WoWWiki:Namespaces is a proposal to change the way namespacing works on WoWWiki. Currently, the wiki implements pseudo-namespaces; ie, articles which "have" a namespace, but which are still placed into the global namespace.

While this doesn't create problems, it does seem to me that the wiki would be so much more useful if it were to have true namespaces for certain types of articles. Which ones and which do I think should be kept and/or gotten rid of in the namespace change?

Proposal

Namespaces I'm neutral with

• API_ - This, I think, can probably stay, as it is rarely edited, and yet, is part of the game as well. This particular namespace should be discussed.

• Spell: - This is an interesting case, as this is also part of the game, and yet most wiki users never edit it. Again, this should be discussed. If anything, I suggest that the namespace is gotten rid of as well, but again, I'm iffy. A third option would be to move "Spell:#" to just plain old "Template:#"

Namespaces to be deleted

• Quest: - This one should be gotten rid of, as the information is part of WoW now. For those quests which have an item name or are otherwise in need of disambiguation, a parenthesis can be used to delineate this. Eg, a page at "Quest:X" would be moved to "X (quest)".

• Formulas: - There are three options, essentially, for getting rid of this, and they require moving the pages at "Formulas:X" to:

1. Merge into "X" eg "Formulas:Shadow Bolt" into "Shadow Bolt" or "Formulas:Rage generation" into "Rage"
2. "X formula(s)" (s, as the case may be) eg "Shadow Bolt (damage?) formula"
3. "X (formula)" eg Shadow Bolt ((damage?) formula)

Tbh, these can be applied in a case by case basis. I primarily support the first, but the others wouldn't kill me, either.

• Boilerplate: - This one should also be gotten rid of, while the articles which use it can be moved to the true Help: namespace. Afterall, the boilerplates on the wiki are only our way of helping the newbies to the wiki get familiar with a standard template, which seems to define the idea of "Help"ing. If need be - and I don't support this option - we can name the pages "Help:X boilerplate", but I don't see the reason.

• HOWTO: - These pages should either be moved to the main namespace, or moved into the Help: namespace.

Namespaces that should be true namespaces

The following two namespaces are primarily player driven, and as such, should very definitely be their own, true, namespaces, and they are:

• Server:
• Guild:

Implementation

This has been discussed before, but I've been holding off on asking for it again, as I thought we would really need bot support and dedicated admin deletion aid. I say thought, because it would seem there is a script that can be run to do this. For all true namespaces we create, we'll also need to create their respective "Namespace talk:" namespaces, which are detailed here.

There are, essentially, two options we can choose for this, both detailed at mediawiki.org. One involves, possibly, a lot of headaches all around, while the other, I think, looks relatively easy from the users' side.

• Option #1 - The first is detailed at moving conflicting pages at mediawiki, which appears to begin with breaking the namespace function, and then moving all the offending pages to an alternate page. Then we unbreak the namespace function, and move the offending pages back.
  • This will require at least one bot, if not two. We can use pywikipediabot for one (probably using the move pages script), which I know Fisker (talk · contr) has loaded (he has said he support the namespace changes), and Laurly (talk · contr) is willing to help.
    • Not a problem Laurlybot (talk · contr) already has the ability to move pages setting her up to just move all the guilds wont take long. Then moving all 1300+ guild pages wont take much more then a day. Laurly 09:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Option #2 - The second option is to run a script, as detailed at using a maintenance script at mediawiki. This, I think, requires server side "stuff".

Reasons for true namespaces

• Specific searches can be done through the default interface for the variety of namespaces, unlike now.
• Specific namespaces can be filtered out of the recent changes list by clicking a namespace, clicking the box that says "Invert", and then clicking "Go".
• Just discovered this, which means we could have a super category of guilds (and thus be able to get rid of Category:Guilds: Special:Allpages
• Calls for the magic words "{{PAGENAME}}" and co. can be used for the namespaces we implement.

Reasons against true namespaces

• People will need to know this is happening (option 1), so we could do the whole site message thing, eg, "Guild pages and Server pages are being modified sitewide and so may be inaccessible at this time. Please be patient while we're in this transition."
• Admins and server people such might have massive headaches.

Conclusion

There wasn't any consensus previously over which namespaces should go and which should stay, but it seemed to me that Guild: and Server: were definitely agreed upon as being nice to have as real namespaces (as they're player created, for the most part, rather than defined by any game). We'd also need to create the namespaces Guild talk: and Server talk: to go with those pages.

Further reading

• Using custom namespaces at mediawiki.org