Information:Namespaces

Pages on a MediaWiki wiki are grouped into collections called “namespaces” which differentiate between the purpose of the pages at a high level. Pages in certain namespaces can also have special properties or behave differently when they interact with other pages.

Namespaces are indicated in page titles by prefixing the page name with <namespace>:, so the prefix Information: in this page's title (Information:Namespaces) indicates that this page is in the <tvar name=ns-1>Information namespace. Each namespace is identified by a number and a name, which can be translated and can also have some aliases.

A page whose name is not prefixed by a namespace lies in the mainspace. Note, however, that colons and prefixes can also appear in page titles without indicating a namespace: the page Foo:Namespaces is a page located in the mainspace because the namespace “Foo” does not exist. Similarly the page Information:Foo:Namespaces is in the “Information” namespace.

BattleTechWiki data structure

Namespaces
Subject namespaces		Talk namespaces
0	(Main/Article)	Talk	1
2	User	User talk	3
4	BattleTechWiki	BattleTechWiki talk	5
6	File	File talk	7
8	MediaWiki	MediaWiki talk	9
10	Template	Template talk	11
12	Help	Help talk	13
14	Category	Category talk	15
100	Policy	Policy Talk	101
102	Property	Property talk	103
106	Form	Form talk	107
108	Concept	Concept talk	109
112	smw/schema	smw/schema talk	113
114	Rule	Rule talk	115
118	Draft	Draft Talk	119
828	Module	Module talk	829
3000	Portal	Portal Talk	3001
3010	Guideline	Guideline Talk	3011
3012	Information	Information Talk	3013
Virtual namespaces
-1	Special
-2	Media
Current list (API call)

Standard namespaces

The standard MediaWiki installation has sixteen namespaces that can contain user-generated content; there are also two special namespaces that contain pages created “on the fly” by the MediaWiki software. The standard namespaces are organized in pairs, with each pair containing a “subject namespace” and a “discussion namespace.” The namespaces are numbered from zero such that all subject namespaces have even indices and all talk namespaces have odd indices.

Media

This namespace is used for direct linking to media files: the link [[Media:MediaWiki-2020-icon.svg]] links to just the image rather than the image description page, which would be [[:File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg]].

Special

This namespace is used to group special pages, reports and interfaces that are generated “on demand” by MediaWiki and that are not directly editable. It is not possible to create pages in this namespace except by modifying or extending the MediaWiki software.

(Main)

The namespace that has no prefix separated by a colon. Commonly called the “main namespace” or “mainspace”. This namespace typically contains the bulk of the content pages in a wiki. This namespace generally has no special properties.

Talk

The “Talk” namespace is the discussion namespace attached to the mainspace. It has no special properties.

User

Each user has a corresponding page in the “User” namespace, which is linked to from edit histories, watchlists, recent changes, etc.; wherever an individual user is uniquely identified. This page and subpages of it can be used by users to record information about themselves or to test and draft new content.

User talk

This namespace is the talkspace associated with the “User” namespace. Pages in this namespace are mainly used to leave messages for particular users or inform them of discussions that may be of interest to them. To facilitate this, when a page User talk:UserName is edited, whenever the user UserName loads a page, a notice is displayed at the top of the page informing them of the edit:

You have a new message from another user (last change).

This notice continues to appear until the user loads their user talk page to read the message.

Project

This namespace is normally used for meta-discussions related to the operation and development of the wiki. It automatically redirects the user to a namespace labeled after the wiki's name, example: [[Project:Licenses]] → [[BattleTechWiki:Licenses]].

Project talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated project pages. It has no special properties.

File

The “File” namespace is used to store metadata for images, videos, sound files and other media accessed via the “Media” namespace. Each file has a corresponding page in the “File” namespace, which is often used to hold licensing data. Linking directly to a page in this namespace instead includes the media file inline in the page: [[File:MediaWiki-2020-icon.svg|right]] produces the image to the right. See Help:Images for more details of this link syntax.

To create an internal link to the file page, you need to add a colon to the front of the namespace: [[:File:MediaWiki-2020-icon.svg|right]] produces File:MediaWiki-2020-icon.svg. The standard MediaWiki installation has alias “Image” for “File” namespace – See Namespace aliases. For linking media files directly, bypassing the description page, see Media namespace.

File talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated media files. It has no special properties.

