[Mediawiki-l] Namespace confusion

[Richard Holton]

On Apr 7, 2005 9:47 AM, CheekyGeek <cheekygeek at 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