text:
Help:Moving a page

There are several reasons why you might wish to rename a page (one that you have found or created):

 * The title has been misspelled.
 * The title does not follow the wiki's naming conventions (such as Wikipedia's naming conventions or    :Naming conventions).
 * The scope of the article has been reduced, extended or otherwise changed.

The terms "rename" and "move" mean the same in this context. They just refer to different models for picturing the operation:

 * rename: keep the page but give it another name; the page history is now attached to the new name; a new page with the old name is created which redirects to the new name and whose page history records the renaming.

 * move: move the contents and the page history to a new page; change the old page into a redirect; change the page history into one that only records the renaming.

Since the system marks the page with the old name as new page, it applies the first of the two models. This model avoids "changing the history", a kind of "historical revisionism". An oddity is that the renaming itself, which can be considered an important event in the history of the page, is not recorded as such; it is recorded indirectly, namely in the history of the redirect page.

Even though the pages in all namespaces have a "move" link, a page can not be moved if it is in the image or category namespace. To change the name of an image, one needs to upload it again, and copy the image description. To change the name of a category, one needs to change all category tags, and copy the editable part.

How to
Note that you have to be logged in to rename a page this way; regarding the set preferences:
 * 1) there is no button for this in the nostalgia skin;
 * 2) the button is in the quickbar, so this must be on.

With the correct page displayed, click on the "Move" tab near the top of the page. You'll be asked for a new name for the page, and given the option to also move the page's talk page. NOTE: Unless you know what you're doing, it's safest to say yes.

Click the "move page" button and the page will be renamed to the new title. The old title will become a redirect page, so any links to the old title will still go to the new page. However, note that double redirects (pages that redirect to the original page), will not automatically follow to the new page, so you will have to refer them manually (as explained below)

Page histories
The "move page" function keeps the entire edit history of the page, before and after the move, in one place, as if the page were always named that way. So, you should never just move a page by cutting all the text out of one page, and pasting it into a new one; old revisions, notes, and attributions are much harder to keep track of if you do that. (But you may have to if, for instance, you're splitting a page into multiple topics. If you do, please include a note in the new pages's edit summary and talk page stating where you took the text from.)

The move itself is shown in the edit history of the page with the old title.

Moving redirect pages
A page that is a redirect can be moved like any other page. This is however not advised while it has the same detrimental effect on page history as copy-pasting content to a new page, and making the old page a redirect: when moving a redirect page to a new page name, the redirect on the old page (now directing to the new redirect page) will have to be changed in order to avoid double redirects. So the content of the old page will no longer redirect to the page containing the history of that old page. The only effect is that the whereabouts of the page history of the old page (now seemingly a "recently created page") are a bit trickier to find, while on the other hand the new page has a history attached to it not clarifying why it would need to be a redirect page.

If a redirect page does not redirect to the page it would need to be redirecting to, the only viable strategy that respects page histories, is to adapt the redirect on that page, without moving the page.

Moving over a redirect
If the new title already exists but is just a redirect to the old title, with just one line in the page history, the creation of the redirect, then you can rename the page. The most common case in which this applies is that of re-renaming a page back to its original name. As mentioned, this works only if the redirect that was automatically created in the first renaming, has not been edited.

The result is that the history of the page is preserved (note that you may have to refresh the history page on your browser), but without any sign of the two moves. The edit history of the page with the intermediate title shows the latest move only. The information about the first move (including user name, date and time) is lost: it is no longer in any page history or on any watchlist or Related Changes page, and not even in User contributions; only if the first move has been recent enough, then it is still available in the Recent Changes; how long depends on the edit activity on the site; e.g. one may be able to retrieve the edit lines of the last 2000 edits, which may cover months or just a few hours. To avoid loss of information, copy the edit line concerned to one of the talk pages. This has to be done before the second move, using the page history of the page with the original name; if the second move is soon enough after the first move, it can also be done afterwards, using Recent Changes.

The information about the second move is more complete in the Recent Changes than in the edit history of the page with the intermediate title: it mentions "B moved to A over redirect".

More moves back and forth are possible, and always the page history of the current title does not show any moves, and that of the other title only contains the edit line of the latest move. There is no record at all of a "move war" (except again, on Recent Changes) unless documented on the talk pages.

Earlier there was a bug, which has been fixed but not retroactively, as follows:

 * However, if the page is moved back, the edit history of the page with the intermediate title shows the latest move only, with the corresponding user name, but with the date and time of the first move(!). Accordingly, the name of the user who moved the page the first time and the date and time of the second move are lost (except that they appear in the Recent Changes).

Move-protected pages
Administrators can protect pages from moves. If a page is protected from moves only, the "Move this page" link will not be available. In this case, you can ask that an administrator move it for you, or you can manually move the page, by copying the contents to the new page and redirecting the old page to the new page. However, this is generally not recommended, and users are asked to request the moves instead.

Pages that are protected from editing are automatically protected from moves.

Other notes
If the new title already exists and isn't just a redirect to the old title, with no history, the wiki will tell you that you can't rename the page. You'll either have to manually merge the two pages together, or -- only if there's no real content in the page -- ask an Administrator to have it deleted or list it on your project's "votes for deletion" page in order to make room for moving the page.

Another thing to remember is that redirects to redirects aren't automatically followed (this prevents infinite loops and spaghetti linking). Always check the What links here for your page, and if there are multiple levels of redirects, go fix the links to point to the new location directly. But this can be troublesome because your new moving might be reverted soon. Take some time to make sure there is no objection to your moving.

Avoid moving a page while the edit box of the corresponding Talk page is open: when you hit "Save page" you overwrite the redirect to the new talk page (you do not get the usual warning that the page has been edited while your edit box was open) and get a duplication of the contents of the talk page, with your latest addition added to the old instead of the new one.

It is useful to copy the message "Page ... moved to ..." to the new talk page, especially if there has been discussion about the name of the page.

Undoing a move
Normally, to undo a move from page A to page B, simply:

 * 1) move page B back to page A
 * 2) list page B (now a history-free redirect) on your project's "votes for deletion" page, or (Admins only) just delete it.

The software requires that, however, the redirect be pointing to the page you're moving it from. Therefore, if a Willy on Wheels moved Page A to Page B to Page C, you would have to:

 * 1) move page C to page B
 * 2) move page B to page A

This doesn't work: move page C to page A.

If page A has subsequently been edited, or the move software is behaving weirdly, only an admin can sort things out:

 * 1) delete page A (make sure it has no useful history - you may wish to add an explicit author credit on a talk page to compensate)
 * 2) move page B to page A.
 * 3) delete page B (should be a history-free redirect to page A)

Some large projects have a separate page (called "Requested Moves", or something like that) specifically for requesting help with these (and also for discussing potentially contentious) moves.

"Move wars" are highly unproductive, and leave vast numbers of pointless redirects littering the place, which some poor soul will have to fix.

Swapping two pages
To swap pages A and B, including history:
 * 1) Move page A to page C (previously non-existing)
 * 2) list A on the appropriate deletion page, or (Admins only) just delete it.
 * 3) Move page B to page A (allowed because A is deleted)
 * 4) delete B as above
 * 5) Move page C to page B (allowed because B is deleted)
 * 6) delete C as above

Again, some large projects have a separate page (called "Requested Moves", or something like that) specifically for requesting help with these (and also for discussing potentially contentious) moves.

Fixing cut and paste moves
Many past renamings took place before the move page function was created by our hard-working developers, and others are done by people not aware of this function. Such manual moves were done using cut and paste As a result, the page history of an article or talk page can be split among two or more different pages.

In some circumstances, Administrators are able to fix this by merging page histories.

Warning: this procedure may only be undone by spending quite silly amounts of time: to undo a merge, every single version has to be manually reassigned to the correct source page. Do not do this if you're not sure what you're doing.

Follow this procedure to merge page histories:

 * 1) suppose we wish to merge edit history from Alabama/History (old title) into History of Alabama (new title):
 * 2) Delete History of Alabama, with comment deleting to merge page histories - back soon.
 * 3) Move Alabama/History to History of Alabama, using the move tool.
 * 4)  undelete the History of Alabama article.
 * 5) Edit History of Alabama to restore the most recent version.

title: Help:Moving a page


text:
Help talk:Moving a page

Meta:Help:Moving a page authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Moving a page =
 * 05:28, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Replacement of with )
 * 02:49, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 10:34, 21 September 2005 User:Francis Schonken m (→Moving redirect pages - reformulation)
 * 10:32, 21 September 2005 User:Francis Schonken (→Page histories - moving redirect pages)
 * 17:55, 20 August 2005 User:66.122.115.93 (move protections)
 * 21:32, 12 August 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by Artemisi link to last version by Jnc)
 * 21:12, 12 August 2005 User:Artemisi link
 * 14:53, 6 July 2005 User:Jnc (→Page histories - cut-n-paste is never acceptable for a move)
 * 18:35, 17 June 2005 User:Jnc (Make reference to "Requested Moves"; also, admins can now disentangle histories with selective undelete)
 * 18:16, 15 June 2005 User:Ambush Commander (→Undoing a move)
 * 08:24, 5 May 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 08:23, 5 May 2005 User:Patrick
 * 08:11, 5 May 2005 User:Patrick (→How to -)
 * 23:02, 21 April 2005 User:TheDJ (h:h and h:f)
 * 21:13, 12 March 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 21:10, 12 March 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 21:10, 12 March 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 21:08, 12 March 2005 User:Patrick (Even though the pages in all namespaces have a "move" link, a page can not be moved if it is in the image or category namespace. To change the name of an image, one needs to uploaded it again, and cop)
 * 15:27, 4 March 2005 User:Harry m (Other languages +bg)
 * 11:24, 5 January 2005 User:217.42.255.107 (Grammar. 'Which' -> 'whose'.)
 * 23:40, 3 January 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 12.164.139.3 to last version by Patrick)
 * 23:10, 3 January 2005 User:12.164.139.3
 * 02:36, 28 November 2004 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 66.140.207.38 to last version by AaronPeterson)
 * 08:53, 27 November 2004 User:66.140.207.38
 * 22:40, 14 October 2004 User:AaronPeterson m
 * 10:18, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Moving over a redirect)
 * 10:16, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick (More moves back and forth are possible, and always the page history of the current title does not show any moves, and that of the other title only contains the edit line of the latest move. There is n)
 * 09:51, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Moving over a redirect)
 * 09:49, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick (it is no longer in any page history or on any watchlist or Related Changes page, and not even in User contributions; only if the first move has been recent enough, then it is still available in the Re)
 * 09:37, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick (This has to be done before the second move, using the page history of the page with the original name; if the second move is soon enough after the first move, it can also be done afterwards, using Rec)
 * 09:25, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Notes)
 * 09:21, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick (The information about the second move is more complete in the Recent Changes than in the edit history of the page with the intermediate title: it mentions "B moved to A over redirect".)
 * 09:10, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick (Recent Changes; how long that is available depends on the traffic of the site; e.g. one may be able to retrieve the edit lines of the last 2000 edits, which may cover months or just a few hours).)
 * 08:34, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Notes -update on moving back)
 * 08:06, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→How to)
 * 07:55, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 00:28, 30 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 10:38, 25 August 2004 User:212.84.127.4 (Grammatical correction in first line)
 * 09:13, 19 August 2004 User:153.20.95.70 ("Move" tab)
 * 11:14, 8 July 2004 User:203.26.24.214 (fixed missing closing bracket)
 * 21:01, 25 May 2004 User:193.29.77.111
 * 00:43, 15 April 2004 User:Jroes m (Added a link to the next page in the guide)
 * 12:06, 20 February 2004 User:Schusch (+ de)
 * 09:18, 16 January 2004 User:Daniel Mayer
 * 15:16, 25 November 2003 User:217.224.227.115 (correct swapping procedure)
 * 19:38, 24 November 2003 User:Patrick (from pump)
 * 20:18, 13 November 2003 User:Daniel Mayer (updating from EnWikipedia version)
 * 03:44, 7 September 2003 User:Daniel Mayer (a bit more)
 * 03:33, 7 September 2003 User:Daniel Mayer (converted)
 * 03:22, 7 September 2003 User:Daniel Mayer (en.wikipedia version)