MediaWiki

The “MediaWiki” namespace is used to hold system messages and other important content. For instance, the page MediaWiki:Edit contains the text that fills the “Edit” tab at the top of every page. If that page exists, it overrides the default content, which is “Edit.” Similarly, MediaWiki:Common.css is the system message that holds the CSS code that is loaded for all users for each page. It has the special property that the entire namespace can only be edited by users with the (editinterface) user right. Since MediaWiki 1.32, JavaScript and CSS pages needs also editinterface and (respectively) editsitejs or editsitecss rights to edit.

MediaWiki talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated system messages. It has no special properties.

Template

The “Template” namespace is used to hold templates, blocks of text or wikicode that are intended to be transcluded into several other pages. To facilitate this it has the special property that it is the default namespace for transclusions: the wikicode {{Foo}} is equivalent to {{Template:Foo}}.

Template talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated template pages. It has no special properties.

Help

The “Help” namespace is usually used to hold help files, instructions and “how-to” guides. It has no special properties. See Help namespace content.

Help talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated help pages. It has no special properties.

Category

The “Category” namespace contains categories, dynamic lists of other pages. To facilitate this, linking directly to a category page does not output an inline link, but instead includes the page into the associated category page. So the code [[Category:Help]] causes a category link to appear at the bottom of the page (at the bottom in the box marked “Categories”). Clicking on that link takes you to the category page, where this page is visible in the category list.

To create an inline link to a category page, you need to add a colon to the front of the namespace: [[:Category:Help]] produces Category:Help. See Help:Categories for more details on category link syntax.

Category talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated category pages. It has no special properties.

Extension namespaces

In general, extensions should reserve namespace numbers in blocks of 10, where no known namespaces are already added by MediaWiki core or any known extensions. Each block is intended for an extension to use sequentially; in particular, extensions that add more than one custom namespace should not reserve an additional block for each additional namespace, unless the extension has exhausted its current block.

Custom namespaces

Namespace numbers between 3000 and 4999 should not be used; these numbers are reserved for wikis to define their own custom namespaces. Furthermore, care should be taken when selecting numbers under 1000, since this range has historically been quite heavily used by extensions and sites alike (numbers under 200 should probably be avoided altogether). On this wiki we have the following "custom" namespaces

Policy

The Policy namespace is used by BTW for our Policies (i.e the "rules" on using this wiki)

Policy Talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated Policy pages. It has no special properties.

Guideline

The Guideline namespace is used by BTW for our Guideline pages (i.e the best courses of action on this wiki}

Guideline Talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated Guideline pages. It has no special properties.

Information

The Information namespace is used by BTW for our Information pages(i.e the best courses of action on this wiki}

Information Talk

This is a talk namespace that is normally used for discussions related to the associated Information pages. It has no special properties.

Namespace aliases

Namespace aliases are alternative names that will also be resolved to other names. Currently on BattleTechWiki, by default, "Image" is an alias for File, so [[Image:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg]] is equivalent to [[File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg]].

In the future we may make the current shortcuts namespace aliases For instance, [[BattleTechWiki:|BattleTechWiki]], where "BTW" is an alias for BattleTechWiki, which is the namespace "BattleTechWiki".

Identifying namespaces

There are a number of ways by which the namespace of a particular page can be identified:

Magic words

The magic word {{NAMESPACE}} returns the value of the namespace the page is in.

To refer to another namespace, use {{ns:Project}}), or {{SUBJECTSPACE}} / {{TALKSPACE}} to refer to the namespace paired with the current one.

JavaScript

The JavaScript variable wgCanonicalNamespace contains the full namespace name. The variable wgNamespaceNumber contains the numerical index of the namespace.

CSS

The <body> tag of the HTML page output is given two CSS classes that vary by namespace: A class ns-#, where # is the index of the namespace, and ns-XXX, where XXX is "subject" for all subject namespaces, "special" for pages in the Special namespace, and "talk" for talk namespaces. So CSS code such as the following can be used to change the appearance of an object based on its namespace:

.ns-subject a {   /* Almost all links on subject pages to be green. */
    color: #0f0;
}
.ns-talk a {      /* Links on talk pages to be blue. */
    color: #00f;
}
.ns-3 a {         /* and links on user talk pages to be red */
    color: #f00;
}

API

For the system properties of each namespace, can use our API

Search Results

You can get a complete list of all namespace names from the Search results page Advanced tab, or from any recent changes page such as contributions or watchlist in its options box, in a drop-down list.

See also

• mw:Manual:Namespace
• mw:Manual:Using custom namespaces
• mw:Manual:$wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault