Talk:MediaWiki

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Contents

[edit] Name

Since when is Wikipedia's engine named MediaWiki? The article is confusing, saying that MediaWiki was written, and then it was renamed to MediaWiki...--Chealer 08:43, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

[edit] What is MediaWiki?

I read the article and still don't get a clear definition of what is MediaWiki and how it is related to the Wiki project. What is it? Is it the software behind Wikipedia and other Wikis? Is it a special type of program for special types of Wikis? I think the article lacks a clear summary definition on its first paragraph. Evallejr

Yes, MediaWiki is the software the is behind all of the Wikimedia Organization's projects. This includes Wikipedia, Wikisource, Commons, everything. It is also available to anyone who wishes to use it for their own personal website. Jediarchives11 03:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I too was confused about what, exactly, MediaWiki was until I read this discussion page. IMHO Jediarchives11's above comment or something very similar should be one of the first sentences of the article

[edit] CMS

MediaWiki is a content management system (CMS). Anyone who feels otherwise with conviction, please explain how MediaWiki is not a CMS. Thanks. --Roger Chrisman 00:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 100% speedup?!

So something that took a finite amount of time before is now done instantly?

WikianJim 00:00, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

100% speedup means that it runs twice as fast. Speed is increased by 100%. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:37, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Mathematics. Where x is the original speed, and P is the speedup in decimals (99% = .99, 23% = .23, 100% = 1, 500% = 5), x + Px = the current speed. Ambush Commander 23:43, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Correct, but the original quote was '100% speedup, hence x+P

No, it's x + xP. x is the speed, in units of time, and P is a value between 0.00 and 1.00 that scales x. You can't add together units of time and a scaler value as in x+P. So if it took 2 seconds before, at 50% speedup: 2 + (0.5) * 2 = 2 + 1 = 3 seconds. It has increased in speed ("sped up"), by a value that is 50% of the original time. Using 100% as P effectively doubles the new time using this wording. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.94.0.149 (talk) 09:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Section editing: MediaWiki or Wikipedia?

A feature of Wikipedia is the ability to edit a section of an article, without having to open the entire article for editing.

Is this a feature of MediaWiki, or is it specific for Wikipedia?

Its a feature of MediaWiki. 83.100.168.41 13:14, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] links

why are all the links to users and wikipedia: space external links? something about avoiding self-references? i was going to change them, but maybe not... - Omegatron 18:41, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

They are external links so they will still link to the actual pages when people reuse the content. Your user page is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Omegatron. Your user page is not at http://lamemirror.example.com/encyclopedia/User:Omegatron. The content may be there, but it is only a copy and not your Wikipedia user page. Likewise, our policy pages are on en.wikipedia.org, not whatever random mirror hasn't bothered to remove the project namespace. -- Cyrius|✎ 28 June 2005 12:24 (UTC)

[edit] Ramifications of English Wikipedia switching to UTF-8?

Now that Wikipedia has upgraded to MediaWiki 1.5 β1 and the English site's character encoding has switched from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8, do numeric character references have a place in English Wikipedia articles anymore? What is or will be the policy on this? —Tokek 28 June 2005 06:09 (UTC)

Use them if you like, don't if you don't. The software doesn't enforce "policies" like this. :)
Note that the vast majority of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites have been running on UTF-8 for years, this one was one of the few laggards. --Brion July 5, 2005 05:10 (UTC)

[edit] MonoBook

Should this article say something about when the MonoBook skin was introduced? Or is that unrelated?

Acegikmo1 22:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree there should be some information about Monobook. I suspect most users don't know about the added features this provides and even fewer about who wrote the skin and when. Antonrojo 15:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ETA?

Does anyone know how close we are to a stable version of MediaWiki 1.5 and when it will be released for public use? A week? Less? I bought a website to start a wiki and I thought that 1.5 was close enough that it wouldn't be worth it to start with 1.4 then upgrade. So if someone could give me an estimated date when 1.5 stable is released I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks. Jediarchives11 02:50, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Article now says it was released 5 Oct 05 Tedernst 21:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History?

