Wikisource:Namespace usage proposal

In the interest of making our library more research friendly, there is discussion about expanding the navigational aids offered to users. Currently we have:

• Disambiguation pages ("dabs") in the main namespace
• Portal pages in the portal namespace
• Index pages in the project namespace
• Category pages in the category namespace
• Author pages in the author namespace

The idea is to simplify and expand the navigational options. Below is a summary of five classes of navigational aids, the status quo for how they are handled, and the proposals made by different users. Bold indicates a departure from the status quo:

Type	Status Quo	Spangineer	Bob Burkhardt, Charles Matthews	Cmadler	Hesperian (Commons)	Wikipedia
Works about a non-person topic	Portal	Portal	Portal	Category	Main	Portal
Works about a non-author person	Portal	Author	Main	Category	Main	Portal
Works about an author	Author	Author	Author	Author	Main	Portal
Works by an author	Author	Author	Author	Author	Main	Portal
Works about a work	Main (dabs, notes)	Main	Main	Main	Main	Portal

Spangineer (original proposal)

Type	Proposal
Works about a non-person topic	Portal
Works about a non-author person	Author
Works about an author	Author
Works by an author	Author
Works about a work	Main

Positive

• Works within existing framework with limited upheaval

Negative

• Not consistent—separates non-people from non-author people.

Bob Burkhardt, Charles Matthews

Type	Proposal
Works about a non-person topic	Portal
Works about a non-author person	Main
Works about an author	Author
Works by an author	Author
Works about a work	Main

Positive

• Intuitive: the reader will most often be sent to what he expects when he types something in to the search box

Negative

• Not clean, because of cross namespace redirects, and moving of pages from Main to Author when a work is found by that person.
• Sacrifices pages like Charles Dickens.

Cmadler

Type	Proposal
Works about a non-person topic	Category
Works about a non-author person	Category
Works about an author	Author
Works by an author	Author
Works about a work	Main

Positive

• Categories are standard navigational tools already; simply expand their use
• Easy to add a work to a category

Negative

• Limited organizational options once in a category

Hesperian (Commons)

(Move all works to new namespace, perhaps "Works")

Type	Proposal
Works about a non-person topic	Main
Works about a non-author person	Main
Works about an author	Main
Works by an author	Main
Works about a work	Main

Positive

• Logically consistent
• Matches Commons structure

Negative

• Would require massive maintenance effort

Wikipedia

Type	Proposal
Works about a non-person topic	Portal
Works about a non-author person	Portal
Works about an author	Portal
Works by an author	Portal
Works about a work	Portal

Positive

• Logically consistent
• Matches Wikipedia structure

Negative

• Would require massive maintenance effort