MediaWiki

MediaWiki is a Wiki software package licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is a feature-rich wiki implementation written primarily for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects but is also used by many other wikis.

It is written in PHP and uses an underlying MySQL relational database management system. Its logo symbolizes how its markup language uses double brackets ("[[","]]") to link articles together. MediaWiki is capable of interfacing with other, optional programs to improve performance and capabilities. Support for memcached, the Squid cache system, and TeX math rendering are all available in the current version. An extension and hook system allows users to add their own features and program interfaces.

History

MediaWiki was originally written for Wikipedia by the German student and developer Magnus Manske. The site previously used UseModWiki (aka by Wikipedians as "Phase I"), which used Perl, then switched to PHP with a new version ("Phase II") on January 25, 2002. The day is known within the Wikipedia community as Magnus Manske Day.

In mid-2002 the software was further rewritten and improved version ("Phase III"), and has been incrementally developed from this code base since.

Starting in mid-2003, the previously unnamed program was named "MediaWiki" and regular public releases began to be made with non-Wikipedia users in mind. The name was chosen as a play on Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's parent organization which was being formally established around this time. The name is, however, occasionally criticised for its similarity to "Wikimedia", which leads to confusion among people new to the project.

Version 1.4

MediaWiki 1.4 was released on March 20, 2005. Lead developer is now Brion Vibber. For version 1.4 the code has been cleaned up a bit, so that certain tasks are performed in half the time. The interface language can now be chosen by the user, making other language projects more accessible.

There is also an improvement on the amount of hard disk storage used. Since MediaWiki 1.4 gzip is used to store text, which results in compression to about 15% of the original. MediaWiki 1.4 also supports "block-compressed revisions", which combines multiple revisions before compressing. This results in a greater space savings.

Version 1.5

MediaWiki 1.5 is the current stable version, released on October 5, 2005. It continues the architectural changes started in version 1.4. Its most notable change is a substantially redesigned database schema, which finally completely decouples text storage from article revision tracking. This is expected to increase the speed of various operations like page moves and generating page history listings, as well as allowing unchanging bulk data to be stored outside the database.

Notable features

• Namespaces
• Watchlists
• Templates

See also

• GetWiki: a fork.
• List of content management systems
• Comparison of content management systems

External links

• MediaWiki official homepage
• Download and project page on SourceForge
• MediaWiki on the Meta-Wiki, Wikimedia's meta website.
  • User's guide
  • Sites using MediaWiki