User blog:Iggyvolz/Differences between wiki, mediawiki, wikipedia, wikia, etc.

I've seen these words confused so often that I've just decided to write a blog post about it. If any of this is incorrect, let me know in the comments: I hope this will help you understand. I have seen numerous wikis referred to as "some Wikia". This is just a pet peeve of mine, but it could potentially confuse people (ex. if you have your homepage at "Community Wikia" and someone links to "Community Wiki", the link will be broken and the user will be tempted to create it.) Thanks for your time, Iggyvolz (Message Wall)
 * Wiki - a general word for a website that is at least partially editable without editing the source code directly. Usually, these are mostly free for the public to edit (as is the case for Wikia).  They have different pages with text and other content in them.
 * Correct usage - Community Wiki, my Wiki
 * Mediawiki - the code that Wikia uses (although they slightly edit it). It is completely independent from Wikia (though they were both founded or co-founded by Jimmy Wales), which is why some features are independent to Wikia and others are independent to Mediawiki (mostly extensions).
 * Correct usage - the MediaWiki software
 * Wikipedia - the website that Mediawiki was originally designed for. It is a single wiki (like Community Wiki), though it is extremely large.  The upside to one large wiki is that vandalism is nearly impossible, they have almost 2,000 admins and many more users to report vandals, so any vandalism is quickly reverted.  The downside is that you can't get very specific on topics that are not too popular.  Pages like this can get confusing, because there are multiple pages with the same name.
 * Correct usage - Wikipedia, the Wikipedia Website
 * Incorrect usage - Community Wikipedia, my Wikipedia
 * Wikia - this website, running on a modified version of Mediawiki. It is a wiki farm, which means you do not have to set up Mediawiki yourself.  The upside is that you can be as specific as you want, without having to specify what project you are talking about (ex. you can make a page that says "Adam" instead of "Adam (trackers)").  The downside is that, with few admins, small wikis are completely vulnerable to attacks (especially when the Wikia staff is off).
 * Correct usage - Wikia, the Wikia website, Wikia staff
 * Incorrect usage, Community Wikia, my Wikia