LIMSWiki:Namespace

A LIMSwiki namespace is a set of LIMSwiki pages whose names begin with a particular reserved word recognized by the MediaWiki software (followed by a colon). For example, in the user namespace all titles begin with the prefix User:. In the case of the article (or main) namespace, in which encyclopedia articles appear, the reserved word and colon are absent. (Note: main space articles can optionally include a colon at the beginning with no reserved word, so [[Article]] and [[:Article]] are equivalent. This is usually only necessary for the advanced technique of transcluding a main space article into a page in another namespace.)

LIMSwiki has 32 current namespaces: 16 subject namespaces and 16 corresponding talk namespaces. While navigating LIMSwiki, a list of namespaces is available in two clicks: do an empty search, then click Advanced under the search box. The list also makes itself available where needed in the dropdown menus of, for example, Special:Prefixindex, Special:Allpages, Special:Recentchanges, and Special:Contributions.

Subject namespaces

An example of a page located in Wikipedia's "Wikipedia" namespace.

Namespaces allow for the organization and separation of content pages from administration pages, as well as highly stylized content (such as journal articles and research material) from the encyclopedic content. Namespaces separate data into core sets, those intended for public viewing, and those intended for the editing community. LIMSwiki's subject namespaces are listed below. A brief description is provided.

A namespace is sometimes called a space, for short, as in "Project space". A subject page and its talk page form a pair.

Current namespaces

• Main namespace (no prefix): contains all encyclopedia articles, lists, disambiguation pages, and encyclopedia redirects. Sometimes referred to as "mainspace" or "Article" space.
• User namespace (prefix User:): contains user pages and other pages created by individual users for their own personal use. Pages under this namespace can still be viewed and modified by others, so do not keep any of your sensitive data here.
• LIMSWiki namespace (prefix LIMSWiki:): contains many types of pages connected with the LIMSwiki project itself: information, policies, guidelines, essays, processes, discussion, etc.
• File namespace (prefix File:): contains description pages for media files (images, videos, and audio files). A link starting with [[File: will display the media at that position on the page instead of showing a wikilink that leads to the specified file description page, so if you want the latter effect, use a link beginning with [[:File:. Namespace alias: Image:
• MediaWiki namespace (prefix MediaWiki:): a namespace containing interface texts, such as the links and messages that appear on automatically generated pages. Pages in this namespace are permanently protected against editing by regular users. For a list of these messages, see Special:AllMessages.
• Template namespace (prefix Template:): contains templates – pages that are intended primarily to be transcluded or substituted onto other pages to insert standard text or boxes such as infoboxes and navigation boxes.
• Help namespace (prefix Help:): contains pages which provide help in using LIMSwiki and its software, both for users of the encyclopedia and for editors.
• Category namespace (prefix Category:): contains category pages, which are curated lists of related pages and subcategories, along with optional additional text. A link beginning with [[Category: has the effect of adding the page the link appears on to the specified category; it will not result in a wikilink to the category page itself. If you want the latter, use the colon trick: [[:Category:.
• Informatics Functionality namespace (prefix Informatics Functionality:): contains pages that extend beyond basic encyclopedic entries on informatics systems, with a slightly more stylized approach to describing the various functionality points of a software-based information management solution.
• LII namespace (prefix LII:): contains guides, recommendations, and more that are researched, written, edited, and maintained, often made with a corresponding Book: component. LII used to stand for the Laboratory Informatics Institute, which is now defunct, but still emblematic of the ideal of developing and openly sharing researched material directly and tangentially related to various types of informatics topics.
• Vendor namespace (prefix Vendor:): contains pages that are directly related to vendors of informatics software and services, laboratory equipment, and other commercial products and services. This is intended to separate this content out from encyclopedic content to further reduce any perceived bias in that namespace. That said, all efforts have been made to make neutral presentations of vendors, without using marketing language and citing sources as best as possible, even if it's the vendor's own page.
• Journal namespace (prefix Journal:): contains open-access academic journal articles that are able to be redistributed using a variety of Creative Commons licenses.
• Book namespace (prefix Book:): contains versions of content from the LII namespace (as well as standalone content) that can be handled as if it were a shareable digital item. Note, however, that this namespace is antiquated and not without fault, as the original extension is no longer supported. PDF rendering is largely broken, and it is used primarily to share LII and other collated LIMSwiki content to LIMSforum.
• LIMS Q&A namespace (prefix LIMS Q&A:): contains stylized "question and answer" articles that attempt to answer specific questions about a variety of laboratory (and other) informatics topics, while still citing sources as done in other namespaces.
• TimedText namespace (prefix TimedText:): synchronized subtitles for media files.
• Module namespace (prefix Module:): contains Scribunto modules – Lua scripts implementing special-purpose parser functions for use in templates, beyond the basic set included with MediaWiki and its extensions.

Talk namespaces

Each of the above namespaces has an associated talk namespace—these are also known as discussion pages. The talk namespaces are designated by appending the word talk to the namespace name. For example, the talk namespace associated with the user namespace has the prefix User talk:. The talk namespace associated with the article namespace is Talk:.

Most of the pages in the talk namespaces are used to discuss changes to the corresponding page in the associated namespace. Pages in the user talk namespace are used to leave messages for a particular user. The user talk namespace is special in that, whenever a user's talk page is edited, that user will see an orange box saying "You have new messages" on the top of every page that they view until they visit their talk page. By default, logged-in users will see a red notification square and a small orange box on the top right hand corner of the page; IP users will only see a wide orange box spanning the top of the page.