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This is a general, non-technical introduction to the WikiMedia software.
=== MediaWiki, Wikimedia, and Wikipedia ===
; ''MediaWiki'' : MediaWiki is the software program that runs Wikipedia [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia] and other Wikimedia projects [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia].
; ''Wikimedia'' : Wikimedia is the over-arching nonprofit foundation that coordinates all contributions to the growing GNU FDL text base assembled by the donors using the Wikipedia, Wiktionary and other projects managed by the foundation [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia].
; ''Wikipedia'' : Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia project, that initiated the development of the MediaWikiSoftware. For a project's description and its history see here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_basic_information] and here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia]. There are several more or less official Sister projects like Wiktionary [http://wiktionary.org/], Wikibooks, [http://wikibooks.org/], Wikinews [http://wikinews.org], and Wikiquote, [http://wikiquote.org/], as well as "unofficial" derivates, all of them using the MediaWiki software.
; ''Wikimedia Meta-Wiki'' : Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (formerly Meta-Wikimedia or MetaWikiPedia) is a wiki meant to work alongside the main Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Meta can be used for several Wikimedia-related purposes [http://meta.wikipedia.org/].
=== What is MediaWiki? ===
'''MediaWiki''' is the software program released under the GNU GPL that runs '''Wikipedia'''[http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia] and other Wikimedia projects [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia]. It is developed by contributors to these projects.
MediaWiki is a [[w:en:WikiWiki|WikiWiki]], meaning that anyone can easily edit any article and have those changes posted immediately. The software contains a lot of [[Help:Contents|Documentation]], also. If you want to learn more about editing and other aspects of the user's point of view, you might want to read
* [[Help:Reader]] or
* [[Help:Editor]].
The name "MediaWiki" was coined by Wikipedia contributor Daniel Mayer as a play on Wikimedia [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-July/010966.html]. Before that, the software was known as "Wikipedia software Phase III".
The MediaWiki Project has its own [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/ subversion repository]; if you're interested in the code, you might want to read
* [[Help:Hacker]].
=== What else can MediaWiki do? ===
'''While MediaWiki is not designed to do these things, it can be used as...'''
'''...Content Management System (CMS) software'''
'''...Forum or Bulletin Board System (BBS) software'''
'''...Groupware, Messaging, or Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) software'''
'''...a Workflow Management System (WfMS)'''.
See [[m:Wiki Uses]] for further description and discussion of these items.
== Architecture ==
The current MediaWiki software is built on top of an ''AMP'' environment; in this case, this means that MediaWiki utilizes:
* the [[w:en:Apache HTTP Server|apache]] [[w:en:Web server|web server]] for delivering web pages,
* the [[w:en:DBMS|relational database management system]] [[w:en:MySQL|MySQL]] as a database backend for storing the content, and
* the [[w:en:Scripting language|scripting language]] [[w:en:PHP|PHP]] for the application logic that glues together these components.
== System Requirements ==
Before you decide to use the Wikipedia script, please do take a look at other Wiki Engines and see if one of them might meet your requirements better. For small wikis, [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl UseMod] is always a safe bet -- it supports <nowiki>[[free links]]</nowiki> (as opposed to [[m::en:CamelCase|CamelCase]]) and does not need (or support) a database. This is, of course, also a bottleneck in terms of functionality.
=== Look and feel ===
*'''[[m:Sidebar |Side bar]]''': A bar on the left or right of the screen with short-cuts
*'''[[m:Skins |Skins]]''': Different ways to present the site.
* '''"Stub" threshold''': Users can see links to articles below a certain size rendered in a different color
* '''Printable versions''' of articles can be generated
*'''Auto-number headings''' in an article (optional)
*'''Generate a table of contents''' for long articles (optional)
* Automatically turn '''ISBN numbers''' into links to an editable list of booksellers
=== Multimedia and extensions ===