UESPWiki:Namespaces
The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995
A namespace is the prefix of a page that is shown before the colon in a page title. We use these namespaces to divide and organize the content of our site. For example, if you look at the title of this page, you can see that it belongs to the UESPWiki namespace.
Different namespaces have different purposes, and therefore include different types of content and have different guidelines about how content is created and the style of that content. One of the main distinctions is between article namespaces and talk namespaces.
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[edit] Article Namespaces
Article namespaces contain the articles that are the primary content of the wiki, namely descriptions of the Elder Scrolls games. Most visitors to the site will only view pages in the article namespaces.
Articles are expected to be written in a professional, encyclopedic style that is geared towards readers of the site. The Style Guide spells out some of the guidelines that apply to articles. These pages are written collaboratively, i.e., content written by one editor may be revised by another editor. The content of articles is decided by community consensus.
Although some wikis only have one article namespace, namely the Main namespace, UESPWiki has multiple article namespaces, used to help organize the content.
[edit] Talk Namespaces
Talk namespaces are where articles are discussed. Every article page on the site has a companion talk page, accessed using the "discussion" tab. Talk pages are intended to be open forums, where all editors can contribute their opinion about the content or style of the site. These pages are primarily used by editors of the site, rather than casual readers of the site.
The different purpose of talk namespaces means that the standards and style are very different than for article namespaces. Several of the style guidelines should not be followed on talk pages:
- All contributions on talk pages should be signed and dated (which is easiest to do by typing ~~~~).
- First person is acceptable on talk pages, especially since discussions are often used to express personal opinions.
- Unknown information is acceptable on talk pages; this is where facts that are uncertain should be discussed with other members of the community.
All editors are free to add their opinions to talk pages; the content of talk pages is not decided by consensus. Rather, the talk pages are where the discussions occur that determine the community's consensus.
In general, editors should not modify or delete talk page contributions made by other editors. Some exceptions are:
- Archiving of old discussions is acceptable, when done in accordance with the Archiving Guideline.
- Minor corrections of other editors' contributions is acceptable, for example indenting a comment or fixing a link if a page is moved. These types of corrections should never change the contribution's substance or intent.
- Deletion of all or part of another editor's contribution is only acceptable when the contribution is completely off-topic or clearly violates the wiki's Etiquette standards.
[edit] Current Namespaces
This is a list of the current namespaces we use to separate the content within the site. In addition to the listed namespaces, there is a discussion or talk namespace associated with each of these, created by adding "_Talk" to the end of the namespace (for example, UESPWiki_Talk or Oblivion_Talk).
| Namespace | Description |
|---|---|
| Article Namespaces | |
| Main | All pages that do not have namespaces are considered to be in the main namespace. With the exception of the Main Page, all pages in this group are actually shortcuts that redirect to popular pages. One of the most common mistakes that newcomers make is to put content pages into this category. |
| Gamespaces: | The term "gamespace" is a portmanteau of the words "game" and "namespace". It covers all the namespaces that contain information about their respective games. Any article about a specific Elder Scrolls game should go into the appropriate gamespace. |
| Lore | This namespace contains general information about Tamriel and its lore. |
| Tes3Mod | Contains information on how to mod Morrowind. |
| Tes4Mod | Contains information on how to mod Oblivion. |
| General | Anything else that does not belong in any of the above categories should go here. |
| Support Namespaces | |
| The content in these namespaces is used to augment the article namespaces. All editors can edit these namespaces. | |
| Image | This namespace is where the images of the site are located. |
| Template | Templates made for the purpose of transclusion into other articles can be found at this namespace. |
| Community Namespaces | |
| These namespaces are meant to assist UESPWiki's community of editors. All editors can edit these namespaces. | |
| User | This is where user pages are located. Each editor can create a user page to introduce themselves to the community or keep track of their work on UESP. The content and style of a user page is determined by the editor who owns the page. In general, editors should avoid editing user pages owned by other editors.
The User_Talk namespace is where individual editors can be contacted. |
| UESPWiki | (Also called the project namespace.) This namespace covers general UESP operations. Policies and Guidelines, for example, are all in the UESPWiki namespace. Also general community discussion pages, such as Community Portal are located in UESPWiki. |
| Help | Help files to introduce editors to UESP navigation and editing are located here. |
| Non-Editable Namespaces | |
| For the most part, the pages in these namespaces can not be edited. | |
| MediaWiki | This namespace allows the site interface to be customized. The pages can only be edited by administrators. |
| Category | Automated categories that organize the content of UESP are located here. Only the first section of a category page can be edited. |
| Special | This is a special namespace that contains any automatically generated page (except for category pages), such as Special:Recentchanges. The available special pages are listed at Special:Specialpages. |
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