Help: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 ":" in this page's title ("") indicates that this page is in the namespace. Note, however, that colons and prefixes can also appear in page titles without indicating a namespace: The page Foo: is a page located in the mainspace because the namespace "Foo" does not exist. Similarly the page Foo: is in the "" namespace.

Standard namespaces
The standard MediaWiki installation has sixteen namespaces, numbered sequentially from zero. There are also two special namespaces with negative indices. The standard namespaces are organised in pairs, with each pair containing a 'subject namespace' and a 'discussion namespace'. All subject namespaces are given even indices, and all talk namespaces are given odd indices.

0: (Main)
Namespace zero is the 'null' namespace, 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.

1:
The "Talk" namespace is the discussion namespace attached to the mainspace. It has no special properties.

2:
Any user "ExampleUser" has the page    :ExampleUser available to them. This page is linked to from edit histories, watchlists, recent changes, etc; wherever an individual user is uniquely identified. pages are customarily used by users to record information about themselves or to test and draft new content. Pages of the form "   :UserName/Foo.js" or "    :UserName/Foo.css" can only be edited by the user UserName or by users with the editusercssjs permission (usually administrators).

15:
Pages without a ':' in their name are in the main namespace. These are typically the bulk of the Pages which aren't directly related to this core content, may go in other namespaces. These pages have a name of the form "namespace:page", for example this page is called "':'" (this page belongs to the namespace '' and the name of this page is  'Namespaces')

Use of namespaces can vary from one wiki to another, but a typical scheme would be as follows:


 * Help: Documentation about working with the wiki software. This could be mirrored from outside sites, or locally written.
 * File: For descriptions of uploaded files or media files. You shouldn't create these directly; they are created when you click the Upload file link in the toolbox.
 * Media: Use this namespace to link to uploaded files directly, rather than through the description pages.
 * MediaWiki: Use this namespace to change the default system messages, See Help:System message on meta.
 * Project: Information about this wiki; i.e. policies that apply here. This namespace also has an alias, which is the name of the wiki installation.
 * Talk: Each page has a corresponding discussion page. This can be used for feedback/comments about that page, or other local notes that another group may want to associate with the page, without modifying the document directly, or for any other additional information to associate with the document.
 * Template: This is used for meta-information that is to be transcluded into multiple documents, such as tags to mark the status of a document.
 * User: For personal notes. Each User has a corresponding user page for their own information.  Users can also create subpages, by using a / after their name.
 * User_talk: The discussion page on a user's page can be used for leaving messages. If this page is edited, the next time that user logs in they will see a box notifying them that they have new messages