Help:Namespaces

Pages on the FlightGear wiki are grouped into different namespaces. Pages in different namespaces have different uses. Pages in some namespaces interact with other pages in special ways.

Namespaces are indicated in the article name prefix, for example Help:Contents.

Pages in the main, or article namespace do not have a prefix.

Regular namespaces

(Main)

The main namespace contain the articles on the wiki.

Howto

For some reason there is a separate namespace for howto articles.

Files

The file namespace consists mainly of images used to illustrate the wiki.

Category

See also Help:Categories.

The category namespace contains the category pages which lists all the pages in a category, in essence all the pages with the same category tag, for example [[Category:Help]]. These are linked together in a somewhat hierarchical fashion.

Links to category pages in the category namespace will when done like links to articles in the main namespace add a page to that category. To instead link to a category page you have to begin the link with a colon, like this [[:Category:Help]].

Template

See also Help:Templates.

The template namespace contains the templates that are used when the wiki editors either want content to be presented in a consistent manner or to lessen the amount of typing needed for common things like repository links etc.

When using a template you use curly braces instead of brackets, like for example {{thumbs up}}. As typically pages used as templates are in the template namespace you do not need to add the namespace when using templates. To use a page in any other namespace, like for example a draft in a page in the user namespace, you will have to add the namespace.

When linking to templates you should probably use the template link template, for example like this {{tl|thumbs up}}.

User

The user namespace contains user pages. In lists of changes the link to a user go to a page in the user namespace.

Your user page is a good place to present yourself, have to-do lists, etc. You can also create subpages with drafts etc. and link to them from your user page.

Help

The help namspace contains the help pages describing how to use the FlightGear wiki, like the one you are reading now.

FlightGear wiki

This namespace contains other pages related to the wiki than the pages in the help namespace, for example the manual of style and the village pump.

Special

These are pages with various tools, lists and statistics.

Some useful ones being Special:RecentChanges (which can be found in the sidebar on all pages), Special:CategoryTree and Special:LonelyPages (which lists orphaned pages without any categories or links pointing to them, thus making them hard to find).

MediaWiki

These pages contain some of the wiki's settings.

Discussion namespaces

For each namespace there is an associated discussion namespace.

Pages in the other namespaces are each paired with a discussion page with a prefix ending with "_talk", for example this page's discussion page, Help talk:Namespaces.

These are used for discussions about wiki pages and with users. For discussions about the wiki in general, see FlightGear wiki:Village pump