finiki:Do we need drafts namespace?
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Draft articles are those under development that are yet ready for inclusion in the main article space of finiki. To the outside reader, they don't exist as Google doesn't index the user namespace, meaning most readers will not find them. Anyone may search and view drafts on the wiki directly using the wiki's built-in search engine: simply choose "Advanced", and select additional namespaces.
Current practice
The current practice on finiki for developing draft or possible or major re-works is for an editor to create a draft in their User pages, typically on a subpage. If the template {{possible article}} is used, it signals to other editors whether you want to work alone or let others join in. For the most part this has been a reasonable approach and there has been good collaborative editing. The downside is draft articles are spread across a number of places, which can make it difficult for editors to find them.
Follow Wikipedia's lead?
A while back I remember reading of an initiative on Wikipedia to address some of these issues. I would suggest you read Drafts to understand what they've done. We have the same MediaWiki technology, so it is possible to follow Wikipedia's example, yet again, and implement a new "Drafts" namespace.
To be continued ...