Help:Introduction

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This is a general, non-technical introduction to the WikiMedia software.

Contents

MediaWiki, Wikimedia, and Wikipedia

MediaWiki 
MediaWiki is the software program that runs Wikipedia [1] and other Wikimedia projects [2].
Wikimedia 
Wikimedia is the over-arching 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 official Sister projects like Wiktionary [6], Wikibooks, [7], Wikinews [8], and Wikiquote, [9], as well as "unofficial" 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]. 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

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

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:

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 efficiently under SUN, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X.

Software

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

Hardware

Networking

Licensing

See also: Copyrights.

Feature list

You may wonder if you should use m: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

Multimedia and extensions

Keeping track of edits

Structure and syntax

Editing

Discussions

Backend

Permissions

Search and Queries

Misc.

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.

Project Communication - Getting in contact and keeping in touch

Most of the communication within the MediaWiki project is managed through three channels:

Revision History (Changelog)

On Saturday, July 20, 2002, Wikipedia moved to a new high-capacity server and new, hopefully more efficient, 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 diffs 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 Recentchanges 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.

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