Help:Special page: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:32, 7 March 2023

Revision as of 15:46, 18 March 2023

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{{information page|H:SP|WP:HSPEC|WP:SPEC|WP:SPECIAL}}

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'''Special pages''' are pages generated by the software on demand for special purposes, usually related to project maintenance. They are found in the <code>Special:</code> [[Wikipedia:Namespace|namespace]], a virtual namespace whose pages lack corresponding talk pages. They are not written in [[Help:Wikitext|wikitext]] and cannot be directly edited but elements of their pages can sometimes be edited through corresponding pages in the [[Help:MediaWiki namespace|MediaWiki namespace]]. If you make a normal redirect to a special page, the redirect will not be immediately followed (though special pages can be targets of [[Wikipedia:Soft redirect|soft redirect]]s), and directly creating any pages beginning with the <code>Special:</code> prefix is also not possible. The page names of special pages are case-insensitive, for example [[Special:Specialpages]] and [[Special:SPECIALPAGES]] are regarded as the same page, usually as well as special pages followed by slashes, for example [[Special:SpecialPages]] and [[Special:SpecialPages/foo]] are regarded as the same page.

Special pages often take [[parameter (computer programming)|parameter]]s. Sometimes these can be supplied after a slash (as in [[Special:Log/block]]); in other cases an index.php call is used; for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&days=3&limit=10. Also, the content of most special pages depends on preferences that have been set by the user, e.g. classic or enhanced Recent Changes, the number of titles in Recent Changes and the watchlist, etc.