Extension:HidePrefix

What?
The HidePrefix extension hides prefix in links and page titles.

For example, wikitext ` ' normally results in link `Help:FAQ'. If this extension is enabled, result will be just `FAQ' without the `Help:' prefix.

The same is about page titles. Page `FAQ' in `Help' namespace normally has `Help:FAQ' title. If this extension is enabled, visible page title will be just `FAQ' without the `Help:' prefix.

Why?
I as a user do not care too much about namespace of the link target page. To me there is no big difference between `Help:FAQ' and `Manual:FAQ' (especially if one of them is a redirection to another). But both these prefixes looks ugly to me.

Namespace of target is often clear from context. If you see `Author: User:Van de Bugger' it is clear that `User:Van de Bugger' is a link to her/his personal page. Moreover, actually it does not matter whether that page is in `User' namespace or not. But again, the prefix looks very ugly, so many wikieditors use ` ' to suppress the prefix — look into the infobox on the left.

Prefixes look especially ugly if there is a long list of links with the same prefix. For example, look at the list of Extensions used on Wikimedia. More than 100 occurrences of prefix `Extension:' just clutter the screen and do not add any value. (BTW, did you notice that I had to use ` ' to suppress ugly `Category:' prefix?)

Thus, If I want to hide the ugly prefix so often, why should I hide it at every link manually? Let me write an extension which will hide the prefix in all the links. Everywhere.

BTW, prefix is hidden in link text, but it is still available — if one hovers the mouse cursor over the link, tooltip will show the full target page title, including the prefix.

Almost the same reasoning is applicable to page titles. A prefix looks ugly and does not add any value to reader, because just above the page title (at least, in Vector skin) there are namespace tabs, and the leftmost tab shows the namespace name.

Download
svn checkout https://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/HidePrefix

Installation
To install this extension, add the following to LocalSettings.php:

License
GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 or any later version. See AGPL-3.0.txt file for the full license text.