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Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/2

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Introduction
Navigating Wikipedia

Namespaces
The different types of pages

Searching pages
Tricks to find what you want

Page histories
See past revisions

Redirects and shortcuts
Redirecting traffic

Useful links
Handy pages for editors

Summary
Review of what you've learned



Wikipedia's pages are divided into namespaces. Each namespace (except the main article space) has a prefix that is followed by a colon at the start of page names. Here are some of the namespaces you might encounter, along with an explanation and examples:

Namespace Purpose Example(s)
Main/article
no prefix
Articles Starfish
Disambiguation pages to help people find the article they're looking for David (disambiguation)
Wikipedia:
a.k.a. "Project"
Policies and guidelines Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
Wikipedia:Manual of Style
Process pages Wikipedia:Articles for Creation
Discussion forums and noticeboards Wikipedia:Village pump
WikiProject communities focusing on a particular topic Wikipedia:WikiProject History
User: Personal profile pages about users User:Jimbo Wales
Sandboxes and personal draft articles User:Example/sandbox
Draft: Draft articles that are in progress Draft:Exampledraft
Help: Help pages Help:Contents
Template: Templates, which can be included or substituted on other pages Template:Citation needed
Template:Infobox album
Category: Groups of pages organized by their similarities Category:Painting
Category:Wikipedia maintenance
File: Images and other files, stored and described File:Wiki.png
Portal: Pages to highlight Wikipedia content in a particular topic area Portal:Current events
Portal:Solar System
Special: Pages that are part of the software Special:RecentChanges
Special:Preferences

Each page in each of these namespaces, except for Special, also has a corresponding Talk page for discussion. So, for example, you can discuss the starfish article at Talk:Starfish, or talk about Wikipedia:Neutral point of view at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. You can switch between the normal page and the talk page by clicking the tabs at the top left.