"A good book! It's a nice overview of wiki editing and administration, with pointers to handy extensions and further online documentation." -Brion Vibber, Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation

"This book is filled with practical knowledge based on experience. It's not just spouting some party line." -Rob Church, a developer of MediaWiki

MediaWiki is the world's most popular wiki platform, the software that runs Wikipedia and thousands of other websites. Though it appears simple to use at first glance, MediaWiki has extraordinarily powerful and deep capabilities for managing and organizing knowledge. In corporate environments, MediaWiki can transform the way teams write and collaborate.

This comprehensive book covers MediaWiki's rich (and sometimes subtle) features, helping you become a wiki expert in no time. You'll learn how to:

Find your way around by effective searching and browsing Create and edit articles, categories, and user preferences Use advanced features for authors, such as templates, dynamic lists, logical parser functions, and RSS, to organize and maintain large numbers of articles Install and run your own wiki, and configure its look and behavior Develop custom wiki features, called extensions, with the PHP programming language and MySQL database

This book also provides special guidance for creating successful corporate wikis. For beginners who want to create or work on collaborative, community-driven websites with this platform, MediaWiki is the essential one-stop guide.

"I was a MediaWiki newbie before reading this book. Now, many aspects of the platform that were murky before are crystal clear." -JP Vossen, author of O'Reilly's Bash Cookbook

Daniel J. Barrett has been immersed in Internet technology since 1985. Currently working as a software engineer, Dan has also been a heavy metal singer, Unix system administrator, university lecturer, web designer, and humorist. He is the author of O'Reilly's Linux Pocket Guide, and he is the coauthor of Linux Security Cookbook, and SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide.

