Help:Namespaces

From Pirates@Home

Articles in the wiki can be divided into different groups, called Namespaces. The main body of the wiki is in the "main" namespace, while the "annotations" (also called "talk pages") are in the "Talk:" namespace. Namespaces can be thought of as partitions of different types of information within the same wiki, to keep "real" content separate from user talk pages, help pages, and profiles. The Special: namespace is used to perform special functions.

By default, when you search the wiki you only search the main namespace. But it is possible to search all namespaces, or only selected namespaces, using check-boxes on the search page.

Common Namespaces

In addition to the "main" namespace, the following are the most important for everyday operation:

Talk:

For every page in the wiki there is an associated "talk" page for notes about the article. Think of it as the back of the page on which the article is printed. To access the "talk" page use the "Annotations" tab at the top of the page.

Image:

Images or other files you upload are stored in the Image: namespace. See Help:Images page for instructions on how to upload images and how to reference them in the wiki. On this wiki you can use File: in place of Image:

Template:

The contents of these pages can be included in other pages. See Help:Templates for an explanation.

Category:

Pages in this namespace describe categories. See Help:Categories for an explanation of how categories work.

User:

Each user can create their own "User" page in this namespace, to tell the other users something about themselves. By convention, only the user should edit this page.

User_talk:

Each "User" page has an associated "talk" page, where you can leave messages for the user.

Help:

Help pages. See Help:Contents for links to all the help pages on this wiki.

Special namespaces

Two namespaces are used by the wiki to perform special functions, and for administration and configuration:

Special:

Pages in this namespace perform special functions, such as the Special:RecentChanges page, which lists recent changes to the wiki.

MediaWiki:

Customized messages are kept in this namespace. For example, the navigation sidebar at the left of every page is kept in MediaWiki:Sidebar, and the text used on the "talk" tab on every page is kept in MediaWiki:Talk.

See Also

• Manual:Namespace - from the MediaWiki manual