From A Storehouse of Knowledge

A namespace on this site (or other site using the MediaWiki software) is a particular grouping of pages, identifiable by having a given prefix. Some namespaces have special properties to be treated differently by the software.

Contents 1 Description 2 List of namespaces 3 Interwiki links 4 Pseudo namespaces 5 See also 6 Note

Description

The prefix is the text prior to the first colon. This page, for example, is "Help:Namespace", and the namespace prefix is "Help". However, pages can have colons in them without the part prior to the colon being a namespace. See Pseudo namespaces below.

Except for the virtual namespace, in each case there are two associated namespaces, the second being a "talk" namespace.

List of namespaces

The namespaces are:

Prefix	Talk prefix	Description
Normal namespaces
(none)	Talk	The "main" namespace and its talk namespace. This is where articles and article talk pages are.
User	User talk	User pages and user talk pages
Template	Template talk	Templates are pages intended to be "transcluded" onto other pages.
aSK	aSK talk	Pages about the site, its rules, policies, etc.
Mediawiki	Mediawiki talk	Pages with settings for the software. The non-talk pages are locked to all but administrators.
File	File talk	Pages for uploaded images and other files.
Help	Help talk	Help pages.
Category	Category talk	Pages listing articles in the specified categories. Although text can be included, category pages are for the most part generated automatically.
Property	Property talk	Pages specifying Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) properties.
Type	Type talk	Pages specifying SMW types.
Concept	Concept talk	Pages specifying SMW concepts.
Research	Research talk	Pages for research information for articles.
Virtual namespace
Special		Special pages are ones automatically generated by the software. The are not editable, and have no associated talk pages.

Note that namespace prefixes are not case sensitive.

Some namespaces have special properties. The main namespace is the only one used for the "random page" link and for statistics on content pages.^{[note 1]}

All the above namespaces are standard MediaWiki namespaces and will be found on any Wiki site using the MediaWiki software, with the following exceptions:

• Property, Type, and Concept namespaces (and related talk namespaces) will only be found on sites using the SMW extension.
• The aSK and aSK Talk namespaces are standard namespaces, but the name is normally customised for each Wiki.
• The Research and Research Talk namespaces are unique to this site.

Interwiki links

Certain prefixes followed by a colon can also be used to provide a link to another site. See Interwiki links for a list.

Pseudo namespaces

Pages with a colon but for which the text before the colon does not match a defined namespace or Interwiki link are merely main namespace articles with colons. So, for example, "2001: A Space Odyssey" is in the main namespace, not a "2001" namespace.

See also

• Mediawiki's Namespace help page

Note