Preface;
Who Should Read This Book?;
Roadmap;
Conventions Used in This Book;
Using Code Examples;
Safari® Books Online;
How to Contact Us;
Acknowledgments;
Getting Started;
Chapter 1: A First Look;
1.1 What's MediaWiki? MediaWiki;
1.2 A Typical Day on a MediaWiki Site;
1.3 When to Use MediaWiki MediaWiki strengths;
1.4 When Not to Use MediaWiki MediaWiki limitations;
1.5 Additional Resources help;
Chapter 2: Basic Use;
2.1 Quick Tour of a Wiki Page;
2.2 Articles articles;
2.3 Editing Primer editing;
2.4 Menu Reference menus menus by name;
2.5 Getting Help help;
Chapter 3: Your User Identity;
3.1 Creating an Account creating accounts users creating;
3.2 Logging In and Out logging in;
3.3 User Pages user page;
3.4 Signatures signatures users signatures;
3.5 Watchlists watchlist;
3.6 Tracking Your Contributions contributions;
3.7 Preferences preferences;
3.8 User CSS and JavaScript user JavaScript JavaScript user CSS cascading stylesheets cascading stylesheets per user JavaScript per user;
Writing and Editing Articles;
Chapter 4: Editing Articles;
4.1 Getting Started with Editing editing introduction to;
4.2 Creating an Article articles creating creating articles;
4.3 Paragraphs and Headings paragraphs wikitext paragraphs;
4.4 Typestyles and Fonts wikitext fonts wikitext typestyles typestyles fonts;
4.5 Links (Briefly) links;
4.6 Images and Uploaded Files uploaded files;
4.7 Lists lists wikitext lists;
4.8 Tables tables wikitext wikitext tables;
4.9 Mathematical Formulas mathematical formulas wikitext math;
4.10 Escaping Wikitext with escaping wikitext nowiki tag wikitext nowiki wikitext escaping;
4.11 Conflicts conflicts;
4.12 Beyond the Basics;
Chapter 5: Links;
5.1 Internal Links internal links;
5.2 External Links external links;
5.3 Interwiki Links interwiki links;
5.4 Interlanguage Links interlanguage links;
5.5 Graphical Links graphical links image links; image tags;
5.6 File Links file links;
5.7 Linking Tips links strategies;
Chapter 6: Organizing Articles;
6.1 Categories categories;
6.2 Namespaces namespaces;
6.3 Subpages subpages;
6.4 Redirects redirects;
6.5 Disambiguation Pages;
6.6 Renaming Articles renaming articles articles renaming;
6.7 Deleting Articles articles deleting deleting articles removing an article;
Chapter 7: Advanced Article Construction;
7.1 Maintaining a Consistent Wiki organizing articles articles organizing;
7.2 Variables variables individual variable names;
7.3 Templates and Transclusion templates transclusion transclusion templates templates parser functions; transclusion;
7.4 Logical Parser Functions parser functions logical logical parser functions;
7.5 Dynamic Page List Dynamic Page List extensions Dynamic Page List;
7.6 Recipes for Refactoring refactoring techniques;
Chapter 8: Special Pages;
8.1 Maintenance Reports;
8.2 List of Pages;
8.3 Login/Sign Up logging in;
8.4 Users and Rights user rights special pages;
8.5 Recent Changes and Logs recent changes logs;
8.6 Media Reports and Uploads uploaded files special pages;
8.7 Wiki Data and Tools;
8.8 Redirects and Random Pages;
8.9 High-Use Pages high use pages articles highly active;
8.10 Page Tools;
8.11 Other Special Pages;
8.12 Special Pages Grouped by Task special pages reference, grouped by task;
Running and Administering MediaWiki;
Chapter 9: Installing MediaWiki;
9.1 Before You Begin;
9.2 Installing the Prerequisites;
9.3 Installing MediaWiki installing MediaWiki MediaWiki installing;
9.4 Important Optional Features installing MediaWiki optional features;
9.5 A Tour of MediaWiki's Files source code list of files files in MediaWiki source code directories in MediaWiki source code;
9.6 Maintaining the Code source code maintenance;
Chapter 10: Practical Wiki Design;
10.1 Adopting MediaWiki MediaWiki limitations;
10.2 Planning installing MediaWiki planning;
10.3 Establishing Standards standards;
10.4 Governance governance who's in charge ownership of content;
10.5 Integrating with Other Websites;
Chapter 11: Configuring MediaWiki: An Overview;
11.1 Administrative Roles;
11.2 Advanced Page Constructs;
11.3 Special Pages for Sysops and Bureaucrats special pages restricted;
11.4 System Messages system messages;
11.5 Cascading Stylesheets cascading stylesheets;
11.6 JavaScript JavaScript programming JavaScript system-wide;
11.7 Configuration Settings configuration settings settings by name, wg... global variables PHP global variables;
11.8 Extensions extensions;
11.9 Skinning skins;
11.10 SQL Programming SQL programming database SQL;
11.11 Maintenance Scripts maintenance scripts;
Chapter 12: Controlling Wiki Features;
12.1 Users users configuring;
12.2 User Rights and Permissions user rights access control user rights;
12.3 Article Content articles configuration settings;
12.4 Configuring the Editing of Articles edit page configuring;
12.5 Maintaining Articles;
12.6 Configuring Namespaces namespaces configuring;
12.7 File Uploads uploaded files configuring;
12.8 Search search configuring;
12.9 Special Page List special pages list of all reordering;
12.10 Database Configuration database configuration;
12.11 Email Configuration;
12.12 JavaScript Configuration JavaScript configuring;
12.13 Logging and Debugging logging debugging;
Chapter 13: Changing Appearances;
13.1 The Basics;
13.2 Menus menus configuring;
13.3 Search Box search box configuring;
13.4 Tables of Contents table of contents configuring;
13.5 External Link Appearance external links configuring external links icon;
13.6 Page Credits articles credits page credits credits article authors;
13.7 Overall Look and Feel;
13.8 International Support international support language configuring;
Chapter 14: Installing Extensions;
14.1 Obtaining Extensions extensions finding;
14.2 Installing an Extension extensions installing;
14.3 Recommended Extensions extensions recommended;
Chapter 15: Creating Extensions;
15.1 Overview of Extension Types;
15.2 Creating a Variable extensions creating variables variables creating;
15.3 Creating a Parser Function extensions creating parser functions parser functions creating;
15.4 Creating a Tag Extension extensions creating tag extensions tags creating extensions Hello World tag;
15.5 Behavior Changes behavior changes extensions creating behavior changes;
15.6 Creating a Special Page special pages creating extensions creating special pages;
15.7 Useful Tasks for Extension Writers;
15.8 Creating a Skin extensions creating skins skins creating;
15.9 Publishing an Extension extensions publishing;
15.10 Other Extension Topics;
15.11 Finding a MediaWiki Programmer extensions hiring a programmer;
Chapter 16: Wiki Administration;
16.1 Maintenance Scripts maintenance scripts scripts by name scripts maintenance scripts;
16.2 Backups backups;
16.3 Upgrades MediaWiki upgrading upgrading MediaWiki;
16.4 Read-Only Wiki read-only wiki write-protected wiki;
16.5 Performance and Scaling MediaWiki performance MediaWiki scaling;
16.6 Security security MediaWiki security;
16.7 Vandalism Vandalism spam;
16.8 Common Maintenance Tasks;
16.9 For More Information;
Colophon;