Was the first media wiki software based on usemod? The markup here is more or less the same as what cliff wrote and is still using. I know the language is different, but shouldn't the article mention the history if it's true? Tedernst 21:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course, User:Magnus Manske's MediaWiki is derived from Clifford Adams's UseModWiki (for his 1991-1999 Usenet Moderation Project = Usemod), which in turn is derived from AtisWiki, which is derived from CVWiki and finally from the WikiEngine of the WikiWikiWeb (WardsOriginalWikiEngine). It should be mentioned.

MediaWiki as named refers to what we call "phase3" of the software, which was the original SQL-backed script from Magnus Manske, rewritten by Lee Daniel Crocker some time later, and then extensively modified following on from that. Before MediaWiki, Wikipedia used UseMod, then an altered version, before this software was written for it. It's fair to state that some initial markup was borrowed from other wikis, although not all of the current markup is, and that some ideas were taken too. Rob Church (talk) 03:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record, that's not quite the way I remember it. Magnus's code was usually just called "the PHP script" for most of its use. When I did the rewrite, I basically used nearly all of Magnus's interface design but none of his internal code structure and almost none of his code (plus I added some major features like the image system, email, and such)--this was just called "the new codebase". Magnus was, of course, among the many contributors to my codebase as well. It was only well after my codebase was installed that the "phaseII" and "phaseIII" names came into use, and "phaseIII" was never used to refer to Magnus's code, only mine. The name "Mediawiki" came even later. I know, for example, that I created the "phase3" directory in CVS long after my codebase was the one in use. Magnus, Brion, and some others may have better memories than I on some of these issues--it's been a long time. --LDC 21:08, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1.5 Performance

Does 1.5 actually deliver the expected performance benefits? How about a future 1.6? GreenReaper 05:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Which version does Wikipedia use?

Do MediaWiki Wikimedia sites always use the latest release? So, 1.6.4 as of now? ··gracefool |☺ 02:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia web sites use a version of the software which is not too far (between 12 and 48 hours, for the most part, although some changes go live with immediate effect) from the current version in SVN trunk. Special:Version lists the exact repo. revision number which is live. Rob Church (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No discussion of pros / cons ?

That's unusual.flux.books 13:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I must agree. I took one look at this (and I once took a colledge course in computer programming) and was completly boggled. And I thought COBOL was over complicated simplification! -- Jason Palpatine 22:33, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A gentle introduction to wiki markup and the community etc?

I was able to find general markup helps w/o much fuss in the past, so I didn't care to think this article would need it. would someone mind adding a "lifecycle in the eyes of a wikipedian" type section? (and choose a better title if you can). Oh, and after that's all started yank this discussion topic :)

thanks! Supaplex 05:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Rather agree. Williamborg (Bill) 06:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Version run by WikiMedia

Shouldn't it be documented that WikiMedia is running version 1.7 of MediaWiki? FPL 17:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant to MediaWiki itself. 86.134.91.73 03:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Besides, the particular version information will change frequently on all the Wikimedia Foundation wikis. However, it is a feature of MediaWiki that every MediaWiki wiki has a Special:Version page which shows the version running on that wiki. Rather than try to record what version was running on every MediaWiki wiki on some particular date, we could tell the reader how to find out what version is running on the wiki of his or her interest. It might not hurt to mention that, perhaps at the bottom of, or in a subsection under, MediaWiki#Release history. --Teratornis 19:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
So I mentioned it. --Teratornis 20:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing interface picture

The picture of the editing interface of v.1.7 is unsuitable because it shows the interface of an administrator, and most users are not administrators. --Schzmo 23:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] article has a significant gap

There's no mention of how WM is set up and runs administratively. Is there a board and/or a manager? Are there employees, or is it entirely voluntary labour that maintains it? How has its relationship with WP evolved?

