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Revision as of 20:53, 5 September 2024
MediaWiki is a free and open-source
wiki software platform, originally developed for Wikipedia, which now powers numerous wikis around the world. It's design philosophy emphasizes simplicity for the end-user while providing powerful tools for managing large amounts of content. It's used not just for encyclopedias but for documentation, project management, fan sites, and other scenarios where collaborative content creation is beneficial.
Features
Wiki engine
At its core, MediaWiki is a web-based software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. This is done through a
- wikitext/a simple markup language (Enhanced editor) or
- a rich-text editor (VisualEditor)
This makes it accessible even to those who aren't familiar with HTML.
Collaborative editing
One of MediaWiki's key features is its support for collaborative editing. Multiple users can work on the same content simultaneously. Every edit is recorded in recent changes and article history, which allows for tracking changes, reverting vandalism, or correcting mistakes through its version history feature.
Scalability
MediaWiki is designed to handle large projects with thousands of pages and users, like Wikipedia, but it's also suitable for smaller wikis. Its architecture allows it to scale from small private wikis to large public ones with heavy traffic.
Extensibility
The software can be greatly extended with extensions 
(plugins) and skins (themes). Extensions can add functionalities like enhanced search capabilities, multimedia features, or even complex data structures for specialized wikis. Skins change the look and feel of the wiki.
Semantic web capabilities
MediaWiki supports semantic annotations, which means you can tag information in ways that make it easier to query, organize, and reuse across different articles or even different wikis. This moves towards the concept of the Semantic Web, where data can be understood and processed by machines.
Saintapedia uses Cargo for this functionality.
User rights and management
It has a robust system for user rights management, allowing different levels of access and editing capabilities. This can range from anonymous users who can only read content, to administrators who have the power to delete pages, block users, and manage the wiki's configuration.
Multilingual support
MediaWiki supports content in multiple languages, making it ideal for international collaboration. Each wiki can have multiple language versions, or a single wiki can host content in various languages with proper interwiki links.
Saintapedia is currently limited to English, however plan to explore this functionality in the future.
Open source
Being open-source means that anyone can contribute to its development, report bugs, or customize it for their own needs. This has led to a large community of developers and users who contribute to its ongoing improvement.
Security
It includes features to combat spam and vandalism, like CAPTCHA, various anti-spam extensions, and the ability to lock pages from editing when necessary.