) That wouldn't complicate matters for contributors (they could always ignore the choice list and leave it at the default). I don't immediately see the payoff though.
Axel