MediaWiki

MediaWiki

MediaWiki (/ˈmiːdiəˌwɪki/; from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") is a free and open-source wiki software. It was developed for use on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Etymology

The term "MediaWiki" is a combination of "media" and "wiki". The word "media" is derived from the Latin word medius, meaning "middle", while "wiki" is a Hawaiian word that means "quick". The combination of these two words signifies the software's purpose: to facilitate quick and easy sharing of information through media.

Features

MediaWiki is written in PHP and uses a database management system to store all content, metadata, and history. The software is optimized to efficiently handle large projects, which can have terabytes of content and hundreds of thousands of hits per second.

MediaWiki includes a standard API that allows other software and web services to interact with it. It also has a robust user interface that includes features like a visual editor, a WYSIWYG editor, and a markup editor.

Related Terms

• Wiki software: A type of software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. MediaWiki is a type of wiki software.
• Wikipedia: A free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It is one of the most well-known uses of MediaWiki.
• Wikimedia Foundation: The non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other free-knowledge projects. They also maintain the MediaWiki software.
• PHP: A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development. MediaWiki is written in PHP.
• Database management system: Software that handles the storage, retrieval, and updating of data in a computer system. MediaWiki uses a database management system to store all its data.
• Web API: A set of rules and protocols for building and interacting with software applications. MediaWiki includes a standard API.
• User interface: The space where interactions between humans and machines occur. MediaWiki has a robust user interface.
• WYSIWYG: An acronym for "what you see is what you get". It refers to a type of user interface that allows the user to see the end-result while the document is being created. MediaWiki includes a WYSIWYG editor.
• Markup language: A system for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. MediaWiki uses a markup language for its editor.

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