https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-searchoptions
The "Advanced options" section of the "Search" tab in MediaWiki currently looks like this:
Advanced options
- Search in all namespaces
Search in these namespaces by default:
- (Main)
- Talk
- User
- User talk
- Project
- Project talk
- File
- File talk
- MediaWiki
- MediaWiki talk
- Template
- Template talk
- Help
- Help talk
- Category
- Category talk
- Thread
- Thread talk
- Summary
- Summary talk
- Manual
- Manual talk
- Extension
- Extension talk
- API
- API talk
- Skin
- Skin talk
- Module
- Module talk
- Translations
- Translations talk
- VisualEditor
- VisualEditor talk ---
This list looks silly and excessive. While T39878: Rearranging the display of advanced options on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-searchoptions has requested a layout change, I think we need to reconsider how this list is implemented.
What about adding a checkbox to [[Special:Search]]'s advanced search section that looks something like this:
- Use these namespaces as my default
This would de-duplicate the namespace listing (between Special:Preferences and Special:Search) and would allow the search user preference to be set more easily from the search interface itself.
Rather than using Special:Preferences and having heavy user interface exposure, any custom search namespace preferences could be "hidden" user preferences. That is, they'll still be stored if they don't match the site-wide default, but they'll not clutter up Special:Preferences.
See Also:
T50615: Options form at the top of Special:Watchlist needs cleanup