Jump to content

User:Cpiral/refactor Help:Special Pages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Namespaces
Subject namespaces Talk namespaces
0 (Main/Article) Talk 1
2 User User talk 3
4 Wikipedia Wikipedia talk 5
6 File File talk 7
8 MediaWiki MediaWiki talk 9
10 Template Template talk 11
12 Help Help talk 13
14 Category Category talk 15
100 Portal Portal talk 101
118 Draft Draft talk 119
126 MOS MOS talk 127
710 TimedText TimedText talk 711
828 Module Module talk 829
Former namespaces
108 Book Book talk 109
442 Course Course talk 443
444 Institution Institution talk 445
446 Education Program Education Program talk 447
2300 Gadget Gadget talk 2301
2302 Gadget definition Gadget definition talk 2303
2600 Topic 2601
Virtual namespaces
-1 Special
-2 Media
Current list

Special is a namespace categorizing the underlying Wikipedia software, WikiMedia. What is special about Special pages is that they are not your usual "WikiPedia text". They are more like "WikiMedia text", because WikiMedia is written in PHP, and so are pages in the Special namespace. This is demonstratable by refreshing for an updated report several times, and then noticing that a single browse backwards will goto the previous page, and not the previous report.

Wikipedia is writtin in wikitext, and WikiMedia renders that wikitext using PHP. Special pages are more directly WikiMedia software, and thus require a virtual namespace. The Special namespace is a virtual namespace because to Wikipedia users, there is only clicking on a link, and the page magically appears, wherease in the relatively concrete world of wikitext, we can have a hand on the rendering of the page.

The page will render "Special" on in somewhere, and clicking on that word usually calls for the page's automatic, in-place regeneration. [1] The URL will usually have Special: in it.

There is a list of Special pages at Special:SpecialPages.

Notice your web browser's address bar displays Special: for your

  • my talk
  • my watchlist, and
  • my contributions
  • log out completed page

pages, but not for your

For example, did you ever notice the special page title on your Recent Changes report page? Notice the word special in your URL of your Recent Changes report.

http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&days=3&limit=10

Two of the parameters days=3&limit=10 in this example come from the user preferences. Here is another example of the contents of a Special page.

[[Special:Log/block]]

The parameter is block.

A Special page is not permitted to accept a redirect. They are categorized in a namespace called "Special:", but it is a virtual namespace, really, and it is not permitted to create your usual pages beginning with the "Special:" prefix.

Special pages are not the only script driven pages on Wikipedia. So are the toolserver reports. But toolserver projects are not "Special" pages because they are not so virtual to that community, for that community is the programmers who made to maintenance and operating tools that WikeMedia is today. See WP:Database reports.

  1. ^ In a special way, wikitext is like PHP: it renders a dynamic page; but in one case it is a programming language operating a computer, and in the other case it is a mostly natural language that can change at any moment. The next time we click a Wikipedia page, someone has "reprogrammed" it in wikitext, and it is changing and dynamic. A worldwide editing frenzy would make a dynamic Wikipedia Page indeed.