"Move" tab
I try to follow the instructions but I can't find the "Move" tab! ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:24, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * In the (relatively) new "vector" skin it moved to the drop-down arrow to the right of the watchlist star. (It is not visible to unregistered users, and commands that are not available to all users were moved there.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:08, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Got it. Thanks, Ningauble. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Help talk:Moving a page


text:
Help talk:Namespace

Meta:Help:Namespace authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Namespace =
 * 03:38, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed capitalization of template name.)
 * 05:28, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Replacement of with )
 * 03:55, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 15:08, 8 November 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - enabling the subpage feature can be done for selected namespaces.)
 * 19:11, 6 November 2005 User:68.51.63.207 (→Sites outside Wikimedia - Comma splice)
 * 01:52, 2 November 2005 User:Sj (Meta:Namespaces)
 * 19:30, 31 October 2005 User:Srumberg (→Comparison of separate namespaces with separate projects)
 * 22:26, 30 September 2005 User:64.175.224.114 (→Largely advantages of separate projects)
 * 22:26, 30 September 2005 User:64.175.224.114 (→Largely disadvantages of separate projects)
 * 20:45, 15 September 2005 User:Kidburla (Okay patrick, but at least remove the help: prefix)
 * 20:41, 14 September 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 20:39, 14 September 2005 User:Patrick (rephrase)
 * 12:09, 14 September 2005 User:Kidburla (Added link to interwiki guide)
 * 23:05, 25 August 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 85.138.158.83 to last version by Sasa Stefanovic)
 * 10:51, 25 August 2005 User:85.138.158.83
 * 10:49, 25 August 2005 User:85.138.158.83
 * 00:05, 15 August 2005 User:Sasa Stefanovic m (looks much better with )
 * 12:42, 8 August 2005 User:70.147.26.58 (→Colon in page name)
 * 12:40, 8 August 2005 User:70.147.26.58 (→Colon in page name)
 * 15:12, 5 August 2005 User:216.58.84.210 (→Namespace uses)
 * 22:44, 3 August 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by Tox to last version by Fotinakis)
 * 14:36, 3 August 2005 User:Tox m (→Largely advantages of separate projects - Fixed awful heading)
 * 14:35, 3 August 2005 User:Tox m (→Largely disadvantages of separate projects - Fixed awful heading)
 * 06:33, 22 July 2005 User:Fotinakis (→Custom namespaces)
 * 20:48, 8 July 2005 User:82.38.248.4 (→List of namespaces - minor grammatical improvement)
 * 21:35, 5 July 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses -bugzilla:2686.)
 * 21:25, 5 July 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - *User contributions scan show all, or be restricted to a namespace of choice [not working anymore!])
 * 16:39, 25 June 2005 User:Dlite m
 * 11:32, 24 June 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 62.175.230.18 to last version by Patrick)
 * 07:50, 24 June 2005 User:62.175.230.18
 * 10:57, 6 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses)
 * 10:24, 6 June 2005 User:Patrick (Some projects have additional custom namespaces.)
 * 10:08, 6 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces)
 * 09:21, 6 June 2005 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 09:14, 6 June 2005 User:Patrick (The maximum number of namespaces is 256 (it is a TINYINT(2) in the SQL database), so custom namespace numbers are in the range 100-255. Hence there can be 156 of them, including talk pages, i.e. 78 cu)
 * 14:56, 3 June 2005 User:Patrick (thus, although one cannot have a single list of all pages, one can select a small namespace and use the invert option, to get almost all pages.)
 * 10:41, 31 May 2005 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 06:44, 5 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses)
 * 23:17, 4 May 2005 User:Patrick (→See also - *Template:Wikivar)
 * 14:44, 27 April 2005 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 10:29, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 10:19, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 10:17, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (An exception to the rule that the link label is the name used in the wikitext and not the converted name, applies for a redirect using a project-independent namespace name: in that case the converted)
 * 15:06, 23 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces - The talk nam,espace of CA Ajuda does not work, see CA Ajuda:A and try the link.)
 * 15:01, 23 April 2005 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 15:01, 23 April 2005 User:Patrick ({{h:|The custom namespaces on Meta are: Hilfe Hilfe Diskussion Aide Discussion Aide Hjælp Hjælp diskussion Helpo Helpa diskuto Hjälp Hjälp diskussion Ayuda Ayuda Discusión Aiuto Discussioni aiuto ヘルプ)
 * 00:40, 22 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Differences that can be advantages or disadvantages)
 * 00:34, 22 April 2005 User:Patrick (Comparison of separate namespaces with separate projects)
 * 17:12, 20 April 2005 User:AnyFile
 * 17:09, 20 April 2005 User:AnyFile
 * 20:45, 19 April 2005 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 10:44, 19 April 2005 User:AnyFile (→See also)
 * 22:05, 10 April 2005 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 22:04, 10 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces -bug seems fixed)
 * 14:20, 17 March 2005 User:Patrick (→Tab labels - The first tab shows the namespace.)
 * 10:53, 17 March 2005 User:84.148.74.210 (→Tab labels - question added..)
 * 11:59, 9 March 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - This core set is the main namespace. Other namespaces that are useful also for people who are just viewers are:)
 * 09:21, 9 March 2005 User:Patrick m (→Namespace uses)
 * 09:20, 9 March 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - restore some details, choice between all and one, always one, or any subset)
 * 03:18, 9 March 2005 User:Tim Starling (removed bad uses for namespaces, added some discussion about the intended use)
 * 02:49, 9 March 2005 User:Tim Starling (rm blank section)
 * 02:47, 9 March 2005 User:Tim Starling (explaining what a namespace is)
 * 06:18, 28 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→See also - +ja)
 * 23:28, 25 February 2005 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces - Help:Edit_summary#Places_where_the_edit_summary_appears)
 * 16:28, 25 February 2005 User:YebisYa (→Automatic conversions of page names - description on project-independent namespace names is amended.)
 * 15:50, 25 February 2005 User:YebisYa (→List of namespaces - user names in lines about edits on page histories)
 * 15:38, 25 February 2005 User:YebisYa (sentence transposition to rectify the context)
 * 08:56, 25 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→Namespace issues and ideas for improvements - "namespace" and "page name" in italic)
 * 11:13, 23 February 2005 User:Patrick m (→Prefixes in various languages)
 * 11:08, 23 February 2005 User:Patrick (This applies even for non-existing pages, so, in view of the conversion explained in the previous section, you can use a URL like http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project:A.)
 * 06:18, 23 February 2005 User:YebisYa (→Prefixes in various languages - some details added)
 * 22:53, 19 February 2005 User:Patrick (→Tab labels -re:Talk: rm media, special)
 * 22:32, 18 February 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - *Help:Searching can be restricted to any subset of namespaces)
 * 22:30, 18 February 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - *Help:User contributions can be restricted to a namespace of choice)
 * 22:28, 18 February 2005 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses - *Special:Allpages can be applied to a namespace of choice)
 * 15:49, 18 February 2005 User:YebisYa (→Colon in page name - wiktionary:Special:Allpages shows ALL pages, if one is an article or not.)
 * 08:37, 18 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→Prefixes in various languages - wikify "In Memoriam")
 * 16:59, 17 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→List of namespaces - ))
 * 09:35, 17 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→Namespace issues and ideas for improvements - wikify)
 * 07:54, 14 January 2005 User:Patrick (Special:Allpages does not show custom namespaces (this seems to be a bug), but the URLs work, e.g. http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allpages&namespace=100)
 * 07:35, 27 December 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 07:33, 27 December 2004 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 07:27, 27 December 2004 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces - In both cases they are in the order of ascending number, starting with 0 and without numbers 16-99.)
 * 06:55, 27 December 2004 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces -or see the list in {{SERVER}}{{localurl:Special:Contributions/XX}})
 * 13:41, 24 December 2004 User:Patrick m (→List of namespaces)
 * 12:58, 24 December 2004 User:Patrick (→Lists of pages - update: rm)
 * 12:55, 24 December 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces -links to lists of all pages)
 * 17:50, 15 December 2004 User:152.81.9.198 (→Namespace uses)
 * 03:18, 25 November 2004 User:68.0.92.136 (reverted)
 * 03:09, 25 November 2004 User:68.0.92.136 (reverted troll)
 * 23:03, 3 November 2004 User:Patrick (mv to proper section, rm talk (please use talk page))
 * 02:51, 2 November 2004 User:24.228.85.35 (→Add a namespace)
 * 02:51, 2 November 2004 User:24.228.85.35 (→Add a namespace)
 * 02:49, 2 November 2004 User:24.228.85.35 (→Add a namespace)
 * 02:48, 2 November 2004 User:24.228.85.35 (→Add a namespace)
 * 20:56, 19 October 2004 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 130.37.20.20 to last version by Gangleri)
 * 19:24, 19 October 2004 User:130.37.20.20 (→Custom namespaces)
 * 19:21, 19 October 2004 User:130.37.20.20 (→Custom namespaces)
 * 03:07, 18 October 2004 User:Gangleri m (→Sites outside Wikimedia)
 * 02:03, 18 October 2004 User:Gangleri (→List of namespaces - adjusted link (:Help:Talk page))
 * 01:59, 18 October 2004 User:Gangleri m (→Namespace benefits)
 * 10:12, 16 October 2004 User:24.80.105.124 (currly -> curly)
 * 22:01, 15 October 2004 User:83.77.215.246 (→Namespace issues and ideas for improvements)
 * 12:10, 10 October 2004 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 61.145.136.171 to last version by 65.96.170.89)
 * 10:29, 10 October 2004 User:61.145.136.171
 * 03:39, 29 September 2004 User:65.96.170.89 (→Namespace benifits)
 * 23:16, 26 September 2004 User:80.4.5.102 (→Namespace uses - typo 'seporation')
 * 11:32, 24 September 2004 User:AaronPeterson m ({{hh}} {{handbook sidebar|editor toc}})
 * 15:39, 23 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Namespace Issues and Improvements)
 * 15:02, 23 September 2004 User:AaronPeterson (How does one create a new namespace?, trying to figure out what namespaces really help with)
 * 09:12, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→List of namespaces)
 * 09:10, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick (One can put here material to have one-step access to it from any page in the same project, and one can put here links to have two-step access to the link targets from any page in the same project as t)
 * 14:04, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 14:02, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→List of namespaces)
 * 13:23, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Sites outside Wikimedia)
 * 13:11, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 13:08, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Tab labels)
 * 13:04, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 13:01, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Lists of pages)
 * 12:58, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Prefixes in various languages)
