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This wiki is organized via a hierarchy of namespaces, and its breadcrumbs are set to allow navigation according to that hierarchy. Since the wiki is still being built, it seems best, for consistency's sake, to lay out some principles by which topics should be categorized, so that - with any luck - they don't have to be rearranged later.
First: top-level namespaces referring to a category of things within the world will be given a singular name. The plural 'sessions' is an exception here, partly because it was created before I came up with the rule, but partly also because the RP sessions themselves were written in an IRC channel, they're not technically within the world, just depicting its events. So there.
Second: each intelligent species native to Avishraa, or (like the Extrinsics) otherwise important to the setting, will get its own top-level namespace, since those species are the ones most likely to warrant their own hierarchies of topics; while there will also be a 'species' namespace, this is intended mainly for non-sophonts, like plants and animals, or for any sophonts that may show up in the RP but aren't native to Avishraa. It may be possible, if a sophont species becomes important, to promote it to its own namespace, though ideally this should be a rare event.
Third: The arrangement of topics should be a question of effective structuring of the namespace hierarchy as much as philosophical rigor; I'm trying to simultaneously avoid the situations of 'too many namespaces at a given level, that are more specific than they need to be', 'too many levels of namespace in a hierarchy', 'namespaces whose names don't accurately convey their contents', and 'namespaces whose contents don't belong together'.
The current plan for the hierarchical organization of the wiki is as follows:
- amberworld: any and all topics and other works related to the ITW/Amberworld continuity.
- concept: namespace for topics that aren't really tangible, but more like general ideas important to the setting.
- culture: namespace for sociocultural constructs: ideas, beliefs, identities, memes, and collections thereof.
- ethnicity: namespace for groups with an identity based on common traditions and experiences and a perception of being significantly alike.
- mythology: namespace for mythological traditions and systems of belief, as well as the religions, cults, and sects based on them.
- philosophy: namespace for ways of thinking about the universe, where considered as distinct from any mythological tradition or belief system that may have influenced them.
- extrinsic: sophont species, sort of. Something of a cross between a living concept and a cosmic force.
- item: namespace for particular items or classes of item.
- text: namespace for texts that exist within the setting, whether or not the text is known.
- language: namespace for languages, and language families, found in the setting.
- literature: storage for stories about the setting.
- meta: namespace for topics about the wiki itself. Like this page!
- orghysh: sophont species. Stone Age hunter-gatherers residing in grasslands.
- person: namespace for individuals, whether player characters, NPCs, or just known figures.
- place: namespace for locales of any scale. This includes other worlds, asteroids, star systems, galaxies, planes of existence, a particular clearing in a forest.
- avishraa: namespace for the world of Avishraa itself. Any further hierarchy beneath this will deal with Avishraan geography and locations.
- sessions: storage for roleplaying sessions in the worldbuilding and Thuban continuities.
- species: for species that are non-sophont, non-native, or otherwise non-important.
- takma: sophont species. Overall most numerous and advanced species, but environmentally inflexible.
- templates: storage for wiki-formatting templates.
- thuban: any and all topics and works related to the Thuban continuity.
- xtauh: sophont species. Smaller in size and number than the closely related takmar, but can survive in a wider range of conditions.
Things yet to be decided on:
- Since territorial control is essentially a conjunction of geography and politics, there's ambiguity in how to handle things like geopolitical units. Should they be treated as geographic-regions-with-political-info, or should as political-units-with-geographic-info? Seems especially relevant for very localized units, like cities and other settlements, where the two can be closely intertwined. (Could create two separate articles, one for geography and one for the government/people controlling it, but that just sounds gross and confusing.)