MediaWiki
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Provided ID could not be validated.MediaWiki is a free and open-source
wiki software platform, originally developed for Wikipedia, which now powers numerous wikis around the world. It's design philosophy emphasizes simplicity for the end-user while providing powerful tools for managing large amounts of content. It's used not just for encyclopedias but for documentation, project management, fan sites, and other scenarios where collaborative content creation is beneficial.
It is a free and open-source wiki software. It was developed for use on Wikipedia in 2002, and given the name "MediaWiki" in 2003.
It 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.
Features
Wiki engine
At its core, MediaWiki is a web-based software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. This is done through a
- wikitext/a simple markup language (Enhanced editor) or
- a rich-text editor (VisualEditor)
This makes it accessible even to those who aren't familiar with HTML.
Collaborative editing
One of MediaWiki's key features is its support for collaborative editing. Multiple users can work on the same content simultaneously. Every edit is recorded in recent changes and article history, which allows for tracking changes, reverting vandalism, or correcting mistakes through its version history feature.
Scalability
MediaWiki is designed to handle large projects with thousands of pages and users, like Wikipedia, but it's also suitable for smaller wikis. Its architecture allows it to scale from small private wikis to large public ones with heavy traffic.
Extensibility
The software can be greatly extended with extensions 
(plugins) and skins (themes). Extensions can add functionalities like enhanced search capabilities, multimedia features, or even complex data structures for specialized wikis. Skins change the look and feel of the wiki.
Semantic web capabilities
MediaWiki supports semantic annotations, which means you can tag information in ways that make it easier to query, organize, and reuse across different articles or even different wikis. This moves towards the concept of the Semantic Web, where data can be understood and processed by machines.
USApedia uses Cargo for this functionality.
User rights and management
It has a robust system for user rights management, allowing different levels of access and editing capabilities. This can range from anonymous users who can only read content, to administrators who have the power to delete pages, block users, and manage the wiki's configuration.
Multilingual support
MediaWiki supports content in multiple languages, making it ideal for international collaboration. Each wiki can have multiple language versions, or a single wiki can host content in various languages with proper interwiki links.
USApedia is currently limited to English, however plan to explore this functionality in the future.
Open source
Being open-source means that anyone can contribute to its development, report bugs, or customize it for their own needs. This has led to a large community of developers and users who contribute to its ongoing improvement.
Security
It includes features to combat spam and vandalism, like CAPTCHA, various anti-spam extensions, and the ability to lock pages from editing when necessary.
Resources
To learn more about MediaWiki, see:
- Wikipedia:MediaWiki - Wikipedia article about the MediaWiki software
- mediawikiwiki:Help:Contents - all things about the software, including the living manual
- MediaWiki testimonials
- Wikimedia - the non profit governing body that overseas the MediaWiki software
The MediaWiki software is used by tens of thousands of websites and thousands of companies and organizations .
Signpost
One of the most interesting ways of staying abreast of Wikipedia and MediaWiki is to read "The Signpost", which is like a newspaper of important topics for Wikipedia. It comes out about once a week. You'll receive an email announcement if you subscribe to the Wikimedia-I list below but you can access it on Wikipedia anytime at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost.
Useful mailing lists and wiki pages
- Wikimedia-I - Discussion list for the Wikimedia community and the larger network of organizations (Wikimedia Foundation, chapter organizations, affiliates, partners) supporting its work.
- MediaWiki-announce: This mailing list announces software releases, which often include security updates.
- An aggregation of Mediawiki-related blogs and its RSS feed
- Engineering roadmap and an archive of monthly engineering reports.
- List of Wikimedia email lists
mediawikiwiki:Mailing_lists (includes IRC channels) Wikipedia:Mailing lists
Software
MediaWiki is powered by:
Many of the Bots are written in Python
Meza
Meza is a MediaWiki administration program which enables the easy install and maintenance of MediaWiki. It is a system for "push button" Knowledge Management using MediaWiki. The name is an acronym that stands for "MediaWiki E-Z Administration". Meza is an Infrastructure as code (IaC), Ansible driven, automated and complete platform for creating, managing and hosting wiki farms.
It was developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
See https://meza.wiki/ and https://github.com/nasa/meza for more details.
Project Canasta
Project Canasta is a project, begun in late 2020 by a group of MediaWiki consultants and administrators, with the goal of creating a set of MediaWiki-based "products" that can be easily installed. A hardened version was developed by Space Force.
Related
External links
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
- Wikimedia DC
- Project:Support desk
- Working with MediaWiki - Book on MediaWiki
- MediaWiki core documentation
- Version lifecycle