 * 12:57, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 12:55, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 12:53, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 12:48, 11 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 14:04, 6 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses)
 * 14:01, 6 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Namespace uses)
 * 13:44, 6 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 13:21, 6 September 2004 User:AaronPeterson m (just what are they used for?)
 * 10:38, 6 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Lists of pages -When disabled a form invites to submit a query, but then this leads to a HTTP 500 error.)
 * 10:31, 6 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Lists of pages - Sysops can use "SELECT cur_title FROM cur WHERE cur_namespace=10", etc., when not disabled.)
 * 09:28, 4 September 2004 User:Patrick (rm feature request. For a full list of all namespaces for your project, see the search options of the preferences (Special:Preferences).)
 * 09:10, 4 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces - The list of custom namespaces is $wgExtraNamespaces in LocalSettings.php. Custom namespaces are numbered from 100.)
 * 03:02, 4 September 2004 User:AaronPeterson m
 * 00:53, 1 September 2004 User:Timwi m (move German link to hc template)
 * 17:29, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→Lists of pages)
 * 17:28, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Lists of pages - See e.g. http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Allpages&from=H)
 * 16:57, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→Lists of pages)
 * 16:55, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Lists of pages - Oddly, for ordinary users there is no way to list all pages in the project, template and help namespaces. A workaround would be to avoid these and use the main or another namespac)
 * 16:34, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces -For a full list for your project, see the search options of the help:preferences (Special:Preferences).)
 * 16:13, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 16:12, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→Custom namespaces)
 * 16:08, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Custom namespaces - if a single project is multilingual (as opposed to the case of sister projects, each in one language) there may be a namespace Help: and also a namespace Hilfe:, for Help pages)
 * 15:45, 31 August 2004 User:Patrick (A project can have additional namespaces, for example a Hilfe: namespace for Help pages in the German language.)
 * 07:42, 14 August 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 21:07, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 21:03, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 20:46, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 20:40, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 20:34, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 20:28, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 20:23, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 20:18, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces)
 * 13:35, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels - "Special" - the tab is in an HTML element A without class or id, like an internal link, but it is not a link; to see the distinction, use a style for a:link and a:visited that is diff)
 * 12:43, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→Tab labels)
 * 12:41, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels - With the class "selected" one can let the tab for the same namespace as the current page (either a self link or a link to the current revison) be displayed differently; also the tabs)
 * 12:27, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels -The help:self link feature (a self link appearing as bold text) does not work for the tabs, no distinction is shown between a self link and a "real" link.)
 * 12:21, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels -misc)
 * 12:16, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels - misc)
 * 12:02, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels - "Special" - oddly, the tab is in an HTML element A without class or id, like an internal link, and there shows up as such, even though it is not)
 * 11:46, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Tab labels - *project: 'nstab-wp' => "About",)
 * 11:43, 10 August 2004 User:Patrick (The first tab shows the namespace. For Meta itself it is as shown on the right.)
 * 21:25, 1 August 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces - Note that all characters of namespace prefixes are case-insensitive, so one can write e.g "mediawiki".)
 * 21:14, 1 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 16:46, 29 July 2004 User:PhilBoswell (→List of namespaces - use an extra column to line up alternate syntax)
 * 14:06, 29 July 2004 User:JamesDay (control wrapping with nbsp)
 * 13:35, 29 July 2004 User:Patrick m (correction: other -> otherwise)
 * 13:32, 29 July 2004 User:Patrick m (use |&nbsp; for empty cells, other the table does not render well in some browsers)
 * 11:27, 29 July 2004 User:PhilBoswell (→List of namespaces - converting to wikitable syntax; moving notes to new column; adding headers)
 * 11:17, 29 July 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 11:08, 29 July 2004 User:PhilBoswell (→List of namespaces - adding {{ns:0}})
 * 22:52, 26 July 2004 User:Patrick (maybe there is a silly spelling rule that a period should be within quotes even if does not belong there logically, but this can not be applied in an explanation that would at least become ambiguous.)
 * 22:32, 26 July 2004 User:12.160.33.128 (→Colon in page name)
 * 21:36, 20 July 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 14:24, 20 July 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - *Help:Talk page)
 * 10:43, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→Colon in page name)
 * 10:40, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 10:37, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces -These pages form the MediaWiki User's Guide)
 * 09:47, 13 July 2004 User:PhilBoswell m (→List of namespaces - NOWIKI -> PRE)
 * 08:07, 13 July 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces - such as those listed in Locales for the Wikimedia projects,)
 * 07:59, 13 July 2004 User:Patrick (→List of namespaces -The names are set in files like LanguageDe.php, with default Language.php:)
 * 04:59, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Automatic conversions of page names - On the left in the table above a list of project-independent namespace names is shown, the same as those on Meta and the English Wikipedia, except that "Meta")
 * 04:43, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (add {{ns:Talk}}, etc)
 * 23:16, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 23:15, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 23:14, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 23:13, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (Similarly, the other English namespace prefixes in the second column of Namespace) are automatically converted to the local ones.)
 * 23:09, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Automatic conversions of page names)
 * 14:38, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (misc)
 * 06:24, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 07:32, 21 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Special namespace - mv most to Help:Special page)
 * 21:11, 20 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Special namespace - adapted from Wikipedia)
 * 15:14, 15 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 15:12, 15 June 2004 User:Patrick (pseudo-namespaces)
 * 04:12, 15 June 2004 User:Eclecticology m
 * 20:10, 14 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 20:06, 14 June 2004 User:Patrick (more lists)
 * 19:55, 14 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 19:54, 14 June 2004 User:Patrick (misc)
 * 04:37, 6 June 2004 User:80.126.56.215 (misc)
 * 21:40, 5 June 2004 User:Patrick (A colon in the name of a page does not imply that it is in an other than the main namespace; {{NAMESPACE}} gives the namespace, for this page "" (an empty string for the main namespace), and {{PAGENAM)
 * 21:26, 5 June 2004 User:Patrick (misc)
 * 21:21, 5 June 2004 User:Patrick (A prefix "Project:" is for every project automatically converted to the project namespace, e.g Project:xyz is equivalent with Meta:xyz, like a piped link. Therefore a page name starting wi)
 * 09:15, 5 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 09:31, 4 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 09:13, 4 June 2004 User:Patrick (list)
 * 20:32, 2 June 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - Help:Template namespace)
 * 12:15, 31 May 2004 User:Patrick (16)
 * 21:26, 11 April 2004 User:Patrick (project prefix)
 * 12:17, 19 March 2004 User:Patrick (There is a project prefix; for Wikimedia projects this is "Wikipedia:", "Wiktionary:", "Wikibooks:", "Wikisource:", "Wikiquote:", "Meta:", and in the case of In Memoriam also "Wikipedia:" )
 * 16:08, 18 March 2004 User:Patrick (in Arab ":ويكيبيديا"). The last two are RTL languages which put the prefixes on the right. In URLs the prefixes are always on the left.)
 * 16:00, 18 March 2004 User:Patrick (RTL)
 * 15:04, 18 March 2004 User:Patrick (change of project prefix of Meta (more?))
 * 14:57, 18 March 2004 User:Patrick (To check which prefix is used, see e.g. the link "Contact us" or "Bug reports". )
 * 12:15, 4 March 2004 User:PhilBoswell (Fixing hebrew translation of "special")
 * 12:09, 4 March 2004 User:PhilBoswell (Hiding wiktionary namespace to make examples more clear: too many colons)
 * 20:32, 14 December 2003 User:Patrick ( "Speciaal" in Dutch, "Spezial" in German, "Speciális:" in Hungarian and "D7%9E%D7%99%D7%95%D7%97%D7%93" in Hebrew. See e.g the prefix of "Recentchanges" in the URL of the link to the Recent changes.)
 * 20:53, 13 December 2003 User:Patrick (9 -> 10)
 * 00:21, 7 December 2003 User:Tim Starling (fix link)
 * 07:46, 6 December 2003 User:Angela (see also Meta-Wikimedia:MediaWiki namespace)
 * 23:24, 23 November 2003 User:Angela (9)
 * 06:50, 20 November 2003 User:Angela m (see also Transwiki, a cross-project pseudo-namespace)
 * 11:44, 29 September 2003 User:Patrick ("Special:" in URLs is "Speciális:" in Hungarian and "D7%9E%D7%99%D7%95%D7%97%D7%93" in Hebrew. )
 * 10:29, 29 September 2003 User:Patrick (See also http://textbook.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Namespace)
 * 12:39, 25 September 2003 User:Patrick m
 * 12:32, 25 September 2003 User:Patrick (Wikipédia:)
 * 08:29, 25 September 2003 User:Patrick (Sites using MediaWiki but outside Wikimedia usually have their own project name as project prefix, but several have simply retained "Wikipedia:".)
 * 23:46, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick m
 * 23:43, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick m
 * 23:36, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick
 * 12:02, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick (changed last edit: In URLs the prefixes are always on the left.)
 * 11:55, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick (although in the Hebrew version the translation of "Special" is put on the left.)
 * 11:15, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick (Hebrew seems to be the only version of Wikipedia which puts the prefixes on the right (the Arab version does not translate them and puts them on the left). )
 * 10:22, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick
 * 10:16, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick
 * 10:01, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick
 * 09:52, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick
 * 09:44, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick ((in Russian "Википедия:"))
 * 09:31, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick (To check which prefix is used, see e.g. the link "Bug reports". )
 * 01:42, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick m
 * 01:40, 24 September 2003 User:Patrick (the main namespace there are seven others, with seven prefixes. "Talk", "User", "Image" and combinations can be translated in the case of non-English wikis)
 * 13:27, 23 September 2003 User:Patrick

