Mediawiki
Mediawiki
Mediawiki (/ˈmiːdiəˌwiːki/) is a free and open-source wiki software package written in PHP. It was originally created for Wikipedia by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.
Etymology
The term "Mediawiki" is a combination of "media" and "wiki". The word "media" is derived from the Latin word "medius" which means "middle". The term "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian phrase, "wiki wiki," which means "quick" or "fast".
History
Mediawiki was first released in 2002. It was developed to serve the needs of the Wikipedia project, which had been experiencing difficulties with its previous software, UseModWiki. Since then, Mediawiki has been adopted by many other projects and organizations, including the Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, and Wikibooks.
Features
Mediawiki includes a range of features designed to help users create and manage wiki content. These include:
- Wikitext: A markup language that allows users to format text, create links, and add other elements to their pages.
- Templates: Predefined pieces of code that can be included in multiple pages, allowing for consistent formatting and structure.
- Categories: A system for organizing pages based on their content.
- Special pages: Pages that provide administrative functions, such as user management and site configuration.
Extensions
In addition to its core features, Mediawiki supports a variety of extensions that add new functionality or modify existing features. Some of the most popular extensions include:
- VisualEditor: A WYSIWYG editor that allows users to edit pages without needing to learn wikitext.
- Semantic Mediawiki: An extension that allows for the storage and querying of structured data within wiki pages.
- Translate: An extension that facilitates the translation of wiki content into multiple languages.
See Also
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