MediaWiki - Wikipedia

MediaWiki - Wikipedia Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Key features Toggle Key features subsection 1.1 Internationalization and localization 1.2 Installation and configuration 1.3 Markup 1.4 Editing interface 1.5 Application programming interface 1.6 Tracking edits 1.7 Navigation 1.7.1 Wikilinks 1.7.2 Interwiki links 1.7.3 Interlanguage links 1.8 Content organization 1.8.1 Page tabs and associated pages 1.8.2 Namespaces 1.8.3 Category tags 1.8.4 Subpages 1.9 Customization 1.10 Templates 1.11 Groups and restriction of access 1.12 Extensibility 2 Extensions Toggle Extensions subsection 2.1 Text manipulation 2.2 Lua extension 2.3 For footnotes and academic-related display 2.4 Integration 2.5 Combating linkspam 2.6 Searches and queries 2.7 Rich content 3 Database 4 Performance and storage 5 Limitations 6 Security Toggle Security subsection 6.1 Incidents 7 Support 8 License 9 Development 10 History 11 Sites using MediaWiki 12 Comparison to other online collaboration software 13 See also 14 Further reading 15 References 16 External links Toggle the table of contents MediaWiki 115 languages Afrikaans Alemannisch Aragonés العربية الدارجة مصرى অসমীয়া Asturianu Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه Boarisch Беларуская (тарашкевіца) Беларуская Български বাংলা Brezhoneg Bosanski Català 閩東語 / Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄ Нохчийн کوردی Čeština Kaszëbsczi Чӑвашла Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Esperanto Español Eesti Euskara فارسی Fulfulde Suomi Français Frysk Gaeilge Galego Bahasa Hulontalo Hausa 客家語 / Hak-kâ-ngî עברית हिन्दी Hrvatski Magyar Հայերեն Interlingua Bahasa Indonesia Igbo ГӀалгӀай Íslenska Italiano 日本語 ქართული Қазақша ភាសាខ្មែរ ಕನ್ನಡ 한국어 کٲشُر Kurdî Latina Lëtzebuergesch Limburgs Lietuvių Latviešu Malagasy Македонски മലയാളം ဘာသာမန် मराठी Bahasa Melayu Malti नेपाली Nederlands Norsk nynorsk Norsk bokmål Occitan ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski پښتو Português Română Русский Sicilianu Scots سنڌي Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски සිංහල Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Shqip Српски / srpski Sesotho Svenska தமிழ் తెలుగు Тоҷикӣ ไทย Tagalog Türkçe Українська اردو Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча Vèneto Tiếng Việt Winaray 吴语 ייִדיש Yorùbá ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ⵜⴰⵏⴰⵡⴰⵢⵜ 文言閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gí 粵語中文 Edit links Article Talk English Read View source View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read View source View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Switch to legacy parser Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Abstract Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons MediaWiki Meta-Wiki Wikibooks Wikiquote Wikiversity Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Free and open-source wiki software Not to be confused with the Wikimedia Foundation or other names containing "Wikimedia". This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "MediaWiki" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) {{cite mailing list|mailing-list=mediawiki-announce|url=https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-announce/2019-December/000242.html|title=Announcing MediaWiki 1.34.0|date=December 19, 2019|access-date=December 19, 2019|first=Sam|last=Reed|archive-date=December 19, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191219203840/https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-announce/2019-December/000242.html|url-status=live}}</ref>"},"operating system":{"wt":"[[Windows]], [[macOS]], [[Linux]], [[FreeBSD]], [[OpenBSD]], [[Solaris (operating system)|Solaris]]"},"platform":{"wt":""},"size":{"wt":"79.05 [[Byte#Multiple-byte units|MiB]] (compressed)"},"language count":{"wt":"459<ref>{{cite web |title=Names.php {{*}} mediawiki |url=https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/blob/33440f23c6deab2c1fab0a9ca7ead30d64a3ea2e/languages/data/Names.php |website=github.com |date=April 8, 2021 |access-date=May 19, 2021 |url-status=live |archive-date=July 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715001937/https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/blob/33440f23c6deab2c1fab0a9ca7ead30d64a3ea2e/languages/data/Names.php }}</ref>"},"language footnote":{"wt":""},"genre":{"wt":"[[Wiki software]]"},"license":{"wt":"[[GNU General Public License|GPLv2+]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Copyright|title=Copyright|work=mediawiki.org|access-date=September 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919145522/https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Copyright|archive-date=September 19, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>"},"website":{"wt":"{{Official URL}}"},"standard":{"wt":""},"AsOf":{"wt":""},"bodystyle":{"wt":"width:323px"}},"i":0}}]}'>MediaWiki Show dark mode logo Show light mode logo Screenshot The Main Page of the English Wikipedia running an alpha version of MediaWiki 1.40 Original authors Magnus Manske Lee Daniel Crocker Developer Wikimedia Foundation Release January 25, 2002; 24 years ago (2002-01-25) Stable release 1.46.0[1] Written in PHP[2] Operating system Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris Size 79.05 MiB (compressed) Available in 459[3] languages Type Wiki software License GPLv2+[4] Website www.mediawiki.org Repository gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/core/ MediaWiki is wiki software written in PHP, initially released in 2002 for its use by Wikipedia. It powers several wiki hosting websites across the Internet, as well as most websites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage,[5] Meta-Wiki and Wikidata, which define a large part of the set requirements for the software.