Help:Glossary

For a list of abbreviations, see Help:Abbreviations.

This is a glossary of terms used on Fandom and wikis in general, based on the Wikipedia glossary.

A

Admin

Also used: sysop.

Short for Administrator. A user with extra technical privileges who does housework such as deleting and reverting pages and blocking vandals.

Adoption

The process of a user requesting administration rights for a community with no active administrator.

See also: Help:Adopting a community

Anchor

An HTML term for code that lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page.

Anon Notice

Also used: anonnotice.

A feature that can be used in tandem with a wiki's Site Notice, allowing admins to differentiate provide separate wiki-level notifications to users who haven't logged in, by having content in a wiki's MediaWiki:Anonnotice page that differs from the MediaWiki:Sitenotice page.

See also: Help:Site notice.

B

Background image

The background image is a customization option available to wikis via ThemeDesigner, allowing for an image to either cover the full body of the wiki (behind the header and article space), or a smaller image to be placed at the top (see header image).

See also: Help:ThemeDesigner

Blanking

Removing all content from a page. Newcomers often do this accidentally. On the other hand, if blanking an article is done in bad faith, it is vandalism. If blanking is done to a vandalized brand-new page, it is maintenance, and the page should be deleted by an admin.

Block

The act of removing the ability to edit from a certain user or IP address on a single community, usually done by an administrator against users or IP addresses causing vandalism.

Boilerplate text

A standard message which can be added to an article using a template.

Broken link

Also used: edit link, red link.

A link to a nonexistent page, usually colored red. List of such links can be found on Special:WantedPages.

Broken redirect

Redirect to a non-existent page. These are listed at Special:BrokenRedirects and should usually be removed or edited to point to an existing page.

Bureaucrat

A user who has additional technical abilities such as promoting and demoting other other users to/from the positions of rollback (i.e. admins and content moderators) and promoting them to another bureaucrat. However, they cannot remove the bureaucratic rights of another user with the same status, though they can remove their own. Sometimes simply called "bcrat" or "crat".

C

CC-BY-SA

The Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License is the license under which most of the content on Fandom is published.

See also: Help:Licensing

Content Team Member (CTM)

Former name of Wiki Specialists.

Contributor

Someone that makes useful edits to a Fandom project.

Copyvio

Copyright violation.

See also: Help:Licensing

CSS

Short for Cascading Style Sheets, a type of style sheet that allows a user to customize their wiki with unique designs, layouts, and fonts.

See also: Help:CSS and JS customization

Cut and paste move

Moving a page by taking the text of the page, and copying it into the edit window for a second page. Generally considered worse than the 'move page' option, because it causes the page and its edit history to be in different places. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators.

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Fixing cut-and-paste moves

D

dab

See Disambiguation.

Data dump

To import material from outside sources into Fandom without editing, formatting and linking. This is often not useful and generally discouraged.

See Wikify

Dead-end page

Page that has no links to existing other pages, except perhaps interlanguage links. Special:Deadendpages lists them.

De-admin

See De-sysop.

De-sysop

Also used: de-admin.

To take away someone's administrator status. Demotion. Local bureaucrats and Fandom Staff have the ability to do this.

De-wikify

Also used: un-wikify.

To remove (de-link) a wikification of an article. This can be done to remove selflinks or excessive common-noun Wikification.

Diff

The difference between two versions of a page, as displayed using the Page history feature, or from recent changes. The versions to compare are encoded in the URL, so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a specific change to an article.

See also: #History

Dirty diff

When a diff contains unexpected changes to the wikitext markup, unrelated to the user's input.

This may occur when pasting rich-text, or when the VisualEditor alters formatting.

Disambiguation

Also used: dab, disambig.

The process of resolving the conflict that occurs when articles about two or more different topics have the same natural title.

See also: Wikipedia:Disambiguation

Disambiguation page

A page that contains various meanings of a word, and points to the pages where the various meanings are defined.

Discussions

A social space feature where community members can have conversations about a variety of topics.

See also: Help:Discussions

Double redirect

A redirect which leads to another redirect. Counter-intuitively, this will not bring one to the final destination, so it needs to be eliminated by linking directly to the final target page. These can be found using Special:DoubleRedirects.

Dup

Short for a duplicate article. Often used when identifying a duplicate page that needs to be merged with another.

E

Edit conflict

Two or more parties both attempt to save different edits to the same page at the same time. Usually, if this happens, you will be asked to re-do your edit into a newly modified page.

