Last modified: 2014-01-27 19:14:50 UTC
As part of reorganizing the Grants: namespace on metawiki, we have moved all pages out of the Participation: namespace on metawiki to Grants: namespace. Currently, the Participation: namespace includes only redirects to old page. Based on the community discussion which can be found at (https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta:Babel&oldid=6752207#Organizing_the_Grants:_namespace) could you please remove Participation: (ns:204) and Participation talk: (ns:205) namespaces, and move all current pages (redirects) to the main namespace ns:0. Thanks you.
Good URLs don't die, Completely nuking Participation: will kill those redirects (unless you are planning to make fake Participation: ones in the main NS…). How about leaving those redirects and NS in place and just protecting the whole NS so only sysops or Crats' can edit them?
In fact, the main point of nuking Participation: is to reduce the number of unused namespaces on meta. Freezing it doesn't serve this goal. On the other hand, if it's possible to keep "Participation:" as a prefix to all the current redirect page names when migrated to ns:0, this would be ideal.
It is technically possible, but also generally inadvisable, to fake namespace names for pages inside NS 0. I have no opinion on whether it might or might not be worth keeping the redirects in Participation:; are those pages popular?
Yes, the redirects are widely used on meta and other places, as they used to be (until very recently) the main pages for Travel & Participation Support grants before moving them to Grants:/TPS. Keeping those redirects is a must.
Well, I can see three different solutions to this problem: * [1] Burninate the namespace with fire and lose the redirects; * [2] Move the contents into namespace 0 and keep ugly–as–sin redirects there; * [3] Keep things as they are now, don't worry about "the number of unused namespaces on Meta", and close this bug as RESOLVED INVALID. Pick your favourite :-)
I'm torn between [2] & [3]. I was more inclined to see [2] happening based on the community proposal, but I still see that [3] is more sound. Let's go with [3] for now, and I will reopen this bug if any community members requested removing the namespace again.
