Help:Introduction

This is a general, non-technical introduction to the MediaWiki software, and its use and
functionality on Wikimedia.

MediaWiki, Wikimedia, and Wikipedia

MediaWiki
MediaWiki is the software program that runs Wikipedia [1] and other Wikimedia
projects [2], as well as other websites.
Wikimedia
Wikimedia is the overarching nonprofit foundation that coordinates all
contributions to the growing GNU FDL text base assembled by the donors using
the Wikipedia, Wiktionary and other projects managed by the foundation [3].
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the encyclopedia project that initiated the development of the
MediaWikiSoftware. For a project's description and its history see here [4] and
here [5]. There are several more or less ocial Sister projects like Wiktionary [6],
Wikibooks, [7], Wikinews [8], and Wikiquote, [9], as well as "unocial" derivates,
all of them using the MediaWiki software.
Wikimedia Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (formerly Meta-Wikimedia or MetaWikiPedia) is a wiki meant
to work alongside the main Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Meta can be
used for several Wikimedia-related purposes [10].

What is MediaWiki?
MediaWiki is the software program released under the GNU GPL that runs
Wikipedia[11] and other Wikimedia projects [12], as well as other websites. It is
developed by contributors to these projects.
MediaWiki is a WikiWiki, meaning that anyone can easily edit any article and have those
changes posted immediately. The software contains a lot of Documentation, also. If you
want to learn more about editing and other aspects of the user's point of view, you
might want to read
Help:Reader or

Help:Editor.
The name "MediaWiki" was coined by Wikipedia contributor Daniel Mayer as a play on
Wikimedia [13]. Before that, the software was known as "Wikipedia software Phase III".
The MediaWiki Project has its own subversion repository; if you're interested in the
code, you might want to read mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker.

What else can MediaWiki do?

While MediaWiki is not designed to do these things, it can be used as...
...Content Management System (CMS) software
...Forum or Bulletin Board System (BBS) software
...Groupware, Messaging, or Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
software
...a Workflow Management System (WfMS).
See m:Wiki Uses for further description and discussion of these items.

Architecture
The current MediaWiki software is built on top of an AMP environment; in this case, this
means that MediaWiki utilizes:
the Apache web server for delivering web pages,
the relational database management system MySQL as a database backend for
storing the content, and
the scripting language PHP for the application logic that glues together these
components.

System Requirements
The MediaWiki software typically runs in a LAMP environment on the i386 and SPARC
platform. (This is the primary/reference platform.) It is also possible to run the MediaWiki
software eciently under Solaris, Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and IBM i5/OS.

Software
Everything you need to run a MediaWiki server is available as Open Source Software.

Operating system: Several platforms are possible, including GNU/Linux, BSD, Sun,
Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS X and IBM System i. The software is being
developed under GNU/Linux, and the recommended environment is a GNU/Linux
distribution, also; we recommend Debian GNU/Linux, because this comes closest
to the ideals of the Wikipedia, but in this area you are free to choose.
Apache httpd, version 1.3 or 2.0 - Open Source.
MySQL daemon, version 4.x - Open Source.
PHP scripting environment, version 5 - Open Source.
MediaWiki software - Open Source.
Some web browser - lots of options are available as Open Source.

Hardware
x86 hardware architecture (Intel, AMD etc.) recommended, some other
architectures are possible (e.g. PowerPC w/ Mac OS X/ SPARC).
Memory - depending on the planned usage everything is possible starting with
about 96 MB of RAM (?); for best performance, the complete database should fit
into the RAM.
Disk space - also depending on your requirements; if you want to start a small
WikiWikiWeb on your own, a few Megabytes of disk space will be enough. If you
want to completely mirror the English Wikipedia with all images, you'll need at
least 3 Gigabytes (?)
Network Interface Card (NIC) - anything that is supported by your operating
system can be used.

Networking
The MediaWiki software can run locally on a computer without a network
connection. You might use MediaWiki this way to serve as a powerful Personal
Information Management (PIM) system.
MediaWiki can run on a Local Area Network (LAN) computer. This is useful as an
enterprise wide collaboration tool for universities or corporations.
For public access, MediaWiki must run on a computer connected to the Internet.
The computer may use a static IP address defined in a Domain Name Server (DNS)
entry or a dynamic IP address registered with a Dynamic DNS service.

Licensing

The MediaWiki software is licensed under terms of the GNU General Public
License (GPL)
The content created by the MediaWiki can be licensed under terms of the GNU
Free Documentation License, as it has been done on Wikipedia and Wiktionary,
but you are free to choose another type of licensing.
See also: Copyrights.