See also: Wikipedia:Help:Edit conflicts

Edit link

See Broken link

Edit summary

The contents of the "Edit Summary" field in the 2010 Source Editor; similar to the "describe what you changed" field in the 2017 Editor (on both visual and source modes).

Edit war

Also used: revert war.

Two or more parties repeatedly making their preferred changes to a page, and undoing the changes they do not agree with. An edit war should be stopped, and the disagreement resolved on a talk page/message wall.

EmbedVideo

An extension that allows editors to embed video content from 24 popular services on wiki pages.

See also: Help:EmbedVideo

External link

Also used: ext. ln, ext lk, or extlink.

A link to a website outside of Fandom. The alternatives are an internal link within the same community site, and an interwiki link to a different community. External links have a special arrow symbol appended to the end of the link to warn the reader that the link points to something outside the Fandom domain, like so.

F

FandomDesktop

FandomDesktop is the new design of the user interface for Fandom wikis (including formerly Gamepedia wikis) and Wikia.org wikis.

See also: Help:FandomDesktop

FandomMobile

FandomMobile is the mobile web experience now available to Fandom wikis by default.

See also: Help:FandomMobile

G

GPL

GNU General Public License. MediaWiki, the software that powers Fandom, is released under this license.

Guideline

A guideline is a recommended best practice for doing something on a wiki, usually having to do with page creation or layout, but can be about almost anything (language use, images, signatures, templates, etc.). It usually is less strictly enforced than a policy.

H

Header image

The header is an option of background image that can be added to a wiki, covering only the top area of it (behind the site logo, the navigation menu, and the tooltips).

See also: Help:ThemeDesigner

History

Also called: page history

All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state.

See also: Help:Page history

I

Internal link

Also used: wikilink

A link pointing to another page within the same site created (in the source editor) by using the wikitext markup double square-brackets "[[" and "]]". These links usually show up as blue if they are working, and red if they are broken. Note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.

Infobox

An infobox is a standard template used on mainspace pages. Infoboxes have "fields", with each field denoting a different piece of information based on parameters set in the template. An example is that for a television show, episode pages may rely on an infobox specifically for episodes, and will include information such as name, episode number, season, and director.

See also: Help:Infoboxes

Interwiki link

A link to a different community's site on Fandom. Usually links a word or name to a page covering the topic in depth on another site. Also seen at the bottom of pages when the page is available in different languages.

See also: Help:Interwiki links

IP address

An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g. computer, printer, phone) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing.

L

Language link

See Interwiki link.

Legacy platform

A term commonly used to refer to the platform used by Fandom wikis prior to the rollout of the UCP.

See Unified Community Platform.

M

Mainspace

The primary namespace. Pages in "Main" space have no prefix (like Template: or File:) and are considered the content of the wiki (as opposed to the pages that make the wiki work or how it appears).

MediaWiki

The software that powers Fandom, and a namespace. Originally developed for Wikipedia, and now one of the most frequently used platforms for hosting wikis.

See also: Help:MediaWiki

"MediaWiki" is also the namespace for messages that allow customization of the interface of a wiki.

See also: Help:System messages

Merge

Taking the text of two pages, and combining them into a single page. Also used for the combination of two community sites.

Mirror

A website other than Fandom that uses content original to Fandom as a source for at least some of its content. This is allowed under CC-BY-SA, provided that attribution is intact.

Moderator

A user who has special rights over management of a certain type of content. The most common types are Content Moderators (manage wiki content like pages and files) and Discussions Moderators (manage mobile Discussion threads and users). See Special:ListGroupRights for the rights and types of moderators.

N

Namespace

A way to classify pages. Fandom has namespaces for the main content, pages about the project (which on many wikis will be in the main namespace), user pages (User:), file pages (File:), special pages (Special:), MediaWiki pages (MediaWiki:) and talk pages (Talk:, Wikipedia talk:, and User talk:), and more. Searching can be done by namespace.

See also: Help:Namespaces

See also: Help:Searching#Advanced search

Navbox

A navigation box used on mainspace articles that allows the user to quickly navigate from one page to another. Most often put at the bottom of an article.

See example: Wikipedia:Navigation templates

NPOV

"Neutral Point of View", or the agreement to report subjective opinions objectively, so as not to cause edit wars between opposing sides. As a verb, to remove biased statements or slanted phrasing. As an adjective, it indicates that an article fits this idea of neutrality. Commonly used at Wikipedia, where NPOV is a primary policy, it is also a local policy on many Fandom communities.

