UESPWiki:Namespaces

Organization
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. Most other wikis only have one article namespace, the "Main" namespace, but the UESPWiki has multiple article namespaces, used to help organize the content (as explained in more detail at ).

Different namespaces have different purposes, and therefore include different types of content and have their own guidelines for how that content is created and presented. One of the main distinctions is between article namespaces and talk namespaces. The other big difference is between gamespace and lorespace.

Why do we have namespaces?
The UESPWiki uses namespaces to distinguish identical subjects in different games. For example, if we did not use namespaces we would have multiple pages named "Mysticism" followed by (Daggerfall), (Battlespire), (Morrowind), and (Oblivion). Then we have a Lore page for Mysticism, which would presumably have no parentheses. This system works fine in most cases, although it results in nearly every page having disambiguation.

It doesn't work as well when pages need to be disambiguated within the same game. The example of Mysticism was chosen because there also exists a book called Mysticism in both Morrowind and Oblivion. With the namespace convention, two pages may exist in the Oblivion namespace called  and . Without namespaces, the latter may appear as Mysticism (Oblivion) (book), Mysticism (Oblivion, book), or some other form.

Besides appearance, namespaces serve a technical function. MediaWiki provides a variety of Magic Words that are useful in templates to determine namespaces, page names, and variations of these. UESP has its own extension to expand this set of words. A parentheses-based system would have to rely on string functions to determine the game in a template.

What qualifies for a namespace?
Any new game will receive a namespace, so long as it is expected that the game will require more than a handful of pages to document. This can be done as soon as there is an official announcement naming a new game. Most people identify an Elder Scrolls game by its given name (e.g., The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is referred to as Skyrim), which we use as the name of the namespace.

There is currently no need for any further non-game namespaces like General. If there is a need it will be discussed on the Community Portal to determine its usefulness and goals.

It may be desirable, in the best judgment of a community consensus, to have a separate namespace for some downloadable content (DLC). These are some guidelines to help make this determination, but these guidelines can be overridden by consensus. DLC may fail to meet one or even all of the guidelines but may still be granted a namespace due to consensus, and DLC that meets all the guidelines will not be guaranteed a namespace.

:# Significant amount of content: This should translate into a large number of items/NPCs/places in the game.
:# Significant used landmass: Adding a small island or opening up a small portion of an additional area is not enough. Significant in this sense is an area of large proportions where most of the new content is concentrated (quests, places, etc.).
:# Separation: DLC that has a significant impact on existing content should not generally be separated. This is due to large amounts of overlapping data where one page will be redundant to the reader who has the DLC installed, thus confusing the reader and causing undue frustration.
  There can be no minimum amount to be "significant", but the term is fairly self-evident. 
  Points 1 and 2 are guidelines as to why a DLC should have a namespace, while point 3 is a guideline as to why a DLC should not have a namespace.

Differences Between Namespaces
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.

;Lorespace
Lore is an article namespace, but with a few differences. It is written as a historical account of events, written for a person living in the latest known date in lore. From this perspective, lore can only be written in third person, where "you" are replaced by the "hero" of the game. A sentence on a lore page should have a source, which makes lore the closest in style to Wikipedia's style. For more information, see the Lore guidelines.

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 "openly focused", where all editors can contribute their opinion about the content or style of the site. Discussing the subject matter of the content (e.g., "What does that NPC mean when he says that?") are more suited for the  . Topics like this are not banned or removed on sight, though; each will be evaluated on merit, as sometimes these can lead to improved articles with clarification, fixing possibly misleading typos in the text, etc.

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 are 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. This includes not correcting grammar or typos unless doing so was clearly the original poster's intent and the error would not be obvious to most readers. If in doubt, note your changes within the body of the discussion.
Deletion of all or part of another editor's contribution is only acceptable when the contribution:
is completely off-topic,
 responds to a post so old it's unlikely to be read by the poster or of concern to anyone else (a necropost), or
clearly violates the wiki's etiquette standards.
Moving the discussion to a more relevant location. Normally, the header should be left in place and a   note added, though in some cases, simply noting the move in the edit summary may be more appropriate.

For more information on editing talk namespaces, see this page.

Userspace
The User namespace has some additional guidelines. A user page is the general preserve of that user. Another user may edit it only with permission, to remove breaches of etiquette or copyright, or to update links from moved pages. A user talk page generally follows the same rules as any other talk page, except that the user may delete any message on their talk page, with the exception of official warnings, without having to archive it. Archiving is preferred, but not required.

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 (e.g., UESPWiki_talk or Oblivion_talk).

Most namespaces also have an abbreviation (listed in the abbreviation column) that can be used in place of the full namespace name (e.g., DF signifies Daggerfall). These abbreviations are also used to identify images in the File namespace.



Old/Defunct Namespaces
Some namespaces have had to be changed for different reasons.

Image: Renamed to File. "Image" and "File" can still be used interchangeably in links, but "File" is preferred.
Tamriel: The old name for Lorespace. This was changed as lore expanded beyond the continent of Tamriel to include others such as Akavir.
Tamold: A namespace used in the transition from Tamriel to Lore, as detailed above.
Review: A namespace project that was intended to hold reviews by users, but saw only a little use. Eventually incorporated into userspace subpages.
Dapel''': A personal namespace for some of Daveh's work. Moved off-site and deleted.
Dragonborn (Abbreviation: DB): A namespace for the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim. Merged with the Skyrim namespace after the release of Skyrim Special Edition.

See Also
Help with using namespaces
Wikimedia help on namespaces
MediaWiki help on custom namespaces
Uespnamespacelist — Configuration page controlling various namespace features