title: Help talk:Namespace


text:
Help talk:Navigable images

Meta:Help:Navigable images authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Navigable images =
 * User:Patrick (Help:Navigable images moved to Help:Navigational image)

title: Help talk:Navigable images


text:
Help:Navigation bar

The navigation bar or side bar or sidebar is shown at the left hand side of each MediaWiki page by default. In versions 1.5 and newer, it can be modified using the MediaWiki:Sidebar page.

Format of the sidebar page
The sidebar page is laid out similar to the following:

* navigation ** mainpage|mainpage ** mypage-url|My Page

* tools ** Special:Allpages|All Pages

Headings
The items on the outer level

 * navigation
 * tools

are the headings used on the sidebar. In this manner, the bar can be split into sections.

Items
The second level items

 * mainpage|mainpage
 * mypage-url|My Page

are the actual items that appear on the sidebar; see below for instructions on setting these up.

Specifying items on the sidebar
All items on the sidebar take a format which is split by a pipe (|) character.

Link target
The left-hand portion of the pipe corresponds to the target of the link, and refers to:

 * a MediaWiki namespace page

OR
 * a wiki page name

If a MediaWiki namespace page of the same name exists, then the contents of that page are used to determine where the link points. For instance, the default contents of MediaWiki:Mainpage are Main Page - this is the name of the page to be used.

To link to an external URL, simply create the namespace page containing the URL, e.g. the contents of Special:Mypage-url (from the example above) might be http://www.domain.com.

 * With 1.5, you can create an external URL more simply: just insert the URL before the vertical bar, as in this example:

http://www.domain.com |Domain.com

(note the space after the URL)

Display text
The right-hand portion of the pipe corresponds to the display form of the link, and is either:

 * a MediaWiki namespace page name

OR
 * plain text

If a MediaWiki namespace page of the same name exists, then the contents of that page are used to determine the text used for the link. For instance, the default contents of MediaWiki:Mainpage are Main Page - this is what is displayed.

You can also place the text here without using a namespace page; so if MediaWiki:My_Page doesn't exist, then the text My Page would be displayed, using the example about.

Allowing users to have individual sidebars
There is a discussion taking place surrounding a feature request which, if implemented, would provide a custom sidebar that users themselves can edit to their individual preferences. Discussion, and a current implementation using CSS and JavaScript can be found at Configurable Sidebar.

Allowing anyone to edit the sidebar
The MediaWiki namespace pages are protected, preventing ordinary users from editing the sidebar. To see a possible means to allow this, refer to discussion at the relevant FAQ page.

title: Help:Navigation bar


text:
Help talk:Navigation bar

Meta:Help:Navigation bar authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Navigation bar =
 * 03:39, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Changed initial template.)
 * 11:38, 19 November 2005 User:210.15.239.2 (added "sidebar" to catch search queries)
 * 22:58, 14 November 2005 User:216.104.211.5 (→Link target)
 * 15:36, 11 November 2005 User:137.165.8.64 (→Link target)
 * 12:13, 29 October 2005 User:Bryan9 m (→Link target)
 * 18:05, 20 October 2005 User:Who (header and footer)
 * 17:57, 20 October 2005 User:Who m (Navigation bar moved to Help:Navigation bar)
 * 11:56, 10 October 2005 User:192.85.50.1 (→Allowing users to have individual sidebars)
 * 04:55, 10 October 2005 User:67.180.115.55 (→Headings)
 * 04:55, 10 October 2005 User:67.180.115.55 (→Headings)
 * 01:51, 10 October 2005 User:Robchurch m (Added image of the sidebar)
 * 01:25, 10 October 2005 User:Robchurch m (Corrected link)
 * 01:22, 10 October 2005 User:Robchurch m (Corrected markup glitch)
 * 01:21, 10 October 2005 User:Robchurch (Reworked entire page to explain more clearly how the MediaWiki:Sidebar syntax works, and added links to useful discussion)
 * 01:06, 10 October 2005 User:Robchurch m (Navigation Bar moved to Navigation bar)
 * 00:52, 10 October 2005 User:Robchurch m (Updated link)
 * 22:10, 25 September 2005 User:RN m (Navigation moved to Navigation Bar)
 * 22:10, 25 September 2005 User:RN (cleanup some more)
 * 22:07, 25 September 2005 User:RN (get rid of first person stuff, cleanup/copyedit, move comment to talk page)
 * 21:33, 25 September 2005 User:NickD
 * 18:40, 9 September 2005 User:207.114.255.242
 * 06:47, 6 August 2005 User:24.86.181.17 ((fix spelling of erroneously))
 * 20:17, 3 July 2005 User:67.192.37.34 (Added note on $wgNavigationLink -- bbrown(at)spsu.edu)
 * 20:13, 3 July 2005 User:67.192.37.34 (How to do this in 1.5beta1 and presumably subsequent releases)
 * 18:50, 13 June 2005 User:HeinzJo
 * 16:09, 2 April 2005 User:81.154.64.237
 * 15:48, 2 April 2005 User:81.154.64.237
 * 15:32, 2 April 2005 User:81.154.64.237

title: Help talk:Navigation bar


text:
Help talk:Navigational image

Meta:Help:Navigational image authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Navigational image =
 * 08:32, 25 November 2005 User:Pmsyyz m (clarify that redirect is the only way currently)
 * 02:00, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Changed initial template.)
 * 04:38, 16 August 2005 User:LA2 (cat)
 * 11:46, 20 June 2005 User:Patrick (other example, image was deleted)
 * 08:17, 20 June 2005 User:203.200.50.246
 * 19:54, 4 May 2005 User:200.71.196.195
 * 15:04, 27 April 2005 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 14:27, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (→See also)
 * 22:03, 25 March 2005 User:Patrick (which could have a redirect on the image page on this project, which would then be accessible by the link .)
 * 12:27, 18 February 2005 User:Patrick m (→Projects that allow embedding images in external link style)
 * 12:24, 18 February 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 12:13, 18 February 2005 User:Patrick (One application is linking a small version of an image to a large one. Example where both are external:)
 * 21:56, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 21:52, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 13:30, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick
 * 13:05, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (The 2nd and 3rd item are somewhat confusing and out-of-place when one wants to concentrate on the target page and not on the details of the image that was used to arrive at the page. See for example t)
 * 12:51, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (MediaWiki:Redirectedfrom)
 * 12:48, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (If the redirect is within the same project, then the following is inserted on the target page:)
 * 12:33, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (→Projects that allow embedding images in external link style)
 * 12:20, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (which has on this project image page .)
 * 12:10, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (However, an image on Commons may have its own image page on each project, e.g. Image:Zuid_Holland-Position.png.)
 * 11:57, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (except that a link from the target page to the image page is not possible.)
 * 11:51, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (b:fr:Accueil)
 * 11:47, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (In the case of redirecting to a special page, e.g. on, the same remarks apply.)
 * 11:30, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (→See also - *Images linking to a page)
 * 11:24, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 11:09, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick m (→Projects that allow embedding images in external link style)
 * 11:06, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (To use the same image on another page without a redirect or with a different target, a copy of the image has to be uploaded under another name.)
 * 11:02, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (With this method, the same image can be used on another page linking as usual to the image page, or linking to a different target.)
 * 10:55, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick m (the image can also be external, and the target can be any URL;)
 * 10:46, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (interchange two parts)
 * 10:40, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (For convenient access to this image page, this link can be put near the linked image, and/or on the target page.)
 * 10:33, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (Example where the target is a page on another project: Image:Mark twain.jpg. In this case no redirect message is shown on the target page, and the image is not inserted in that page. The im)
 * 10:20, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 10:17, 29 January 2005 User:Patrick (Another way of linking an image to an arbitrary page is by putting a help:redirect on the image page. For example, the following internal image links to the page Help:Redirect.)
 * 09:52, 17 January 2005 User:Patrick (update)
 * 09:48, 17 January 2005 User:Patrick (update)
 * 08:51, 17 January 2005 User:Patrick (See also navigational maps.)
 * 21:37, 12 August 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 21:36, 12 August 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 21:34, 12 August 2004 User:Patrick (In projects that allow embedding images in external link style, an image can be used as "[[help)
 * 21:08, 12 August 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 21:06, 12 August 2004 User:Patrick (Compare Image:Catapult.jpg, also an internal image, linking to the same internal page. Note that this time ot only the redirect message, but also the image is inserted in the target page.)
 * 17:28, 12 August 2004 User:Odbo255 (initial version)

title: Help talk:Navigational image


text:
Help:Page history

The revision history, also called page history or edit history, of all pages is available. It consists of the old versions of the wikitext, and also a record of the date and time of every edit, the user who made it, the edit summary, and a possible marking as "minor edit". For the radio buttons on the left see Help:Diff.

Page history
Every page has a link "Page history" to the list of edits. Also the Recent changes and Related changes pages have links to the histories of listed pages.

