Help:Namespace

A namespace is essentially a category to seperate a number of pages, but they are much different from normal Categories. A category is a list of other pages(and it can contain a page by itself), but a namespace is a large group of pages that is not defined in any other way other than by the fact that a page uses it. You can easily make a namespace, simply by creating a page with the name of the namespace, followed by a double-dot, before it. This is strongly discouraged, however, as creating too much namespaces makes things a lot more unorganized. For instance, this page is in the Help namespace, and this page is in the DF2012 namespace. The namespace a page is in can be easily identified by looking at the page title; For instance, on this page, "Help" is the namespace, and "Namespace" is the page title. They are seperated by a double-dot(":") character. If a page does not have a namespace, then it is in the Main space - in other words, no matter what you do to a page, it will always be in exactly one namespace. It can not be in multiple namespaces, and it can not be outside of a namespace - these pages - may - exist, but cannot be viewed, if they do.

Uses

On this wiki, namespaces are used to categorize pages for versions of Dwarf Fortress - we can also use categories, but that would not allow us to make multiple pages on the same subject for different versions. Any pages in the Main namespace are either the Main Page, or redirects. Any wiki can have their own use and meaning for namespaces - for instance, a wiki might not use namespaces at all, having every content page in the Main space, and another wiki may have many namespaces in use, each for their own subject. These wikis are often most untidy and unorganized. There is no convention for namespaces that spans across every website running the MediaWiki software, as they are in no way connected(except for cross-wiki affilation).

List of namespaces

Here is a list of every namespace currently in use. Note that every namespace has their own talk namespace, and is named after the parent namespace, suffixed by "Talk". For instance, the talk space for the Help namespaces is named "Help Talk".

• 23a: this namespace is for articles about version v0.23.130.23a.
• 40d: this namespace is for articles about version v0.28.181.40d.
• v0.31: this namespace is for articles about version v0.31.25.
• DF2012: this namespace is for articles about version v0.34.11, which is the latest version of Dwarf Fortress.
• Help: this namespace is for articles that describe wiki concepts, or teach new editors how things work.
• Dwarf Fortress Wiki: These are for projects, wiki rules, and other wiki-specific discussion. Discussions about specific pages should instead go to their own talk page.
• Main: These pages should either be redirects or the Main page.
• Special: These pages are controlled by the software this wiki is using, and cannot be edited by normal means. They are neccesary for keeping the wiki functional.
• Category: These are the categories that keep the wiki organized in a different way than the namespace system, though none of them can be neglected.
• User: These pages are for users themselves to make. Every user can make exactly one page in the User space, and they can put whatever they want about themselves there.
• File: These are not actually content pages - anything is this namespace is a media file, and those can be audio, video and pictures.