Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/2

Introduction
Navigating Wikipedia

Namespaces
The different types of pages

Searching pages
Tricks to find what you want

Redirects and shortcuts
Redirecting traffic

Useful links
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.

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