See also: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

Null edit

A null edit occurs when an editor opens the edit window of a document then re-saves the page without having made any text changes. This is sometimes done as a lazy way to purge – such as to update the functioning of templates (which require articles containing them to be edited for any changes to take effect). Moreover, a null edit can more quickly populate the page into a new category. The term also applies to making a slight, non-substantive change (e.g. removing an unneeded blank line or adding one) to get the article history to register a change, for the purpose of leaving an edit summary that responds to a previous one.

O

Orphan

A page with no links from other pages. You can view lists of orphaned articles, uncategorized categories, and unused images.

P

Piped link

A link where the displayed text is not the name of the target article. Such links are created (in the source editor) using the pipe character "|" e.g. [[Target article|Displayed text]]. The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for you in certain circumstances.

See also: Wikipedia:Piped link

Policy

A policy is a wiki rule, usually having to do with page creation or layout, but can be about almost anything (images, user conduct, signatures, templates, etc.). It is usually strictly enforced and tends to have stronger consequences than not following a guideline.

POV

Point of view. Often used negatively as an adjective to indicate bias, as in "That reply was POV, not neutral".

See also: Wikipedia:Describing points of view

Project namespace

The project namespace is a namespace dedicated to providing information about a wiki. At Wikipedia, this is used to separate policies from encyclopedia articles. It is less commonly used at Fandom.

Protected page

A page that cannot be edited by all users. A page can be protected against anonymous users and new accounts, or against all users except admins. Often this is done to protect against frequent vandalism or to cool down an edit war.

R

RC

An abbreviation for Special:RecentChanges

Redirect

Also used: redir.

A page which sends the reader to another page. This is used for synonyms, plurals (thieves -> thief), alternate spellings, and ease of linking.

See also: Help:Redirects

Red link

See Broken link

References

Also used: ref.

References are external sources used to confirm information. A link can become a reference by placing the <ref></ref> tags around it. A list of references can be added to the page by adding <references/> under the appropriate header.

See also: Help:Cite

Revert

An edit that reverses unwanted changes made by someone else.

See also: Help:Reverting

Revert war

See Edit war

RfA

Requests for Adminship. A page where users can ask to be made admins on a community.

rm

Remove. Used as an abbreviation in edit summaries to indicate that a particular piece of text or formatting has been deleted.

Rollback

To revert a page back to the version before the last edit. Bureaucrats, Admins, Content Moderators, and those with the "rollback" rights have special tools to do this quickly and easily. Note that rollback does not provide an edit summary like undo.

Root

The top level category of the category tree.

rv

Revert. Used as an abbreviation in edit summaries indicating that the page has been reverted to a previous version, often because of vandalism.

See also: Help:Reverting

S

Sandbox

A sandbox is a page that allows users to edit it however they want. This is for users to experiment and gain familiarity with Wiki markup.

Section editing

You may edit a section of a large wiki page by using the 'edit' links to the right of the subheadings, or by right-clicking on the subheading if you have "Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles" selected in your preferences. Javascript is needed for section editing.

Self-link

A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, e.g. linking Help:Contents in the article "Help:Contents". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.

Site Notice

Also used: sitenotice.

A feature that allows admins to provide wiki-level notifications to all users by editing a wiki's MediaWiki:Sitenotice page.

See also: Help:Site notice.

Skin

The site's overall layout and appearance. All wikis currently display in the FandomDesktop skin by default. Customization of the colors and other details can be made in a personal CSS file, or, as an admin, by using Special:ThemeDesigner.

See also: Help:Theme Designer

SOAP

Spam Obliteration and Prevention. SOAP is a group of Fandom users who have volunteered to help keep Fandom vandal and spam free. You may report spam and vandalism on the SOAP Wiki.

See also: SOAP

Sockpuppet

Also used: sock, alt

Another user account created secretly by an existing user of the site, often to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument, or to avoid a block.

See also: Wikipedia:Sock puppetry

Soft redirect

A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g., it is a cross-wiki redirect).

sp

Used as an abbreviation in edit summaries for spelling correction.

Split

Separating a single page into two or more pages.

Stub

An article usually consisting of one short paragraph or less. It can also be an article that may contain a certain amount of information, but one or more sections are incomplete. In short terms, a stub is an incomplete article. A {{stub}} template is often added to mark the content and invite others to add to the page.

