Help:MediaWiki

MediaWiki™ is the software which runs all of the communities on Wikia.

Originally created for Wikipedia, MediaWiki is an open source -based wiki engine now used to run thousands of sites. It is officially classified as a content management system.

In general, any site that uses MediaWiki as its core software engine is considered a wiki, though due to the highly specialized platform at Wikia, our communities often have many different features and designs than normal wikis. Wikia communities are currently running on MediaWiki version. No version upgrades are expected in the near future as Wikia has branched significantly from the main trunk of MediaWiki development, though Wikia continues to add features from newer versions of the software.

Features of MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a highly-developed, multi-faceted software that has grown over time to encompass a number of needs for collaborative communities. As such, its features are numerous and usually in flux, but there are some key concepts and tools that MediaWiki is best known for.


 * An interface that allows for editing of the wiki's content.
 * Tools that allow for a structured and controlled system of user rights.
 * Namespaces to help separate and prioritize content.
 * Magic words to help construct information.
 * A platform that allows for easy development of add-ons to the software, known in MediaWiki vernacular as extensions.
 * A job queue that is designed to help a wiki perform background tasks at a rate that allows for the tasks to be completed in a timely manner without adversely affecting the technical performance of the wiki.

See the MediaWiki feature list for a full list of features of this software.

Wikia & MediaWiki
While Wikia runs on the MediaWiki platform, Wikia is not responsible for the development of the core software. Bugs can be reported to Special:Contact and Wikia will try to patch them, though occasionally you may be pointed to MediaWiki's bug-reporting software, Phabricator if the bug in question is something that comes directly from a core MediaWiki file. You may also place feature requests through Phabricator.

Wikia develops extensions on the MediaWiki platform and, in the open source spirit that drives MediaWiki, offers them publicly through our GitHub repository.

However, please be aware that Wikia, due to our unique situation as having to host over 350,000 communities with a variety of topics and purposes, often optimizes MediaWiki coding for our servers. As such, copying Wikia code from our GitHub to a local installation of MediaWiki may prove to be difficult, as it will take some rewriting of the code to work on a normal local installation.

Further help and feedback
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