[Mediawiki-l] Namespace confusion

[CheekyGeek]

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.

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