An exception are pages which have been deleted (not to be confused with pages that have been blanked), for which the only record available to non-administrators is the deletion log and possibly the "votes for deletion" archive. Edits to them are not even in the User Contributions pages. However, the revision history is kept and can be retrieved by a sysop, who can also undelete the page (see w:Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages by sysops).

The policy of keeping the page history did not exist in the beginning of Wikipedia's existence, so the page history of that time is lost.

Every line represents one edit to the given page and the version resulting from it
 * "last" is similar to "diff", explained in Recent changes
 * "cur" gives the difference between this version and the one at the time of loading the history page (i.e., excluding the edit shown by pressing the "last" next to it), which is the cumulation of all later edits, except those which are not in this revision history because they were made after loading this page
 * the date and time link to the version of that day and time, using a URL with oldid=revisionid.

The "cur" and "last" features should be similar to those in Enhanced Recent Changes, but there is a bug in the latter.

For every version there is a box on the line. Marking two boxes gives the difference between the two versions. The box at the top corresponds to the latest edit, which is not necessarily the edit about which the info on the line is (another edit may have been made after loading the page history),

If the "move page" feature has been used in the past to change the name to the current one, the entire edit history of the article, before and after the move, is shown, but the move itself is not. The move itself is shown in the edit history of the page with the old title, which automatically has become a redirect page.

After merging two pages, typically one becomes a redirect. In that case, this redirect has a real edit history.

See also: w:Wikipedia:Usemod article histories.

Reverting a page
If your new pages edits aren't to your liking, don't panic, you can 'revert' the page to any previous version using this technique ->

Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page
It is occasionally useful to link to a specific version of an article (a snapshot of it). For example, one might have done a review of a Wikipedia article and want to indicate which particular version was reviewed.

If the version is not the current version, one can use the page history to view the old version of the page. The URL of this old version is suitable for use to permanently reference this version, and can usually be obtained from the browser's location bar.

If the version is the current version, for technical reasons it is impossible to link to that specific version. The best solution is to make some change to the page (ideally an improvement, but a change that has no effect on the rendered form of the page is probably easier) so that the version of interest is no longer current, then follow the instructions above.

See also URLs of old versions of pages.

The history of the wikitext should not be confused with the history of the rendered page:

 * If a page contains a variable depending on time, its rendered content varies with time; for example, gives the time of viewing the page; if at some stage the tag  has been placed, it has been replaced in the wikitext by the time of saving that revision; there is no variable for the time of saving the particular revision.
 * In particular, templates and images will vary if they are referred to with an expression containing a variable depending on time
 * The current versions of templates and images are used (see also 851); it is not possible to specify a particular revision, unless old versions are given different names, so that, for the system, they are current versions; note that also templates used within these templates may have been revised.

For a true permalink, upload the rendered page as HTML file (if enabled by the system) and link to the URL, e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d1/Wikitest.html (see also the image page ; by the way, this page was not uploaded because of templates or images, but because of added functionality using Javascript, not allowed in wikitext).

The HTML contains the contents of the templates, so the page is not affected by a change or deletion of a template. It further contains URL-references to images; it is not affected by an image revision, but it is by a deletion.

To produce a wikitext version not depending on templates use "subst:", if necessary recursively.

See also Help:Downloading pages.

Special:Export
Special:Export produces an XML-file, without the MediaWiki user interface, with the wikitext of the current and optionally all old versions of one or more specified pages, with date, time, user name, and edit summary. How it is displayed, e.g. with or without XML tags, and with or without applying newlines, depends on the browser. Some browsers show "+" and "-" links to view or hide selected parts. Alternatively the XML-source can be viewed using the "view source" feature of the browser, or after saving the XML file locally, with a program of choice.

The feature also allows searching for a text in all versions of one or more specified pages. See also XML export.

Image history
An "image" (in the broad sense of an uploaded file) can be edited, or, more generally, be replaced by a different image, by uploading a new image file with the same name. Again all versions are kept. The image history listing forms part of the image description page, which appears when clicking on the image. The image history consists of this and the old versions themselves.

The image description page consists of three parts:
 * description of the image
 * "Image history" - similar to a page history, with for each version an upload summary and also the file size.
 * "Image links"

The description part has also an edit history; it is labelled, somewhat confusingly, Image:xxx Revision history. It should not be confused with the Image history.

Not kept are images which have been deleted (not to be confused with images that are no longer used in articles), the only record available is the upload log, deletion log and possibly the "votes for deletion" archive. Neither the latest nor older versions are kept by the system, hence it is not possible to undelete an image.

Archiving
Archiving texts in separate pages is superior to using the page history as archive: texts in archive pages can be found searching with Google and using the search feature of Wikipedia. Page histories can only be searched after applying Special:Export. Also, archive pages can be organized and titled afterwards in a suitable way, while e.g. edit summaries can not be supplied afterwards. However, an index of old versions of a page, with links to them, could be prepared.

title: Help:Page history


text:
Help talk:Page history

Meta:Help:Page history authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Page history =
 * 08:12, 27 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed capitalization of template name.)
 * 03:48, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed capitalization of template name.)
 * 05:47, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 05:45, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 05:28, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Replacement of with )
 * 15:56, 18 October 2005 User:129.230.252.1 (→Reverting a page)
 * 15:55, 18 October 2005 User:129.230.252.1
 * 12:08, 17 October 2005 User:Oscar m (Reverted edits by 81.25.2.15 to last version by AlanBarrett)
 * 09:56, 17 October 2005 User:81.25.2.15
 * 13:59, 8 October 2005 User:AlanBarrett (revert link spam and page blanking)
 * 08:32, 7 October 2005 User:81.25.2.172
 * 10:03, 25 September 2005 User:AlanBarrett (→Page history - wikify "Recent changes" in a place where users are very likely to want to follow a link to an explanation.)
 * 00:52, 25 September 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 217.107.243.129 to last version by Patrick)
 * 13:15, 23 September 2005 User:217.107.243.129
 * 10:49, 31 July 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 221.220.48.170 to last version by Patrick)
 * 07:04, 29 July 2005 User:221.220.48.170
 * 00:42, 27 July 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 61.51.34.212 to last version by Patrick)
 * 07:30, 26 July 2005 User:61.51.34.212
 * 08:55, 18 July 2005 User:Patrick (→Page history - update)
 * 06:59, 8 July 2005 User:Patrick (→Page history - update: *the date and time link to the version of that day and time, using a URL with oldid=revisionid.)
 * 21:37, 5 July 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 80.58.35.42 to last version by 64.230.41.143)
 * 15:46, 5 July 2005 User:80.58.35.42
 * 19:02, 3 July 2005 User:64.230.41.143
 * 19:01, 3 July 2005 User:64.230.41.143
 * 00:03, 13 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Page history)
 * 07:45, 4 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page - (see also bugzilla:851);)
 * 05:49, 31 May 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 211.231.187.48 to last version by Patrick)
 * 22:46, 30 May 2005 User:211.231.187.48
 * 13:51, 27 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page)
 * 10:03, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page)
 * 07:51, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page)
 * 07:39, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page)
 * 07:17, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Permalink; history of the wikitext vs. history of the rendered page)
 * 07:12, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (For a true permalink, upload the rendered page as HTML file (if enabled by the system) and link to the URL, e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d1/Wikitest.html)
 * 06:55, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick
 * 06:53, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Linking to a specific version of page (permalink) - The history of the wikitext should not be confused with the history of the rendered page:)
 * 06:40, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Linking to a specific version of page (permalink))
 * 06:23, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Linking to a specific version of page (permalink))
 * 06:22, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Linking to a specific version of page (permalink))
 * 06:21, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Image history - wrong section)
 * 06:19, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Revision history of articles containing images or templates)
 * 05:49, 16 May 2005 User:Patrick m (→Linking to specific versions of articles)
 * 10:36, 6 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Special:Export - Special:Export produces an XML-file, without the MediaWiki user interface,)
 * 10:29, 6 May 2005 User:Patrick m (→Special:Export)
 * 10:28, 6 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Special:Export - Some browsers show "+" and "-" links to view or hide selected parts.)
 * 10:25, 6 May 2005 User:Patrick (How it is diplayed, e.g. with or without tags, and with or without applying newlines, depends on the browser. Alternatively the XML-source can be viewed from the browser, or after saving locally, with)
 * 09:47, 6 May 2005 User:Patrick (Special:Export produces a page which shows the wikitext of the current and optionally all old versions of one or more specified pages, with date, time, user name, and edit summary. The page takes)
 * 08:48, 6 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Linking to specific versions of articles -From 1.5 (http://test.leuksman.com/) the current version has also an "oldid". It can also be displayed on the page with the new variable )
 * 15:11, 21 April 2005 User:AnyFile
 * 15:28, 18 April 2005 User:Patrick
 * 22:03, 4 April 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 221.219.145.207 to last version by Patrick)
 * 13:01, 4 April 2005 User:221.219.145.207
 * 21:29, 30 March 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 213.16.188.67 to last version by Patrick)
 * 18:17, 30 March 2005 User:213.16.188.67
 * 00:51, 11 March 2005 User:Patrick (→Linking to specific versions of articles - See also URLs of old versions of pages.)
 * 03:39, 10 March 2005 User:132.206.150.195 (→Page history - how to link a specific version.)
 * 15:41, 19 February 2005 User:Patrick (→Image history -*"Image history" - similar to a page history, with for each version an upload summary and also the file size.)
 * 11:15, 11 February 2005 User:Patrick (For the w:radio buttons on the left see Help:Diff.)
 * 03:06, 27 January 2005 User:YebisYa ("hc" added)
 * 22:15, 13 November 2004 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 210.82.76.17 to last version by Jean-Christophe Chazalette)
 * 03:49, 13 November 2004 User:210.82.76.17
 * 06:46, 29 October 2004 User:Jean-Christophe Chazalette m (Reverted edits by 221.194.206.191 to last version by Kpjas)
 * 05:35, 29 October 2004 User:221.194.206.191
 * 08:09, 16 October 2004 User:Kpjas m (rm spam links)
 * 05:09, 16 October 2004 User:218.104.201.30
 * 07:56, 12 October 2004 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 210.82.76.17 to last version by Patrick)
 * 07:01, 12 October 2004 User:210.82.76.17 (→Page history)
 * 12:08, 10 October 2004 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 210.82.76.17 to last version by AaronPeterson)
 * 07:59, 10 October 2004 User:210.82.76.17
 * 06:10, 23 September 2004 User:AaronPeterson m ( and definition moved above header)
 * 08:58, 7 August 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 08:55, 7 August 2004 User:Patrick m (→Archiving)
 * 10:33, 6 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Revision history of articles containing images - Similar remarks apply for templates.)
 * 01:25, 27 May 2004 User:Angela m (revert 2 month old vandalism by 80.131.79.1 that I didn't notice before copying this page over)
 * 01:16, 27 May 2004 User:Angela (adapted from the English Wikipedia. Originally written by: Patrick (main author), MyRedDice, 80.131.79.1, RichL, Kurt Jansson, Docu)

title: Help talk:Page history


text:
Help:Page name

The canonical form of a page name is shown in large font as page header. Another type of canonical form is what is in URLs generated by the system, for this page "Help:Page_name" with an underscore. Alternative names for this page (on most projects) are Help:page name, help:Page name, and help:page name, but not Help:Page Name; the bolded ones are, on this project. For details, see below.

