Help:Namespaces

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

Users of other wikis, such as Wikipedia, may have noticed that namespaces are much more widely used on UESP.

Unlike other wikis (which put most pages in the "Main" namespace), on UESP everything is categorized. All articles related to the game Oblivion are in the [[Oblivion:]] namespace, for example. This helps to organize the content of the site, in particular in cases where pages with the same name are needed for each separate game. Therefore, instead of having a single page named [[Altmer]] that has to provide information on Altmer relevant to every TES game, there are multiple pages (Morrowind:Altmer, Oblivion:Altmer), each describing game-specific information, and also a Tamriel:Altmer page which describes general (non-game-specific) information.

A complete list of UESPWiki's namespaces is available at UESPWiki:Namespaces.

[edit] Creating Links

You will most commonly notice namespaces when creating a link to a page. If you wanted to create a link for the word "Altmer", you could simply type the word like this:

[[Altmer]]

If you later come back and edit that page again, however, you will find that your simple link has been changed into something like:

[[Oblivion:Altmer|Altmer]]

What has happened is that the wiki software has added the necessary namespace information to your link. The second version is the correct form of the link, but the first version is an easy shortcut that saves editors some typing.

When creating links to pages in a different namespace, there are additional shortcuts you can use. Note that these should only be necessary when linking outside of the current namespace. The format is slightly different, in that it uses {{}}s instead of [[]]s. The way to use these is to choose the appropriate two-letter abbreviation, AR, DF, BS, RG, MW, TR, BM, OB, or SI, and format the link like so:

[[Oblivion:Altmer|Altmer]]

This will automatically create a link to Oblivion:Altmer from anywhere on the site which looks like Altmer. To create a link with a different display text, simply provide an additional parameter:

[[Oblivion:Altmer|High Elf]]

This will create a link to Oblivion:Altmer which displays as High Elf.

You may also wish to indicate that an item is from a given game. This can be done simply by using the same templates without any parameters, which will result in a small superscript abbreviation that links to that game's main page. E.g.:

<sup>[[Oblivion:Oblivion|OB]]</sup>

Which will result in the following: ^OB

[edit] Crossing Namespaces

Generally speaking, all links within a given namespace should if possible link to other pages within that namespace. Thus, in an Oblivion article about a character who is an Altmer, it would not be correct to link to the Tamriel:Altmer page. Rather, the link should point to the Oblivion:Altmer page. Exceptions are made for subjects which cover multiple games, such as general lore subjects which are found in the Tamriel namespace. Also, there may be times when an article about something in one game will reference a related article in another, such as Oblivion:M'aiq the Liar, which is about a character who also appeared in Morrowind. But by default, you should always keep links within the same namespace as the page they are on.

[edit] Creating Pages

When creating a page, be sure to create it in the correct namespace. In particular, pages created in the main namespace will in general be immediately deleted (see the Deletion Policy). If you follow a link to a non-existent page, or for any other reason are about to create a new page, first check that the page does not already exist somewhere else on the site.