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Since when Wikipedia's engine is 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)

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)

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)[reply]

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)

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)

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

Acegikmo1 22:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

Irrelevant to MediaWiki itself. 86.134.91.73 03:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

So I mentioned it. --Teratornis 20:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

I install MediaWiki on my Windows 2003 Server with PHP 5.15 and MySQL 4.1 and it seem to work just fine.

But I'm unable to login. Most of the times I can't get the login screen, then after several reloads of the page I get it, then I try to login and yet again get nothing but a blank screen.

Someone please help?

Shortly after that, I couldn't even load in the whole main page, I just get the contents, no surroundings like the logotype or navigation or anything. See my MediaWiki at www.towelday.kojv.net/wiki

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

No. The rate of vandalism is quite low, and semi-protection is not warranted. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]