Special characters
The following characters are not allowed in page titles:

 * 1) + < > [ ] | { }

The non-printable characters with values 0 through 31, and the "delete" character 127, are also not allowed.

The reasons for disallowing these characters include:

 * [, ], {, }, and | have special meaning within Wikipedia's syntax, which are processed before the pagename is determined. For example, 2024 points at 2024, not a page called  2024 .

See also w:en:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions).

Forward slash (/)
Depending on the namespace and the settings, a forward slash in the pagename provides special functionality, see subpage feature.

Namespace prefixes
Also, the first part of a page name may not coincide with a project-independent namespace prefix that is automatically converted to another one. As an example, the name Project: A-Kon on Wikipedia is not possible.

The first part of a page name can coincide with a namespace prefix that is not converted. For example, there might be articles in the English Wikipedia about books called Wikipedia: The Big Adventure and Talk: Secrets are Bad (but only without the space after the colon). However, in that case the pages are in the wrong namespace. This may be inconvenient in searching or displaying a list of pages. Also, in the second case there is no link to a Talk page about the book. (As explained above, the second page name is not possible on e.g. the German Wikipedia: see w:de:Talk: Secrets are Bad).

Prefixes referring to other projects or pseudo-namespaces
A page name cannot start with a prefix that is in use to refer to another project, including language codes, e.g. "en:" (list), or one of the pseudo-namespaces "Media:" and "Special:".

Thus e.g. an article about the album "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!" can not have that exact name. An attempt to create the article, whether by a link Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! or a URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q:Are_We_Not_Men%3F_A:_We_Are_Devo%21 leads to Wikiquote.

With regard to using the prefix of the project itself there is no consistency: a name like en:a cannot be used on en: (try a and w:en:en:a), while "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!" can exist on Wikiquote: q:Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!.

Maximum page name length
The maximum page name length is 255 bytes (excluding the namespace prefix). Be aware that non-ASCII characters may take up to four bytes in UTF-8 encoding, so the total number of characters you can fit into a title may be less than 255 depending on the language it's in.

See Test of maximum page name length: 255 characters; test of maximum page name length: 255 characters; test of maximum page name length: 255 characters; test of maximum page name length: 255 characters; test of maximum page name length: 255 characters; test.

Spaces vs. underscores
In page names, a blank space is equivalent with an underscore. A blank space is displayed in the large font title at the top of the page, the URLs show an underscore. See also below.

Case-sensitivity
If for the first letter of a page name two cases exist, as in the case of letters of the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Armenian alphabets, the following applies.

All characters of namespace prefixes are case-insensitive. The canonical form, shown in large font as page header, and in URLs generated by the system, is with on most projects with one capital; Klingon is an exception, see w:tlh:Chen'ay':h:h, where the c is converted to lower-case, and w:tlh:Qah:Page name, where the h is converted to upper-case. Below "page name" refers to the name without the possible namespace prefix.

Case-sensitivity of the first character
The first character of the page name (outside the main namespace: after the namespace prefix) may or may not be case-sensitive, depending on the project. Help:page name gives on this project: Help:page name. If the first character of the page name is case-sensitive this is a link (to a different page), otherwise it is bold (a self link to this page).

Currently the first character of the page name is case-insensitive, except in the following Wiktionaries: Compare e.g. A and a, and wikt:nl:Sjabloon:H:f and wikt:nl:Sjabloon:h:f.

The same applies for the Klingon Wikipedia, compare e.g. jo and Jo.

Case where the first character is case-insensitive
The canonical form is with a capital.

Note that in the case of a prefix that is not a namespace for the software, and in the case of a second prefix, the case-insensitivity does not apply to the first character after this prefix, e.g. Template:H:Interwiki linking and Template:H:interwiki linking are distinguished.

Case-sensitivity of the file name extension of an image
Note that even the file name extension of an image is case-sensitive: compare image:Stop_sign_us.jpg and  image:Stop_sign_us.JPG 748410449856

Ignored spaces/underscores
Spaces/underscores which are ignored:
 * those at the start and end of a full page name
 * those at the end of a namespace prefix, before the colon
 * those after the colon of the namespace prefix
 * duplicate consecutive spaces

Some show up in the link label, e.g. ___help__ :_ _template_ _ becomes ___help__ :_ _template_ _, linking to Help:Template.

However, a space before or after a "normal" colon makes a difference, e.g. MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing overview and MediaWiki User's Guide : Editing overview, and MediaWiki User's Guide:Editing overview are all distinguished, because "MediaWiki User's Guide:" is a pseudo-namespace, not a real one.

Coding of characters
A page name can not contain e.g. %41, because that is automatically converted to the character A, for which %41 is the code. %41 is rendered as %41. Similarly %C3%80 is automatically converted to the character À. %C3%80 is rendered as %C3%80. The URL of the page is http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80. One can argue what is the real name of the page, %C3%80 or À (a user will say the latter), but anyway there can not be distinct pages with these names.

Canonical form
The inclusion tag for a non-existing page shows a link with the canonical form of the page name:, , give , , ; compare with ordinary links Template:qwsazx, qwsazx, project:qws   azx; these work like Piped links, e.g. qwsazx ; in this case the conversion shows up on the referring page only when pointing at it: in the pop-up and in the status bar (if applicable for the browser); whether the target is a  redirect, and what the final target is, is not shown at all.

An attempt to include a page from another project results in just displaying the wikitext, e.g. ; ordinary interwiki links do not show existence and do not show a canonical form in the hover box or status bar: en:project:qwsazx. The same applies if interwiki link style is used for a link to a page in the same project: m:project:qwsazx.

A saved redirect page shows the canonical form of the target, even though the preview renders the link in the usual way, compare with the preview of.

Conversion of spaces to underscores and of special characters to escape codes
There is no feature for just conversion of spaces to underscores and of special characters to escape codes, but there are two features for doing this in combination with something else: localurl (see Help:Variable) and PAGENAMEE.

Most needs for conversion are covered by these, but e.g. in a template one cannot link to a page with a given name on a project with a different $wgScript.

Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE
The variable gives, for this page, . gives .

Thus in the first case a space is used, in the second case an underscore, like in URLs. Similarly, À becomes the escape code %C3%80 (see above), and so on.

For a page in the main namespace, the page name is prefixed with a colon.

Example:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=:

gives

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=:

Within localurl, should be used in the first part (because it is converted by localurl), or  in the second part:
 * gives here:

 * gives here:

Wrong: (wrong link) (works here, the underscore, converted from a space, is not affected by the second conversion, but it does not work with special characters).
 * gives here:
 * gives here:

See Help:ĀāĆćĎďĒēĜĝĤĥĨĩĴĵĹĺŃń and PAGENAMEE for an example of how these variables interact with special characters.