Feature list
You may wonder if you should use MediaWiki for your own wiki. This depends on what
kind of wiki you want to run. Wikipedia's software has many useful features that grew
out of the needs of the users and the ideas of the developers -- but features also mean
complexity. The functionality can be overwhelming, even though we try to do everything
we can to keep things easy to use. Complexity also means that there are lots of places
where you may have to customize the script for your own use.
Before you decide to use the Wikipedia script, please do take a look at other Wiki
Engines and see if one of them might meet your requirements better. For small wikis,
UseMod is always a safe bet -- it supports [[free links]] (as opposed to CamelCase) and
does not need (or support) a database. This is, of course, also a bottleneck in terms of
functionality.

Look and feel

Navigation Bar: A bar on the left or right of the screen with short-cuts
Skins: Dierent ways to present the site.
"Stub" threshold: Users can see links to articles below a certain size rendered in
a dierent color
Printable versions of articles can be generated
Auto-number headings in an article (optional)
Generate a table of contents for long articles (optional)
Automatically turn ISBNs into links to an editable list of booksellers

Multimedia and extensions

File upload feature allows the upload of graphics or sound files, see
Special:Upload. Uploaded files are listed on Recent Changes and they are also
logged on Special:Log/upload.
Mathematical formulas using LaTeX syntax: see Texvc

Automatic resizing of images using ImageMagick or libgd, simple syntax for

image captions and image alignment

Keeping track of edits

Watchlist Every page has a link "Watch this article for me". Use Special:Watchlist
to track changes on the articles you declared an interest in; watched articles are
also bolded in the Recent changes list .
User contributions in the sidebar of each user page list all articles the user has
worked on, according to the database.
Extended recent changes with dynamic collapsing of edits to the same article
and quick links to di the edit, show the article history, show the user page, show
the user talk page, or block the user (for sysops)
"Related changes": View a filtered version of Recent Changes to the pages linked
from the current page.
Side-by-side dis - the dis are shown side-by-side, and changed portions of
lines are highlighted, making it much easier to see what's what. Additionally, a di
is shown during an edit conflict so you can see exactly what you need to
reintegrate.

Structure and syntax

Editing syntax based on UseMod, with support for mixing wiki-syntax and
HTML. Only free links are supported for linking, not CamelCase (deliberate design
decision).
Namespaces allow content separation (to address the namespace, use the
[[Namespace:Page title]] syntax). Discussion pages are separate from article
pages, "meta" project pages can be separated from content pages, image pages
are used for image descriptions.
Word-extension linking: If you include a link of the form [[war]]s, or [[war]]time,
the system will automatically display it as if you had typed [[war|wars]] or
[[war|wartime]], respectively, saving some typing.
Parenthetical hiding If you include a link of the form [[kernel (mathematics)|]], the
parenthetical portion will be hidden in the link: kernel. This is useful for
disambiguating dierent meanings of a word without making linking too dicult or
cluttering up the text of articles. This also works with cropping out namespaces
when you want a cleaner-looking link: [[Wikipedia:copyrights|]] at English Wikipedia
becomes copyrights
Link to individual sections of an article, e.g. m:MediaWiki roadmap#Version 1.4

(these links may become invalid if sections are retitled or removed)

Support for subpages (link to "Foo/Bar" from "Foo" by just typing "/Bar",
"Foo/Bar" contains a backlink to "Foo"), these can be enabled or disabled by
namespace (e.g., Wikipedia currently supports subpages on discussion pages, to
make archiving easy, and on user pages, to give users space for personal pages)

Editing
Section editing Users can enable an option that allows them to edit individual
sections of an article (separated by headlines) instead of loading the entire article.
Edit toolbar (JavaScript-based) for formatting text as bold, italic etc. (fully works
in Mozilla and IE, other browsers use it to show the syntax, but cannot format text
inside the textarea because their JavaScript implementation does not support it). If
JavaScript is disabled, the toolbar is not shown.
Edit summary which is shown in "Recent changes"
Double click editing: Users can enable an option that allows them to edit articles
by double clicking them.
Edit preview (can be shown before or after edit box)
Handle edit conflicts (page being saved by a user while still being edited by
another one, then saved again)
Mark edits as minor; users can decide to hide such edits from the Recent
Changes list. Only signed in users can mark edits as minor.
.......

Discussions
Talk pages: Each user (including every anonymous user) and every article has an
associated page where messages can be left. These are separate namespaces
(see above), "Talk:" and "User talk:".
Message notification (user gets a "You have new messages" notice if someone
else has edited his user discussion page); this also works for anonymous users
Automatic signature: Just type three tildes (~) when you edit, and on saving the
page, it will be replaced with your user name and a link to your user page. If you
use four tildes, the current date will be added as well. Mainly intended for Talk
pages.
Support for emailing users through the wiki (email address not shown to the
user).

