 | This is aWiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policythink tank, working to develop a formal policy. |
| Policies – Entries:CFI -EL -NORM -NPOV -QUOTE -REDIR -DELETE. Languages:LT -AXX. Others:BLOCK -BOTS -VOTES. |
This page listsnamespaces of the English Wiktionary and how they are used.
| Wiktionary namespaces | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject namespaces | Talk namespaces | ||
| 0 | (Main/Article) | Talk | 1 |
| 2 | User | User talk | 3 |
| 4 | Wiktionary | Wiktionary talk | 5 |
| 6 | File | File talk | 7 |
| 8 | MediaWiki | MediaWiki talk | 9 |
| 10 | Template | Template talk | 11 |
| 12 | Help | Help talk | 13 |
| 14 | Category | Category talk | 15 |
| 90 | Thread | Thread talk | 91 |
| 92 | Summary | Summary talk | 93 |
| 100 | Appendix | Appendix talk | 101 |
| 106 | Rhymes | Rhymes talk | 107 |
| 108 | Transwiki | Transwiki talk | 109 |
| 110 | Thesaurus | Thesaurus talk | 111 |
| 114 | Citations | Citations talk | 115 |
| 116 | Sign gloss | Sign gloss talk | 117 |
| 118 | Reconstruction | Reconstruction talk | 119 |
| 710 | TimedText | TimedText talk | 711 |
| 828 | Module | Module talk | 829 |
| Virtual namespaces | |||
| -1 | Special | ||
| -2 | Media | ||
A variety of namespaces are currently set in the English Wiktionary, which is powered by theMediaWiki software. Each namespace may hold an indefinite number of pages and serves a different purpose in organizing them.
Each namespace is identified by its own name or by a number, except one which does not have a particular name, being defined as "main" or "entry" in some places. Except for "main", the namespace of a page is always present in the beginning of its title, followed by a colon. Therefore, if a page calledAppendix:Example exists, it is in theAppendix namespace and may be linked asAppendix:Example.
If the title of a page contains a slash (/), it is considered a subpage of another page whose title is equal, but without, the slash and subsequent characters. For instance,Wiktionary:Beer parlour/timeline is a subpage ofWiktionary:Beer parlour. A subpage is expected to be subordinate of the other page.
The only exception are pages in the main namespace, as they are naturally considered independent. For example, "AC/DC" is not the subpage of page "AC" but rather an individual page. Note that "Talk:AC/DC" unexpectedly does not fit in this exception.
The namespaces "main",User,Wiktionary,File,MediaWiki,Template,Help andCategory represent basic functions inherent to all MediaWiki sites. Similar namespaces are found in Wiktionary's sister projects such asWikipedia.
The namespacesAppendix,Concordance,Index,Rhymes,Transwiki,Wikisaurus (now calledThesaurus) andCitations were introduced on 28 June 2006. Most of them have purposes more directly related to building a dictionary, so they probably would not be found in other projects, but Wiktionaries in other languages may have similar namespaces.
Each of the namespaces explained above is counterpart to one of thetalk namespaces:Talk,User talk,Wiktionary talk,File talk,MediaWiki talk,Template talk,Help talk,Category talk,Appendix talk,Concordance talk,Index talk,Rhymes talk,Transwiki talk,Thesaurus talk andCitations talk. They serve as spaces for conversations about the current non-talk page. For instance, users may talk aboutWiktionary:Namespace atWiktionary talk:Namespace. However, there are a few genericdiscussion rooms which may be preferred in place of discussing on separate talk pages.