title: Help:Page name


text:
Help talk:Page name

Meta:Help:Page name authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Page name =
 * 04:59, 28 November 2005 User:Rspeer m (→Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE - oops, missed a quote. Also unbold the big honking URLs.)
 * 04:57, 28 November 2005 User:Rspeer (Inaccurate: many of these characters _are_ allowed, and used, in page titles. The security objection must have been dealt with long ago.)
 * 04:53, 28 November 2005 User:Rspeer (→Special characters - rm obsolete statement)
 * 04:50, 28 November 2005 User:Rspeer (→Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE - clean up, remove references to deleted pages)
 * 03:46, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed capitalization of template name.)
 * 06:27, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 03:28, 16 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 18:31, 29 August 2005 User:12.145.63.151 (→Canonical form)
 * 13:49, 29 August 2005 User:Tsca m (→Case-sensitivity of the first character - +pl)
 * 01:29, 23 August 2005 User:Cspurrier (rv blanking)
 * 01:08, 23 August 2005 User:69.179.172.165
 * 01:07, 23 August 2005 User:69.179.172.165 (→Canonical form)
 * 10:41, 19 August 2005 User:Spacebirdy m (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 16:13, 11 August 2005 User:Mindspillage (rm test)
 * 15:30, 11 August 2005 User:67.105.167.150 (→Restrictions)
 * 15:29, 11 August 2005 User:67.105.167.150 (→Restrictions)
 * 13:55, 10 July 2005 User:Joloc
 * 13:34, 10 July 2005 User:62.83.47.120
 * 13:29, 10 July 2005 User:62.83.47.120
 * 07:34, 29 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Special characters - *w:en:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions))
 * 07:32, 29 June 2005 User:Patrick (→See also - *w:en:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions))
 * 15:52, 12 June 2005 User:Angela m (Reverted edits by 195.29.51.147 to last version by Patrick)
 * 14:12, 12 June 2005 User:195.29.51.147
 * 10:43, 11 June 2005 User:Patrick m (→Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE)
 * 10:42, 11 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE)
 * 10:37, 11 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE)
 * 10:31, 11 June 2005 User:Patrick (Within localurl, <nowiki></nowiki> should be used in the first part (because it is converted by localurl), or <nowiki></nowiki> in the second part, see [[Help:ĀāĆćĎďĒēĜĝĤĥĨĩĴĵ)
 * 09:28, 11 June 2005 User:Gangleri (→Variables PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE - +See its usage at a page with converted characters at Help:ĀāĆćĎďĒēĜĝĤĥĨĩĴĵĹĺŃń and PAGENAMEE)
 * 21:18, 10 June 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 209.186.82.130 to last version by Patrick)
 * 20:39, 10 June 2005 User:209.186.82.130
 * 15:26, 8 June 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 200.90.222.143 to last version by Patrick)
 * 15:00, 8 June 2005 User:200.90.222.143
 * 01:16, 5 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order - )
 * 01:05, 5 June 2005 User:Brion VIBBER (→Maximum page name length)
 * 00:06, 5 June 2005 User:Patrick (The maximum page name length is 255 characters)
 * 09:25, 4 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order)
 * 09:14, 4 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order)
 * 08:55, 4 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order)
 * 13:03, 3 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order - See also collating.)
 * 15:27, 2 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order -Most foreign and other special characters come at the end, see e.g. de:Special:Allpages/Zz.)
 * 22:59, 1 June 2005 User:Patrick (→Alphabetical order - See also bugzilla:164.)
 * 08:48, 21 May 2005 User:Patrick (one cannot link to a page with a given name on a project with a different $wgScript.)
 * 08:45, 21 May 2005 User:Patrick (idea for feature request: Most needs for conversion are covered by these, but e.g. in a template one cannot link a page with a given name to the corresponding page on a project with a differen)
 * 08:15, 21 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Conversion of spaces to underscores and of special characters to escape codes)
 * 08:12, 21 May 2005 User:Patrick (There is no feature for just conversion of spaces to underscores and of special characters to escape codes, but there are two features for doing this in combimation with something else: localurl and P)
 * 19:21, 15 May 2005 User:Mxn (→Case-sensitivity of the first character - +vi:)
 * 13:06, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Canonical form)
 * 13:03, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick m (→Canonical form)
 * 13:00, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Canonical form)
 * 12:40, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick m (→Canonical form)
 * 12:39, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (==Canonical form==restore)
 * 12:34, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Case where the first character is case-insensitive - move part to other section)
 * 12:33, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Canonical form)
 * 12:29, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Canonical form - moved from other section)
 * 12:22, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick m (→Canonical form)
 * 12:20, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Ignored spaces/underscores)
 * 12:12, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Case where the first character is case-insensitive)
 * 12:10, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (→Case where the first character is case-insensitive)
 * 12:06, 11 May 2005 User:Patrick (A redirect is an exception: the saved page shows the canonical form of the target, even though the preview renders the link in the usual way, compare [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Babel)
 * 13:06, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity)
 * 13:03, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity)
 * 12:19, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (for this page "Help:Page_name" with an underscore. Alternative names for this page (on most projects) are Help:page name, help:Page name, and help:page name, but not Help:Page Name; t)
 * 12:09, 25 April 2005 User:Patrick (The canonical form of a page name is shown in large font as page header. Another type of canonical form is what is in URLs generated by the system.)
 * 23:10, 22 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character -wikt:nl:Sjabloon:H:f and wikt:nl:Sjabloon:h:f.)
 * 09:24, 22 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character - rm tokipona)
 * 09:13, 22 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 17:01, 20 April 2005 User:AnyFile (h:h)
 * 17:00, 20 April 2005 User:AnyFile (→See also - h:f)
 * 07:16, 18 April 2005 User:Jni m (rv. to version by Patrick)
 * 01:20, 17 April 2005 User:203.218.11.21
 * 01:11, 17 April 2005 User:203.218.11.21 (Cheung wai-tsz)
 * 12:32, 15 April 2005 User:Patrick (With regard to using the prefix of the project itself there is no consistency: a name like en:a cannot be used on en: (try w:en:a and w:en:en:a), while "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!" can)
 * 12:18, 15 April 2005 User:Patrick (Thus e.g. an article about the album "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!" can not have that exact name. An attempt to create the article, whether by a link Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! or a)
 * 00:39, 13 April 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 68.196.170.32 to last version by Jni)
 * 19:46, 12 April 2005 User:68.196.170.32
 * 19:46, 12 April 2005 User:68.196.170.32
 * 13:57, 11 April 2005 User:Jni m (rv. anon)
 * 13:14, 11 April 2005 User:158.193.85.186
 * 12:43, 23 March 2005 User:62.241.2.2 (→Special characters)
 * 12:43, 23 March 2005 User:62.241.2.2
 * 02:06, 3 March 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 02:01, 3 March 2005 User:Patrick m (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 01:59, 3 March 2005 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character - update)
 * 02:54, 15 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→See also - +ja)
 * 16:29, 11 February 2005 User:YebisYa (→Special characters - article --> page)
 * 10:11, 11 February 2005 User:Patrick (re:talk:Depending on the namespace and the settings a forward slash in the pagename provides special functionality, see subpages.)
 * 16:48, 9 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→Prefixes referring to other projects or pseudo-namespaces - colon)
 * 16:02, 9 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (→Special characters - two dots)
 * 23:44, 7 February 2005 User:Patrick (→See also - English is not another language and is already linked on the next line (Wikipedia))
 * 16:11, 7 February 2005 User:YebisYa (The template tag "hi" is replaced by "hh", and "handbook sidebar" is added.)
 * 07:52, 7 February 2005 User:YebisYa m (The parameter "langs" in the templete "hc")
 * 22:54, 5 February 2005 User:81.173.162.9 (→Prefixes referring to other projects or pseudo-namespaces - minor edit)
 * 22:52, 5 February 2005 User:81.173.162.9 (→Special characters - corrected wording)
 * 21:37, 4 February 2005 User:Netoholic m (→Variables <nowiki></nowiki> and <nowiki></nowiki>)
 * 10:00, 15 October 2004 User:Qbaa80 (→Special characters)
 * 09:59, 15 October 2004 User:Qbaa80 (→Special characters)
 * 09:59, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Case where the first character is case-insensitive)
 * 09:56, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 09:51, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 09:51, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick m (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 09:45, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 09:26, 13 September 2004 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 15:19, 11 September 2004 User:Nyxos ([add] '+' characters are replaced by spaces (underscores) in page titles)
 * 07:53, 15 August 2004 User:Patrick (Variables and )
 * 08:39, 9 August 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 07:16, 21 July 2004 User:Patrick (→See also -not quite accurate: <nowiki>:de:name</nowiki> does not give a page with the name de:name.)
 * 07:01, 21 July 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phase3/docs/title.doc?rev=1.1.1.1&view=markup)
 * 21:52, 19 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→Spaces vs. underscores)
 * 21:50, 19 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Variable <nowiki></nowiki>)
 * 20:51, 19 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Variable <nowiki></nowiki> -Thus not an underscore but a space is used. This can give problems using it in a URL for an external link, e.g.:)
 * 20:36, 19 July 2004 User:Patrick (==Variable <nowiki></nowiki>==)
 * 11:23, 16 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→See also)
 * 11:21, 16 July 2004 User:Patrick (w:Alphabetical order, e.g. in Special:Allpages, is (at least for that range) according to w:ASCII. Note that this means that "a" comes after "Z", see e.g. [http://tokipona.wikipedia.org/)
 * 07:09, 15 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Prefixes referring to other projects or pseudo-namespaces - http://wikimedia.org/langlist)
 * 06:31, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - *Help:Link gives examples of conversions in the page name from wikitext to HTML, and from HTML to actual target page.)
 * 23:11, 13 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity -Note that even the file name extension of an image is case-sensitive: compare :image:Stop_sign_us.jpg and  :image:Stop_sign_us.JPG)
 * 22:12, 13 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity -For these two, compare e.g. tlh:jo and tlh:Jo, and tokipona:musi with tokipona:Musi.)
 * 20:19, 13 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→Namespace prefixes)
 * 08:31, 8 July 2004 User:Patrick (If for the first letter of a page name two cases exist, as in the case of letters of the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and)
 * 23:34, 7 July 2004 User:Patrick (/* Coding of characters http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80)
 * 23:30, 7 July 2004 User:Patrick (A page name can not contain e.g. %41, because that is automatically converted to the character A, for which %41 is the code. %41 is rendered as A. Similarly %C3%80 is automatically converted to th)
 * 22:39, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - *Case insensitivity - about case-insensitivity of all characters in the page name.)
 * 22:24, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 22:21, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Namespace prefixes)
 * 22:21, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Restrictions)
 * 22:20, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Prefix "project:" - rm dup)
 * 22:11, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Prefix "Project:")
 * 21:57, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 21:54, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (misc)
 * 21:15, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character -All characters of namespace prefixes are case-insensitive. Below "page name" refers to the name without the possible namespace prefix.)
 * 05:15, 25 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Restrictions -misc)
 * 20:18, 24 June 2004 User:Timwi m (→Case-sensitivity of the first character)
 * 14:56, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Restrictions -Also, in the second case there is no link to a Talk page about the book.)
 * 14:48, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Restrictions -For example, there might be a book called w:Wikipedia: The Big Adventure.)
 * 14:25, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Restrictions - Also, the first part of a page name may not coincide with a namespace prefix that is automatically converted to another one, such as w:Project: A-Kon.)
 * 14:06, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - Wikipedia:List of pages whose correct title is not allowed by MediaWiki)
 * 13:55, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Restrictions - rm dup)
 * 13:54, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (misc)
 * 13:38, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Restrictions - copied from Wikipedia talk:List of pages whose correct title is not allowed by MediaWiki)
 * 13:18, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (copied from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions): The following characters are not allowed in page titles:)
 * 13:03, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→See also - Wikipedia:Naming conventions)
 * 12:41, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Ignored spaces/underscores - links)
 * 07:21, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Case-sensitivity of the first character - En Wiktionary case-sensitivity vote)
 * 06:44, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Case where the first character is case-insensitive - Even in the toki pona Wikipedia the first character of the namespace part of a page name is case-insensitive.)
 * 06:10, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Case-insensitivity of the first character)
 * 05:22, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Ignored spaces/underscores)
 * 05:15, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Ignored spaces/underscores -However, e.g. MediaWiki User's Guide:Editing overview and MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing overview are not the same, because "MediaWiki User's Guide:" is a pseu)
 * 00:59, 24 June 2004 User:Angela (toki pona Wikipedia has case-sensitivity titles)
 * 20:54, 23 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Prefixes referring to other projects or pseudo-namespaces)
 * 20:40, 23 June 2004 User:Patrick (Spaces/underscores at the start and end of a page name are ignored. In a link, for determining the target page, and also when creating a new page through the URL, the following are also ignored:)
 * 13:23, 23 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Prefixes referring to other projects - pseudo-namespaces)
 * 13:05, 23 June 2004 User:Patrick (A page name can not start with a prefix that is in use to refer to another project, e.g. "en:".)
 * 12:56, 23 June 2004 User:Patrick (Project)
 * 12:51, 23 June 2004 User:Patrick (new)

title: Help talk:Page name


text:
Help:Patrolled edit

A new feature in MediaWiki 1.4 is Patrolled edits. After clicking 'diff' on a change in Special:Recentchanges, you may see a link at the bottom, similar to the one below.

