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For the MediaWiki
namespace
on Wikipedia, see
Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace
MediaWiki
Developer(s)
Wikimedia Foundation
Tim Starling (release manager)
Initial release
25 January 2002
Stable release
1.42.3
/ October
1, 2024
18 months ago
2024-10-01
Repository
gerrit
.wikimedia
.org
/g
/mediawiki
/core
Operating system
Cross-platform
Available in
More than 350 languages
Type
Wiki
License
GPLv2
Website
mediawiki.org
MediaWiki
is the name of the
software
that runs all of the
Wikimedia
projects and
many more
. MediaWiki was released in 2002. It is a free server-based software which is licensed under the
GNU
General Public License (GPL). This means it is
free content
, or
open source
MediaWiki is designed to be run on a large
web server
farm for a website that gets millions of hits per day. MediaWiki is a very powerful, scalable software and a feature-rich wiki implementation. It uses
PHP
to process and display data stored in its
MySQL
database
. Pages use MediaWiki's
Wikitext
format, so that users without knowledge of
XHTML
or
CSS
can edit them easily.
When a user submits an edit to a page, MediaWiki writes it to the database, but without deleting the previous versions of the page, thus allowing easy reverts in case of vandalism or spamming. MediaWiki can manage image and
multimedia
files, too, which are stored in the filesystem. For large wikis with lots of users, MediaWiki supports
caching
and can be easily coupled with Squid
proxy server
software.
All Wikimedia projects run on MediaWiki version
1.46.0-wmf.24 (0f9d7d2)
Usage
change
change source
Because MediaWiki is flexible, many websites that want people to contribute information use MediaWiki rather than other types of wiki software. Those operated by
Fandom
are among them.
There are also some websites that use MediaWiki as a
content management
system.
Extensions
change
change source
In MediaWiki, a system administrator can choose to install extensions which are provided on the main MediaWiki website. Some are from the MediaWiki developers, while others are from programmers from all around the world.
The old MediaWiki logo
Most extensions can be download from Wikimedia's
Subversion
repository. However, there are some other extensions that other people host themselves.
Some extensions had been added to the main software along the development of MediaWiki.
For example, the
Makesysop
extension is an extension to promote a user into an administrator or a bureaucrat.
There were a total of 2124 extensions as of October 4, 2013.
Namespaces
change
change source
In the default installation of MediaWiki, the software has 17 namespaces
(18 actually, but one does not have a namespace), namely:
Article (No namespace, like this page)
Talk – for main namespace talk page
User – the user page, also from
Special:MyPage
User talk – the user talk page, also from
Special:MyTalk
Project – The project namespace (like on this wiki, is Wikipedia)
Project talk – The project page talk page
File – Page for images and sounds
File talk – Talk about the media
MediaWiki – Software pages, can only be changed from an administrator
MediaWiki talk – Talk about the software page, anyone can write in this namespace
Template – for templates
Template talk – talk about the template
Help – Help pages (like
Help:Contents
Help talk – talk about the help page
Category – Categorizing pages
Category talk – talk about the category
Special – Special pages of the MediaWiki software
Media – Namespace to directly link to the file
Additional namespaces can be added using the
settings file
from the installation of MediaWiki.
Bugs
change
change source
As MediaWiki is a complex software, there would always be bugs in the software, especially for new extensions. Therefore, Wikimedia has created a
Bugzilla
website for people who see a bug to tell the developers of MediaWiki.
Some extensions of MediaWiki use the
Wikimedia Bugzilla
, while some just use the talk pages of the extension page.
Skins
change
change source
The vector skin on English Wikipedia.
Users can change MediaWiki's appearance. They may use one of the several "skins". At different times different skins have been default. For example, Wikipedia once used Monobook before adopting the new Vector skin in version 1.16.
A survey done by Wikimedia showed that more people prefer the Vector skin.
More information
change
change source
More information about the software:
Main MediaWiki website
MediaWiki on Meta Wiki
MediaWiki User's Guide on Meta Wiki
PHP script FAQ
PHP script automatic wikification
(former feature)
How to become a MediaWiki hacker
(installation advice)
References
change
change source
"[MediaWiki-announce] Security Release - 1.27.1, 1.26.4, 1.23.15"
MediaWiki-announce mailing list
. Wikimedia Foundation
. Retrieved
16 September
2016
Meta wiki's version page
Sites using MediaWiki for corporations
MediaWiki's category of extensions that became part of the software
MediaWiki's Extension matrix, displaying 2000 out of
2124
members of Category:Extensions
MediaWiki help page on namespaces
MediaWiki's guide on making custom namespaces
Blog post on Wikimedia's blog about the vector skin.
Other websites
change
change source
Wikitech-L
mailing list (technical discussions regarding the development)
Sites using MediaWiki
Sourceforge: MediaWiki Project page
Now changed to
MediaWiki.org
Sourceforge: MediaWiki Bug reports
Now changed to
Wikimedia Bugzilla
Sourceforge: MediaWiki Feature requests
Now changed to Wikimedia Bugzilla
Translatewiki.net
– The place to translate MediaWiki messages.
MediWiki
-Citizendium
Retrieved from "
Categories
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Wikimedia
Websites established in 2002
Cross-platform software
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