Backend

Database-driven (MySQL, and PostgreSQL currently supported)

Smart caching: rendered pages are (optionally) saved as static HTML files and
served as such unless modified; support for Squid proxies
Cookie-based account and login system, but anonymous users can also edit
pages.
All revisions of an article are stored (optionally compressed).

Permissions
Dierent rights for anonymous users, signed in users, sysops, bureaucrats and
developers.
Signed in users can:
move and rename pages
upload files
Sysops can:
protect pages from editing
delete and undelete pages
edit protected pages
ban users by IP address
ban users by username, if this option is enabled
run SQL queries on the database, if this option is enabled
"Bureaucrats" can:
create sysops
Developers (admins) can:
lock the database
run various maintenance tasks
Other permission schemes (e.g. only signed in users can edit pages) can be
configured

Search and Queries

Full text search
"Go" button allows direct viewing of a specified article's contents (tries near
match if no exact hit)
"What links here": View pages that link to the current page (backlinks)
Special report pages:
New pages: List of newly created articles
Ancient pages: Articles sorted by timestamp, ascending
List of images

List of users
Site statistics
Orphaned articles (articles that have no links pointing to them)
Orphaned images
Popular articles (articles by number of visits, works only if counters are
enabled)
Most wanted articles (non-existent articles sorted by number of links pointing
to them)
Short articles
Long articles
List of all pages by title

Misc.
Random article display function
Users can configure their timezone, which is used on all report timestamps
The attributes of many report pages (number of results etc.) can be set in the
user preferences

Structure: Orientation on the Web Site(s)

This section gives you a short introduction about the MediaWiki, Wikipedia, Wikimedia,
and associated websites - what they are, what you can find there, and why you might
want to check them out.
Wikipedia - English, [14] etc. - Great place to see what can be done with the
MediaWiki software, to learn about the conventions used in Wiki editing, and to
see lots of helpful markup samples.
September 11 Memorial Wiki, [15] - Another example of the MediaWiki software in
use.
Wikipedia database download, [16]

Project Communication - Getting in contact and keeping in touch

Most of the communication within the MediaWiki project is managed through three
channels:
Talk pages - for associated discussions about a specific page or topic;
Mailing lists - for general, asynchronous discussions, questions and answers, and
announcements,

IRC - for real time communication, especially for active developers and
contributors.

Revision History (Changelog)

Wikipedia software Phase I - UseMod software [17]. Until early 2002 it was used to
run all versions of Wikipedia. Currently it is still used for a number of language
versions, including Finnish, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian and Lower Saxon. They
are planned to be converted to MediaWiki, see m:Wikipedia software upgrade
status Wikipedia software upgrade status.
Wikipedia software Phase II - first implementation in LAMP/AMP by Magnus
Manske en:User:Magnus Manske. It was switched from UseModWiki software
("Phase I") to new software, written especially for Wikipedia using the PHP
programming language, on January 25, 2002 ("Phase II").
Wikipedia software Phase III en:Wikipedia:PHP script
On Saturday, July 20, 2002, Wikipedia moved to a new high-capacity server and
new, hopefully more ecient, software base. The new software was designed to
look and behave as similarly to the previous phase II software as possible, but a
few new features and changes should be noted:
A whole new system for uploading and using images to illustrate your
articles.
Search function now indexes 2- and 3-letter words.
New side-by-side dis of article changes.
"Floating" sidebar option for some modern web browsers.
A few minor changes to wikitext syntax (see wikipedia:How does one edit a
page)
Since anonymous users, while not having user pages, still have user
contributions pages, their IP numbers in lists like Recent Changes and Article
Histories link to their contributions.
Support for maths formulae using Wikipedia:TeX markup
Better support for auto-posting "bots"
A new static page caching system has greatly reduced system load
The database server and the page server now run on separate machines
The Phase III software is robust, and under active development. Many more
features have been, and are expected to be, added to the Phase III software,

together with bug fixes and improvements in stability. You are encouraged to
submit bug reports.
Wikipedia software Phase III = MediaWiki - based on LAMP/AMP. The name
"MediaWiki" was coined by Wikipedia contributor Daniel Mayer as a play on
Wikimedia.[18] Before that, the software was known as "Wikipedia software Phase
III"; it was replaced by what is now called MediaWiki in June 2002.

Where to go from here

If you want to setup a MediaWiki on your own, go to the Administrator's Guide.
If you want see MediaWiki live, go to Wikipedia or one of its sister sites.
If you want to learn how to use MediaWiki, go to the Help:Reader or Help:Editor.
If you want to dive right into the code, read mw:How to become a MediaWiki
hacker.