MediaWiki

MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software platform, written in PHP and originally for use on Wikipedia. It is now also used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis, both public and private. MediaWiki is designed to allow large server farms to serve millions of requests per day. It is an extremely powerful, scalable software and a feature-rich wiki implementation that uses a database to process and store all content.

Features

MediaWiki offers a wide range of features, including multilingual support, content categorization, and a robust permission system. It supports wikitext for content formatting, allowing users to edit pages without needing to know HTML. MediaWiki's architecture allows for extensions, enabling administrators to add features and functionalities specific to their needs. The software also includes built-in caching mechanisms to enhance performance, user management capabilities, and a customizable skin system.

History

MediaWiki was originally developed to serve the needs of Wikipedia, which was launched in 2001. As Wikipedia grew, the need for a more scalable and efficient software became apparent. MediaWiki was created in 2002 by Magnus Manske and improved upon by Lee Daniel Crocker. Its design focuses on high-volume traffic and a vast amount of content, making it one of the most efficient wiki platforms available.

Extensions

One of the strengths of MediaWiki is its extensible nature, which allows developers to create extensions that add new features or modify existing ones. There are extensions for semantic web capabilities, visual editing (VisualEditor), spam prevention, and more. These extensions make MediaWiki adaptable to the needs of different users and communities.

Deployment

MediaWiki is used worldwide by various organizations, including educational institutions, companies, and private individuals. It is particularly popular among open-source and research communities for its flexibility and reliability. Deploying MediaWiki requires a web server with PHP support and a database, such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.

See Also

• Wikipedia
• Wikimedia Foundation
• Wiki software
• PHP
• Database

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