The section might be entitled "Administration". Tony 05:17, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for information about the Wikimedia Foundation, check its article. MediaWiki is about the software, rather than the organization which publishes it. I think Wikimedia Foundation addresses your questions, or at least points the way to finding the answers. The MediaWiki article says: The name (MediaWiki) has frequently caused confusion due to its intentional similarity to the "Wikimedia" name (which itself is similar to "Wikipedia"). --Teratornis 19:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Version 1.9

Version 1.9's release date was 2007-01-10. I added an entry to the table for it in MediaWiki#Release history. However, I am not aware of all the key features in the new release. I mentioned one I know about. I can revisit the table as I learn more, but hopefully, other knowledgeable users will contribute. --Teratornis 20:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Added some details there. Titoxd(?!?) 22:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need for semi-protection?

MediaWiki recently had minor vandalism by 81.77.181.250 and 59.144.70.54. Is it time to semi-protect this page? --Teratornis 20:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

No. The rate of vandalism is quite low, and semi-protection is not warranted. Titoxd(?!?) 22:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Titoxd. Semi-protection is rather drastic and although this is a fairly high visibility article, minor vandalism which is quickly reverted (since it is so visible it will be even more quickly reverted than usual with some many people having this article on their watchlist and in general looking out for it) isn't enough justification to do such. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "free software"

The term is not ambiguous. The general name for software of no cost in English is freeware. The term "free software" has been in use for well over a decade now, and is the preferred term for GPL-licensed software.

In particular, MediaWiki's own website currently uses the term "free software". I've changed this back. Chris Cunningham 10:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Unambiguous for you and for me? True. For some less technical than us, no. Open source, if they don't know what it means, they could just click a link and be informed. The term is preferred by the Free Software Foundation, but not by business. Free can mean gratis (zero cost) or liberated (libre). English unfortunately uses the same term. If I give a computer user an executable, non-pirated, with use and redistribution restrictions, but don't charge him or her for it, 99% of the time he or she will say it is "free software". Open source gets around the ambiguity of the word "free" (a shortcoming of English). Even "open source" might not be a perfect term (could be interpreted as open to viewing but not change), but it is the best we've got. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 22:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Another alternative might be FOSS. It's quite widely used and unambigious in my opinion, though Wikipedia currently just redirects the term. CiaranG 22:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Some merging of that article and reorganization is likely called for. Merge "free software" and "open source" and that article into one and use redirects perhaps? Perhaps all the different licenses should all be merged into the article on software licensing. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not intended to cater to the lowest common denominator. Free software and open source have separate articles because they represent different things. Both terms are meaningless to uninformed parties, making the ambiguity point irrelevant. Chris Cunningham 00:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia version

Wikipedia is currently running "1.10alpha (r19669)", surprising to see alpha code in production. A mention of this perhaps should be in the article, since any version running Wikipedia is certainly notable. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 23:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Because MediaWiki is essentially developed in response to demands from Wikimedia projects, Wikipedia (and the other projects) always run the alpha code. Changes go live a few days after they're committed. "Release" versions of MediaWiki are released every quarter (1.7, 1.8, 1.9 etc.), with bugfix updates (1.8.1, 1.8.2 etc.) following on from those; non-Wikimedia sites use these versions. This, among other things, means that Wikipedia doesn't have to wait for anything up to three months for new features to be implemented, they can be rushed in in a couple of weeks if necessary (e.g. the cascading protection that was recently added) – Qxz 14:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Can mere mortals get that code and run it? If so, it should be mentioned. If I want to run a wiki, especially a small or a test one, I am quite likely to say "if it is good enough for Wikipedia it is good enough for me". Any showstopper bugs will go away fast, since any bug that crashes or seriously degrades Wikipedia will result in a new version or Wikipedia rolling back ASAP. Plus having users that are willing run the alpha code helps testing and can possibly find a bug before Wikipedia is badly hurt. I'd run it if/when I have a wiki. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 19:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN - You can grab the files yourself from the SVN Server Reedy Boy 20:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you can get and run the latest code yourself. Note also that there is a test wiki – http://test.wikipedia.org/. This is updated to the latest version before it's applied across all Wikimedia project, so the developers can test things there; I imagine most of them have their own private MediaWiki installations too. (So don't worry, new code doesn't 'go live' without testing!) – Qxz 20:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Features list subheadings

