User:Cpiral/refactor Help:Special Pages
| Namespaces | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject namespaces | Talk namespaces | ||
| 0 | (Main/Article) | Talk | 1 |
| 2 | User | User talk | 3 |
| 4 | Wikipedia | Wikipedia 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 |
| 100 | Portal | Portal talk | 101 |
| 118 | Draft | Draft talk | 119 |
| 126 | MOS | MOS talk | 127 |
| 710 | TimedText | TimedText talk | 711 |
| 828 | Module | Module talk | 829 |
| 1728 | Event | Event talk | 1729 |
| Former namespaces | |||
| 108 | Book | Book talk | 109 |
| 442 | Course | Course talk | 443 |
| 444 | Institution | Institution talk | 445 |
| 446 | Education Program | Education Program talk | 447 |
| 2300 | Gadget | Gadget talk | 2301 |
| 2302 | Gadget definition | Gadget definition talk | 2303 |
| 2600 | Topic | 2601 | |
| Virtual namespaces | |||
| -1 | Special | ||
| -2 | Media | ||
| Current list | |||
Special is a namespace What is special about Special pages is that they are not your usual wikitext to be rendered, but instead are pages generated by PHP scripts, and then rendered. In either case a page is dynamically generated when you request it.
Notice your web browser's address bar displays Special: for your
- my talk
- my watchlist, and
- my contributions
pages, but not for your a titlectivate your user notice your browser's address bar and the web page
For example, did you ever notice the special page title on your Recent Changes report page?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&days=3&limit=10
Two of the parameters days=3&limit=10 in this example
come from the user preferences.
Here is another example of the contents of a Special page.
[[Special:Log/block]]
The parameter is block.
A Special page is not permitted to accept a redirect. They are categorized in a namespace called "Special:", but it is a virtual namespace, really, and it is not permitted to create your usual pages beginning with the "Special:" prefix.
Special pages are not the only script driven pages on Wikipedia. So are the toolserver reports. But toolserver projects are not "Special" pages because See WP:Database reports.