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MediaWiki

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MediaWiki
NameMediaWiki
CaptionThe main page of a default MediaWiki installation (version 1.35)
DeveloperWikimedia Foundation
Released25 January 2002
Programming languagePHP
Operating systemCross-platform
GenreWiki software
LicenseGPL v2+
Websitehttps://www.mediawiki.org

MediaWiki. It is a free and open-source wiki software platform, written in PHP and originally created for use on Wikipedia in 2002. Developed and maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation and a global community of volunteers, it is designed to handle the needs of large, collaborative projects. The software is highly scalable and powers thousands of websites, including all Wikimedia projects such as Wiktionary, Wikisource, and Wikivoyage, as well as many corporate and institutional knowledge bases.

History

The software was originally developed by Magnus Manske and Lee Daniel Crocker to address the performance limitations of UseModWiki, which was initially used by Wikipedia. As Wikipedia grew rapidly, the need for a more robust, database-driven solution became apparent, leading to the "Phase II" software that would later be named MediaWiki. The Wikimedia Foundation was established in 2003, and the software was officially named MediaWiki, a play on "Wikimedia." Key milestones include the adoption of a more sophisticated parser and the implementation of a robust extension system, allowing for significant customization. The development process has always been closely tied to the operational needs of Wikipedia, with major updates often driven by the requirements of the encyclopedia's vast editor community and its server farm infrastructure.

Features

MediaWiki is renowned for its powerful features that support collaborative content creation. It uses a wikitext editing syntax, though visual editing tools like VisualEditor are also available. The software includes comprehensive version control, allowing users to view the history of any page and revert changes. It supports namespaces to organize content, sophisticated template systems for reusable content, and a robust system for uploading and managing multimedia files via integration with tools like TimedText handler. Other notable features include watchlists for tracking changes, special pages for site management, and strong support for multilingual sites through the Translate extension. Its API allows for extensive automation and integration with external tools.

Software and development

Written primarily in PHP and using a relational database like MySQL or PostgreSQL for storage, MediaWiki adheres to a release cycle managed by the Wikimedia Foundation's Release Engineering team. Development is an open, collaborative process on platforms like Gerrit, with contributions from both paid Wikimedia staff and volunteers worldwide. The software's architecture is built around a core engine, with functionality vastly extended through a comprehensive extension system and skins to alter its appearance. Important auxiliary components include the Composer dependency manager and continuous integration testing via Jenkins. Security and performance are paramount, given its deployment on one of the world's top-traffic sites, Wikipedia.

Usage

While most famously powering Wikipedia and its sister projects like Wikiquote and Wikinews, MediaWiki is also widely used by organizations such as NASA, the United States Intelligence Community on Intelink, and major corporations for internal knowledge management. It is a popular choice for open-source project documentation, seen in projects like the Mozilla Foundation's MozillaWiki. Educational institutions, including many universities, use it for course wikis and research collaboration. The software's ability to handle large volumes of text and its strong permission controls make it suitable for extensive documentation projects, such as those used by the Linux Foundation and various fan wiki communities.

See also

* Wikimedia Foundation * Wikipedia * Wiki * Comparison of wiki software * Wikitext

References

Category:Free wiki software Category:Wikimedia Foundation Category:PHP software