Far too many of these, they're uglifying TOC. We should remove most sub-headings, short paragraphs don't necessarily need headers to be distinguished.

The namespaces section is huge? Must we list all of Mediawiki's namespaces? Are these even fixed? Chris Cunningham 13:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The namespaces listed there are fixed, though extra custom namespaces can be added (Wikipedia has the Portal namespace, for example, which is a custom one). I agree the table isn't really necessary. I recommend renaming "Key features" to "Features", stripping out all those sub-headers and possibly re-organizing it into two or three larger sub-sections if there's too much to fit in one sub-section – Qxz 06:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On Portal:Free software, MediaWiki is currently the selected article

(2007-04-03) Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was OpenSolaris. Gronky 18:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The selected article box has been updated again, MediaWiki has been superceded by WorldWideWeb (the first web-browser). Gronky 07:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Confusing about Free link

The article mentions "free links" instead of CamelCase. But when I click on "free links", I come to the article CamelCase, which doesn't mention Free links at all! OlavN 08:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a remark on the talk page of that article. Shinobu 10:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WTF? MediaWiki is not a rapper...

Someone (check the history for the IP) is changing this article to... hell, I don't even know. If there's a way I can revert this, I have no idea how, so could someone else deal with it? Personally I suggest warning/banning the IP, but that goes without saying I would think.

I've reverted it. Reedy Boy 14:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is meant by "language family" here?

the Wikimedia project and language family

Does this bit of the article mean "Wikipedia in all its languages" or something similar? If so, it should be rephrased, because it's really unclear like this. Shinobu 10:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Version histories

I don't know that a Wikipedia article is the place to have the details of version histories (this). I don't want to just flat out remove it, but I believe that an external link to MediaWiki's release history page would be more suitable.-Ljlego 23:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Download Link

Shouldn't the link to download MediaWiki should be one from the official site? It just seems safer and more conveniant that way.. --WhereIsTheCite? 05:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree; I've changed the link. Korg (talk) 17:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add section?

Maybe someone can add a section with popular wikis that run MediaWiki, if there isn't already one.

CalD (talk) 09:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for expansion

Hiya, could someone who knows the subject, please expand the lead to indicate when the software was created? I saw that there's a "2002" category on the article, but there doesn't seem to be any other information in the article that indicates date of origin. Thanks, Elonka 09:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I first put my codebase into CVS in May of 2002. That was after working on it privately for a few weeks, so it's safe to say I started coding sometime around April 2002. --LDC (talk) 03:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dustin Lathrop

I am... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenspeed (talk • contribs) 21:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] From other wikis

Is there any page about how to change from a wiki engine to MediaWiki (preserving the database)?. If not, one would create a wiki page about this How-To. Thanks in advance. --Nopetro (talk) 10:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

italia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.49.215.180 (talk) 11:06, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] There Are Manuals for MediaWiki now

There is a book on MediaWiki now:

"MediaWiki Administrator's Guide: Tutorial Guide", by Mizanur Rahman, ISBN: 9781904811-59-6

There is also a book on Wikipedia.org that is very applicable to MediaWiki in general:

"Wikipedia: The Missing Manual", by John Broughton, ISBN-10: 0-596-51516-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-596-51516-4

I would like to make a motion to include these two books on the article's page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.40.128 (talk) 04:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)