[6] Besides its usage on Wikimedia sites, MediaWiki has been used as a knowledge management and content management system on websites such as Fandom, wikiHow and major internal installations like Intellipedia and Diplopedia. MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language and stores all text content into a database. The software is optimized to efficiently handle large projects, which can have terabytes of content and hundreds of thousands of views per second.[6][7] Because Wikipedia is one of the world's largest and most visited websites, achieving scalability through multiple layers of caching and database replication has been a major concern for developers. Another major aspect of MediaWiki is its internationalization; its interface is available in more than 400 languages.[8] The software has hundreds of configuration settings[9] and more than 1,000 extensions available for enabling various features to be added or changed.[10] It was originally developed by Magnus Manske and later further enhanced by Lee Daniel Crocker,[11][12] after which development has been coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Key features MediaWiki provides a rich core feature set and a mechanism to attach extensions to provide additional functionality. Internationalization and localization Niklas Laxström explains the features that allowed translatewiki.net to provide MediaWiki with more than 400 locales. Due to the strong emphasis on multilingualism in the Wikimedia projects, internationalization and localization has received significant attention by developers. The user interface has been fully or partially translated into more than 400 languages on translatewiki.net,[8] and can be further customized by site administrators (the entire interface is editable through the wiki).[citation needed] MediaWiki handles user-facing interface text through system messages, which can be customized for different languages and locales.[13] For broader multilingual support, the MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle provides a curated set of extensions for adding language-related features to MediaWiki installations.[14] Several extensions, most notably those collected in the MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle, are designed to further enhance the multilingualism and internationalization of MediaWiki.[citation needed] Installation and configuration "Special pages" redirects here. For Wikipedia's special page index, see Special:SpecialPages. Installation of MediaWiki requires that the user have administrative privileges on a server running both PHP and a compatible type of SQL database. Some users find that setting up a virtual host is helpful if the majority of one's site runs under a framework (such as Zope or Ruby on Rails) that is largely incompatible with MediaWiki.[15] Cloud hosting can eliminate the need to deploy a new server.[16] An installation PHP script is accessed via a web browser to initialize the wiki's settings. It prompts the user for a minimal set of required parameters, leaving further changes, such as enabling uploads,[17] adding a site logo,[18] and installing extensions, to be made by modifying configuration settings contained in a file called LocalSettings.php.[19] Some aspects of MediaWiki can be configured through special pages or by editing certain pages; for instance, abuse filters can be configured through a special page,[20] and certain gadgets can be added by creating JavaScript pages in the MediaWiki namespace.[21] The MediaWiki community publishes a comprehensive installation guide.[22] Markup One of the earliest differences between MediaWiki (and its predecessor, UseModWiki) and other wiki engines was the use of "free links" instead of CamelCase. When MediaWiki was created, it was typical for wikis to require text like "WorldWideWeb" to create a link to a page about the World Wide Web; links in MediaWiki, on the other hand, are created by surrounding words with double square brackets, and any spaces between them are left intact, e.g. [[World Wide Web]]. This change was logical for the purpose of creating an encyclopedia, where accuracy in titles is important.[citation needed] MediaWiki uses an extensible[23] lightweight wiki markup designed to be easier to use and learn than HTML. Tools exist for converting content such as tables between MediaWiki markup and HTML.[24] Efforts have been made to create a MediaWiki markup spec, but a consensus seems to have been reached that Wikicode requires context-sensitive grammar rules.[25][26] The following side-by-side comparison illustrates the differences between wiki markup and HTML: MediaWiki syntax (the "behind the scenes" code used to add formatting to text) HTML equivalent (another type of "behind the scenes" code used to add formatting to text) Rendered output (seen onscreen by a site viewer) ====A dialogue==== "Take some more [[tea]]," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone: "so I can't take more." "You mean you can't take ''less''," said the Hatter: "it's '''very''' easy to take ''more'' than nothing." A dialogue</h4>\n\n\"Take some more <a href=\"/wiki/Tea\" title=\"Tea\">tea</a>,\" the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. \n\"I've had nothing yet,\" Alice replied in an offended tone: \"so I can't take more.\" \n\"You mean you can't take less,\" said the Hatter: \"it's very easy to take more than nothing.\""}}'…