| NS | Name | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| -2 | Media: | A rarely-used namespace that provides direct access to files. CompareFile:Wiki.png andMedia:Wiki.png. |
| -1 | Special: | Specific functions within the MediaWiki software, such as seeing technical details, lists of pages, edits and users, deletion of pages, protection of pages and blocking users. Thelist of accessible Special pages changes for each user according to their user group, growing longer in this order: from anonymous users, logged-in users, administrators, bureaucrats, to stewards. |
| 0 | (none) | Entries with definitions, translations, among other information on terms of all languages. The absence of a prefix and of subpages distinguishes these pages from those in other namespaces. This is commonly known as the "main" namespace or "mainspace". |
| 1 | Talk | Discussions about each entry page. |
| 2 | User | Personal pages for Wiktionary editors, where users may create just about anything they want, using their user name as title and possibly creating subpages. They are permitted and even encouraged. When a user is not registered, a temporary account code beginning with~ is the title instead (an IP address until late 2025). Only modify other another's user pages with permission. |
| 3 | User talk | Discussions directed to specific users. They are notified whenever someone edits their talk page. Typically, subpages are used only for talk page archives. |
| 4 | Wiktionary | Information in context of Wiktionary, including its general operation, policy pages likeWiktionary:Blocking policy, decisions on editing specific languages likeWiktionary:Korean entry guidelines, organization of other namespaces (for instance, which templates or categories to be used for each situation) and also contains generic discussion pages likeWiktionary:Beer parlour andWiktionary:Requests for deletion. Pages intended for guiding new users should be placed at the Help namespace rather than here. |
| 5 | Wiktionary talk | Discussions about each Wiktionary page. |
| 6 | File | Strictly speaking, this namespace contains only a handful of uploadednon-free images. However, all files (images, audio clips, etc) uploaded toWikimedia Commons appear transparently as part of our File namespace. |
| 7 | File talk | Archived deletion requests for files can be found here. Discussions started in this namespace are unlikely to receive replies. |
| 8 | MediaWiki | Text required by the MediaWiki software. All pages in this namespace are protected by default, so they can only be edited by administrators andinterface editors. Crucial user interface changes can inadvertently be made here. These pages often require unusual technical fluency to overcome various programming traps and challenges. |
| 9 | MediaWiki talk | Discussion of corresponding MediaWiki software, used for users without protected rights to request or propose changes to the pages. |
| 10 | Template | Templates with collections of text that users can define, and repeat on multiple pages by referencing the template name with squiggle brackets. They include inflection templates, cleanup templates, topic tag templates (such as{{label}}), and many others. |
| 11 | Template talk | Discussion of corresponding templates. |
| 12 | Help | Contains a general resource of help on various subjects, particularly for new users. |
| 13 | Help talk | Discussion of corresponding help pages. |
| 14 | Category | Automatically generated sets of pages. To know how entries are categorized and how categories are linked, seeHelp:Category. |
| 15 | Category talk | Discussion of corresponding categories. |
| 90 | Thread | Stores individual threads in LiquidThreads discussion pages. |
| 91 | Thread talk | Discussion of corresponding threads. Unused. |
| 92 | Summary | Summaries of discussions in pages using LiquidThreads. |
| 93 | Summary talk | Discussion of corresponding summaries. Unused. |
| 100 | Appendix | Information suitable for a dictionary, but encyclopedic in nature. That includes lists of terms (for instance, surnames, given names, constellations, slang, etc.), lexical information (for instance, declensions, conjugations, word order, pronunciations, etc.) that would be suitable for various entries together, proto-language forms and certain definitions that according toWiktionary:Criteria for inclusion should be present only in appendices. Particularly, explanations on templates, categories and other aspects of Wiktionary should not be placed in appendices. |
| 101 | Appendix talk | Discussions on specific appendices. |
| 106 | Rhymes | Lists of words thatrhyme, using strict rhyming rules, the English words organized by British formal pronunciation and all languages indexed by theIPA notation. |
| 107 | Rhymes talk | Discussions about specific rhyme pages. |
| 108 | Transwiki | Pages imported from sister projects that were identified as dictionary definitions. Deprecated. |
| 109 | Transwiki talk | Discussion of corresponding entries. Deprecated. |
| 110 | Thesaurus | Entries in the thesaurus. SeeWiktionary:Thesaurus. |
| 111 | Thesaurus talk | Discussion of corresponding thesaurus entries. |
| 114 | Citations | Quotations. Based on the idea of usage ascriteria for inclusion, the citation pages can display durably archived usage over time. From the usage documented on these citations pages the definitions on the main entries are verified, clarified and updated, or perhaps additional definitions can be derived. SeeWiktionary:Citations. |
| 115 | Citations talk | Discussion of corresponding citations. Deprecated due to low usage. |
| 116 | Sign gloss | Experimental. SeeWiktionary:Sign language entry guidelines for background info. |
| 117 | Sign gloss talk | Discussion of corresponding entries. Unused. |
| 118 | Reconstruction | Entries ofreconstructed languages, mostly referenced in etymologies. |
| 119 | Reconstruction talk | Discussion of the corresponding entries. |
| 828 | Module | Similar to the template namespace, though usually stores code or groups of text which are more generally used as part of templates. More details can be found atWiktionary:Scribunto. |
| 829 | Module talk | Discussion of corresponding modules. |
The gaps in namespace numbering correspond to namespaces that were removed from Wiktionary. These are:
There are the aliases defined for namespaces, all of which are case-insensitive:
| Alias | Target name | Target id |
|---|---|---|
| WT: | Wiktionary: | 4 |
| Image: | File: | 6 |
| Image talk: | File talk: | 7 |
| T: | Template: | 10 |
| CAT: | Category: | 14 |
| AP: | Appendix: | 100 |
| WS: | Thesaurus: | 110 |
| Wikisaurus: | Thesaurus: | 110 |
| Wikisaurus talk: | Thesaurus talk: | 111 |
| RC: | Reconstruction: | 118 |
| MOD: | Module: | 828 |
Pseudo namespaces are sets of pages that use the colon to set them off from other pages but without the full namespace support of MediaWiki software. All of the current pseudo namespaces are not in the main namespace so they are effectively sub-namespaces. Current pseudo namespaces include:
Any wiki link prefaced by one of the keywords (seen in the notes above) link to external Wikimedia sites, as indicated. Each external site has its own set of namespaces which can also be included in the link. In addition, wikis in different languages exist.
