Help:Special page

Namespaces
Subject namespaces Talk namespaces
0 (Main/Article) Talk 1
2 User User talk 3
4 Wikipedia Wikipedia talk 5
6 File File talk 7
8 MediaWiki MediaWiki talk 9
10 Template Template talk 11
12 Help Help talk 13
14 Category Category talk 15
100 Portal Portal talk 101
118 Draft Draft talk 119
126 MOS MOS talk 127
710 TimedText TimedText talk 711
828 Module Module talk 829
Former namespaces
108 Book Book talk 109
442 Course Course talk 443
444 Institution Institution talk 445
446 Education Program Education Program talk 447
2300 Gadget Gadget talk 2301
2302 Gadget definition Gadget definition talk 2303
2600 Topic 2601
Virtual namespaces
-1 Special
-2 Media
Current list
Special pages (maintenance) Information
Broken redirects
Dead-end pages Dead-end pages
Dormant pages Forgotten articles
Double redirects Double redirects
Lonely pages Orphaned articles
Long pages
New pages New pages patrol
New pages feed Page curation
Protected pages Protection policy
Short pages
Uncategorized pages Categorization
Uncategorized categories
Uncategorized templates
Unused categories
Unused files (images)
Unused templates
Without interwiki links
Most interwiki links
Wanted pages
Most-wanted articles
See also: Maintenance departments

Special pages are pages generated by the software on demand for special purposes, usually related to project maintenance. They are found in the Special: namespace, a virtual namespace whose pages lack corresponding talk pages. They are not written in wikitext and cannot be directly edited but elements of their pages can sometimes be edited through corresponding pages in the 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 soft redirects), and directly creating any pages beginning with the Special: prefix is also not possible.

Special pages often take parameters. 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.

A directory of special pages available for the current user can be accessed from Special:SpecialPages, which is found in the sidebar of every page on Wikipedia in the Tools section.