Last modified: 2007-12-31 22:12:10 UTC
I'm pretty sure this issue has been raised before, but I couldn't find a bug for it. On MediaWiki.org, we have just had a new 'Extension:' namespace created. I entered a page 'Extension:Contents' and saved it - and the page does not exist! I looked at recent changes, and my edit is there, and clicking through takes me to the edit history for that page, with the option to restore 2 deleted edits. There used to be a page at this location _before_ the namespace was created, that was deleted. Now the edits for the new version of the page are going to the page 'Extension:Contents' in the main namespace, instead of 'Contents' in the 'Extension' namespace. In the short term, is it possible to fix this for that page on MW.org? In the longer term, this is a bug that needs fixing (a new namespace should not obscure existing content, including deleted content).
Here is the URL of the page history: http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Extension:Contents&curid=9306&action=history
the page was somehow created in the wrong namespace. i moved it here: http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Extension:Contents2
... and finally moved back to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Contents \o/
The page was originally created before the extension namespace existed (i.e. at :Extension:Contents, in the main namespace). Thanks for fixing the problem at MediaWiki.org - hopefully there aren't any other problem pages like this (although I have a vague recollection of there being one other... I'll let you know if it crops up!) However, I'm not sure the wider problem is resolved. I.e. that if a page existed in the main namespace whose name matches a new namespace prefix plus colon plus title, then effectively this page is uneditable and the content is lost. The namespace overrides the original content when viewing, but the original content overrides the new namespace when saving! I'm sure there was a bug about something similar when the Cookbook: namespace was enabled at WikiBooks, but I can't find it via the search function.
Some further points: 1) I am unable to move :Extension:Contents from my watchlist (doing so removes Extension:Contents - the old page cannot be removed). 2) I've discovered what the other page was (as it was also on my watchlist). :Extension:Skins exists in the main namespace, and will (presumably) cause the same problems as above if that page is ever created, so perhaps that could be pre-emptively fixed in the same way as above. 3) I am similarly unable to remove :Extension:Skins from my watchlist (as per point 1).
Run namespaceDupes.php on your wiki when you add namespaces.
Gah, people keep changing what these bugs describe. It's kinda annoying.
Duping to bug 10171 *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 10171 ***