Sub-stub

A very short stub. For example, an article that is no more than a simple definition ("An airplane is a type of winged flying vehicle").

Subpage

A page connected to a parent page. You can only create subpages in certain namespaces. For example, a parent page can have the name "Parent article", and a subpage can have the name "Child page" with a slash (/) before it, so the subpage would actually be called "Parent article/Child page" and the link would be [[Parent article/Child page]].

Sysop

See Admin.

T

Talk page

A page reserved for discussion. Many pages within Fandom (except talk pages themselves) have talk pages attached to them, though some communities use article comments on article pages, which replace talk pages. Each type of talk page is a unique namespace. You may NOT delete or edit messages on talk pages, even if they are on your own user account page or your own messages sent to another user, unless they are spam or vandalism.

See also: Help:Talk pages

Template

A way of automatically including the contents of one page within another page, used for boilerplate text, navigational aids, infoboxes, etc. Templates on Community Central can be used on any other Fandom wiki (see Help:Shared templates for details).

See also: Wikipedia:Template namespace

Test case

A test case page is one that is a subpage of a template where the parameters of the template are tested. It is sometimes used in conjunction with a sandbox. The common subpage name for these pages is /testcases.

See also: Wikipedia:Template sandbox and test cases

Troll

A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling), with intent to interrupt or derail. For example, a troll might vandalize a few articles in a wiki, and then eventually get blocked.

See also: Wikipedia:Internet troll

Tyop

A misspelling of "typo". Used ironically as an edit summary when correcting typos.

U

Unified Community Platform (UCP)

A new wiki platform housing all Fandom and Gamepedia wikis under the same underlying technology. UCP wikis are running on MediaWiki 1.33.

See also: Help:Unified Community Platform.

Un-wiki

Going against the basic concept of a wiki. Usually saying that something is un-wiki means that it makes editing more difficult or impossible. For example, an administrator or two would create a large amount of rules for editing, or just protect most, if not all pages to prevent edits from most users.

User

A contributor to a Fandom project.

Userboxes

A small colored box which allows users to add small messages on their user page. Most people use this to share facts about themselves, such as their interests, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. Some userboxes can also have images.

For more information about userboxes, check out the userbox template on Templates Wiki.

User page

A personal page for editors at Fandom. Most people use their page to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used to communicate with other users via the Message Wall or user talk page.

See also: Help:Profiles

V

Vandalbot

A kind of bot being used for vandalism or spamming. Recognizable by the fact that one or a few IP-addresses make many similar clearly vandalistic edits in a short time.

See also: MetaWikipedia:Vandalbot

Vandalism

Deliberate defacement of pages on a community with the intent to be disruptive. This can be by deleting text or publishing nonsense, bad language, etc. The term is often incorrectly used to discredit the views of an opponent in edit wars.

VisualEditor

An editor feature that provides an interface that reflects how articles will look when published.

See also: Help:VisualEditor

VSTF

Former name of SOAP.

W

Watchlist

A set of pages selected by the user, who can then click on My watchlist to see recent changes to those pages.

See also: Help:Watchlist

Wikibreak

Also used: Wikivacation.

When a regular editor of a wiki takes a break from the project.

See also: MetaWikipedia:Wikibreak

Wikify

To format using wiki markup (as opposed to plain text or HTML) and add internal links to material, integrating it into the wiki. Noun: Wikification. Sometimes abbreviated wfy.

Wikilink

A link to another page on the same Fandom community, as opposed to an external link.

Wiki markup

Also used: wiki text, wikitext.

Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example '''bold''' instead of <b>bold</b>. It is the source code stored in the database and shown in the editor in source mode. Searching by the MediaWiki software is done in the wikitext, as opposed to searching by Google, which is done in the visible text. The size of a page is the size of the wikitext.

See also: Help:Editing

Wikimedia

Properly Wikimedia Foundation Inc., the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and other projects. Wikimedia is not affiliated with Fandom. The name is often confused with MediaWiki.

Wikipedia

A project run by Wikimedia to create a free content encyclopedia using wiki software.

Wiki Specialist

Contractor responsible for ensuring that the latest and best content is up on communities as soon as information is available.

See also: Help:Wiki Specialists

Wikistress

Personal stress or tension induced by editing wikis, or more often by being involved in a conflict with another editor.

See also: MetaWikipedia:Wikistress

Wiki-wide

Something that affects a whole wiki like customization edits in the MediaWiki: namespace or changes in Theme Designer or Wiki Features.

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