Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/2

Introduction Navigating Wikipedia Namespaces The different types of pages Searching and redirects Tricks to find what you want Useful pages Handy pages for editors Summary Review of what you've learned

Wikipedia's pages are divided into namespaces. Each namespace (except the main) has a particular prefix which appears with a colon at the start of page names. Main/content (no prefix) Articles e.g. spite house Disambiguation pages to help people find the article they're looking for e.g. David (disambiguation), QE The Main Page Wikipedia: sometimes known as "Project" namespace Policies and guidelines e.g. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Manual of Style Process pages e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion Discussion places and noticeboards e.g. Wikipedia:Village pump WikiProjects focusing on a particular topic e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia:WikiProject Doctor Who Help: Help pages e.g. Help:Contents Template: Templates, which can be included or substituted on other pages e.g. Template:Citation needed, Template:Infobox album Category: This is a special namespace which can be used to group other pages e.g. Category:Painting, Category:Wikipedia maintenance File: Where images and other files are stored and described. e.g. File:Wiki.png Portal: Pages to highlight Wikipedia content in a particular topic area e.g. Portal:Current events, Portal:Solar System User: Personal profile pages about users e.g. User:The wub Sandboxes and draft articles e.g. User:The wub/sandbox Book: Collections of articles which can be saved or ordered as a printed book e.g. Book:John Douglas MediaWiki: Messages which appear in the wiki software. These can only be edited by administrators. e.g. MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning Special: Pages which are part of the software e.g. Special:RecentChanges, Special:Preferences All of these namespaces, except for Special, also have a corresponding Talk namespace for discussion. So for example you can discuss the spite house article at Talk:spite house, or talk about Wikipedia:Neutral point of view at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. You can switch between the normal page and the talk page with the tabs at the top left. Next >>