[ [ Mark this article as patrolled] ]

Patrolling edits is a way to verify that it is a good edit, and to collaborate on filtering spam and vandalism. If you're combing through the recent changes list, and you look at an article that is good, you can mark it as "patrolled" so that other users know that it is good.

Policies may vary among projects whether an article can be marked as patrolled if it is not obvious vandalism, or only when the correctness has been verified.

In the Recent Changes, an unpatrolled edit looks like this: While a patrolled one would be like this:
 * ( [ diff] ) ( [ hist] ) . . ! Help:Patrolled edit; 23:28 . . Astronouth7303 (Talk)
 * ( [ diff] ) ( [ hist] ) . . Help:Patrolled edit; 23:28 . . Astronouth7303 (Talk)

Enabling
To enable patrolling, add this line to LocalSettings.php: $wgUseRCPatrol = true; Note that fresh installs of version 1.4 enable RC Patrol by default.

Restricting patrolling access to sysops
If you don't want users without Administrator access to be able to mark edits as patrolled, add the following line to LocalSettings.php:

$wgOnlySysopsCanPatrol = true;

title: Help:Patrolled edit


text:
Help talk:Patrolled edit

Meta:Help:Patrolled edit authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Patrolled edit =
 * 03:40, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed capitalization of template name.)
 * 21:27, 22 August 2005 User:157.127.124.134
 * 00:07, 25 May 2005 User:128.88.255.34 (→See also)
 * 00:07, 25 May 2005 User:128.88.255.34
 * 12:16, 18 May 2005 User:Patrick (Policies may vary among projects whether an article can be marked as patrolled if it is not obvious vandalism, or only when the correctness has been verified.)
 * 22:22, 2 May 2005 User:Gangleri (+ ... )
 * 22:19, 2 May 2005 User:Gangleri (+ ... )
 * 18:30, 1 May 2005 User:Sunny256 (→Restricting patrolling access to sysops - New)
 * 17:54, 25 April 2005 User:AnyFile
 * 02:58, 3 April 2005 User:69.11.129.4 (No longer a stub)
 * 06:57, 30 March 2005 User:154.5.110.243 (→Enabling)
 * 02:05, 29 March 2005 User:24.20.192.244
 * 23:43, 28 March 2005 User:Astronouth7303
 * 23:28, 28 March 2005 User:Astronouth7303
 * 07:34, 23 March 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 02:09, 23 March 2005 User:Astronouth7303

title: Help talk:Patrolled edit


text:
Help:Piped link

A piped link is a link within the project or to a sister project, that is labeled differently from the name of the page it links to. This allows linking a word or phrase within the text of a page, rather than using "see also", even if the wording does not exactly correspond with the name of the other page. With a suitable browser and depending on the preferences set, one can still see what page is linked to: when you point at the link the name shows up in a hover box and is also shown in the status bar.

For instance:

How to set up a coffee house will show: How to set up a coffee house

The term "piped" refers to the use of the pipe character "|" used to separate the good description from the actual link. This character is named after an alternative use of it, see Pipe (computing).

Another example would be station, showing up as station. This is useful where the word "station" is used in an article on trains; from the context it would be clear that a train station is meant. The piped link is more convenient to the user than a link to station which may be a disambiguation page.

Using a redirect as an alternative
An alternative is simply using How to set up a coffee house, showing up as How to set up a coffee house (note that, unlike above, what pops up when you point at the link, if applicable for your browser, is simply the text already shown), and making How to set up a coffee house a redirect page.

This is convenient if the redirect is already there, or will also be of use elsewhere, but has a few drawbacks:

 * the popup does not show the page one will arrive at
 * "Related changes" does not give the changes in that page, but in the redirect page
 * the redirect message on the new page slightly clutters it

On the other hand, one may prefer the link title to provide some information that is not in the name of the page one links to, such as the value of a unit in terms of other units. In that case one can make a page whose pagename is the info one wants in the link title, and which redirects to a page with a more appropriate name. See e.g. w:Template:Ft, containing ft, with the page 30.48 cm redirecting to Foot (unit of length).

Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick)
If in a piped link the part after the "|" is left empty, it is converted to an abbreviated form of the page name on the left, as follows:

 * if there is a colon in it, the leftmost colon and anything to the left of that is removed (but this does not work for "MediaWiki User's Guide:", apparently due to the apostrophe)
 * if there is a text in parentheses at the end it will be removed

For example, the wikitext Pipe (computing) is converted to Pipe, which is rendered as Pipe, and Help:Template is converted to Template , rendered as Template.

If there is nothing to abbreviate, i.e. there is no colon and there are no parentheses, then the link does not work at all, e.g. a|.

Just like for the three or four tildes when signing on Talk pages, and the use of subst, in a preview, the result already shows up in the preview itself, but the conversion in the edit box is not yet shown. Save and press Edit again to see the result of the conversion.

For links between language versions of Wikipedia and between language versions of Wiktionary, either the pipe trick is not applicable (if the link comes at the edge) or is limited in use because of the starting colon.

In some projects and some cases the pipe trick does not work and the piped link wikitext is not even rendered as a link.

Examples
give
 * project:a (b)
 * w:project:a (b)
 * de:project:a (b)
 * wiktionary:project:a (b)
 * wiktionary:de:project:a (b)
 * wikibooks:project:a (b)
 * wikiquote:project:a (b)
 * wikisource:project:a (b)

 * a
 * project:a
 * project:a
 * project:a
 * de:project:a
 * project:a
 * project:a
 * project:a

Syntax for external links
For external links a space is used instead of a pipe character, see Help:Editing. A general term used for both is also en:clean link.

title: Help:Piped link


text:
Help talk:Piped link

Meta:Help:Piped link authors and history
= From Meta:Help talk:Piped link =
 * 03:48, 25 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed capitalization of template name.)
 * 17:14, 17 November 2005 User:Uncle G (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
 * 15:51, 27 September 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 203.77.231.6 to last version by 69.193.184.210)
 * 05:06, 27 September 2005 User:203.77.231.6
 * 03:19, 29 July 2005 User:69.193.184.210
 * 22:27, 12 July 2005 User:Patrick
 * 18:47, 12 July 2005 User:80.28.207.229
 * 18:22, 26 June 2005 User:Yann m
 * 18:17, 26 June 2005 User:Yann m (Reverted edits by 81.214.172.0 to last version by 68.15.244.8)
 * 17:15, 26 June 2005 User:81.214.172.0
 * 19:55, 17 May 2005 User:68.15.244.8 (→Using a redirect as an alternative)
 * 19:55, 17 May 2005 User:68.15.244.8 (→Using a redirect as an alternative)
 * 16:31, 21 April 2005 User:TheDJ (wrong toc)
 * 16:31, 21 April 2005 User:TheDJ (wrong toc)
 * 17:21, 20 April 2005 User:AnyFile
 * 09:20, 20 April 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 09:11, 20 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Examples)
 * 09:04, 20 April 2005 User:Patrick (→Using a redirect as an alternative)
 * 09:00, 20 April 2005 User:Patrick m
 * 07:11, 20 April 2005 User:136.187.47.85 (→Examples)
 * 07:10, 20 April 2005 User:136.187.47.85 (→Examples)
 * 00:28, 20 March 2005 User:Patrick m (Reverted edits by 24.37.207.211 to last version by Patrick)
 * 15:35, 19 March 2005 User:24.37.207.211
 * 09:53, 8 March 2005 User:Patrick (If there is nothing to abbreviate, i.e. there is no colon and there are no parentheses, then the link does not work at all, e.g. a.)
 * 03:58, 10 November 2004 User:65.173.71.142 ({hi}->{hh} as per w:help:Piped link)
 * 21:36, 2 September 2004 User:Patrick m (For external links a space is used instead of a pipe character, see Help:Editing. A general term used for both is also clean link.)
 * 13:22, 12 August 2004 User:Patrick (→Using a redirect as an alternative -On the other hand, one may prefer the link title to provide some information that is not in the name of the page one links to, such as the value of a unit in te)
 * 17:39, 29 July 2004 User:128.91.197.83 (sp)
 * 12:35, 15 July 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 20:38, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick) - In some projects and some cases the pipe trick does not work and the piped link wikitext is not even rendered as a link.)
 * 20:36, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick (→Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick) - In some projects and some cases the pipe trick does not work and is not even rendered as a link.)
 * 14:52, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick))
 * 14:34, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick))
 * 13:49, 14 July 2004 User:Patrick (For links between language versions of Wikipedia and between language versions of Wiktionary, either the pipe trick is not applicable (if the link comes at the edge) or is limited in use because of th)
 * 13:03, 10 July 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 11:51, 9 July 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 12:14, 24 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 11:32, 16 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick))
 * 09:05, 16 June 2004 User:Patrick ((but this does not work for "MediaWiki User's Guide:", apparently due to the apostrophe))
 * 09:03, 16 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 08:57, 16 June 2004 User:Patrick m (→Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick))
 * 08:51, 16 June 2004 User:Patrick (→Pipe trick - misc)
 * 08:15, 16 June 2004 User:Patrick (misc; rm project-specific bit)
 * 14:14, 15 June 2004 User:Patrick (Just like for the three or four tildes when signing on Talk pages, and the use of subst,)
 * 14:10, 15 June 2004 User:Patrick (Both the possible project prefix and any text in parentheses at the end are removed from what is displayed.)
 * 14:03, 15 June 2004 User:Patrick (Some piped links can be entered in an abbreviated form which is automatically converted to the regular form after saving the edited page (the "pipe trick" and signing on Talk pages). For example, ente)
 * 00:09, 3 June 2004 User:Patrick m
 * 15:08, 25 April 2004 User:Angela (expand based on en:Wikipedia:Piped link)
 * 04:11, 23 April 2004 User:Maximus Rex m (Reverted edits by 65.41.13.156 to last version by 24.148.201.204)
 * 03:52, 23 April 2004 User:65.41.13.156
 * 01:17, 23 April 2004 User:24.148.201.204
 * 01:17, 23 April 2004 User:24.148.201.204

title: Help talk:Piped link