Communication

There are several ways to get in contact with other MediaWiki users and developers, or to follow 1>Special:MyLanguage/Differences between Wikipedia, Wikimedia, MediaWiki, and wiki|Wikimedia and MediaWiki related news.

For help with the MediaWiki software
There are a few forums around the internet where you can get help both with using MediaWiki and with setting up MediaWiki.


 *  Project:Support desk 
 * MediaWiki Users forum ( Unofficial )
 * StackExchange's #mediawiki tag (RSS feed) ( Unofficial )
 * Reddit's MediaWiki group ( Unofficial )

Easy to use chat
There are a few different discord-like chat servers where help can be found depending on the topic:


 * 1) Wikimedia Chat - For movement-wide discussions, not just technical matters. Started in September 2020, using Mattermost chat (details)
 * 2) MediaWiki Discord - Unofficial, topics include wiki installation, operation, skinning, custom developments (details)
 * 3) Outreachy programs chat - For Outreachy programs, using Zulip chat (details)
 * 4) Telegram @wmhack group - For Hackathon related questions (details)

IRC
 on [http://freenode.net/ irc.freenode.net] is the around-the-clock for technical questions.


 * State your problem immediately and wait for a response. Don't ask "is there anyone here" or "can someone help me". This is normal IRC etiquette and allows participants to multitask effectively.
 * Expect to wait for some time for an initial response, especially in off-peak times. Despite this, out of courtesy for the volunteer who is helping you, try to answer their questions promptly.

If you don't get an answer, this could mean one of a number of things:


 * Nobody was around at the time of day you chose. If the channel is generally quiet, come back later.


 * You're asking a question which nobody knows the answer to, or which requires a lot of work to answer.

Questions relating to problems with your particular installation of MediaWiki are generally best answered on IRC, since they often require a back-and-forth exchange to isolate the problem, which is tedious when performed on the mailing lists.

Mailing lists
There are several  available. The recommended ones are:


 * 1>mail:mediawiki-l|mediawiki-l (or [http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.mediawiki via Gmane]) (or [news://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.mediawiki via your newsreader]) is the high-traffic mailing list to ask for help with using or setting up MediaWiki.
 * 4>mail:wikitech-l|wikitech-l (or [http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical via Gmane]) (or [news://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical</> via your newsreader]) is the high-traffic mailing list for both MediaWiki and Wikimedia software development.
 * 7>mail:mediawiki-announce|mediawiki-announce</> (or [<tvar|8>http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.mediawiki.announce</> via Gmane]) (or [<tvar|9>news://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.mediawiki.announce</> via your newsreader]) is a low-traffic list for announcements of new MediaWiki releases and security updates (all messages also go to <tvar|MWL>mediawiki-l</>).
 * wikitech-ambassadors Announcements about upcoming changes on Wikimedia websites. This list is primarily aimed at end users of Wikimedia wikis, not the MediaWiki software in general.

Please check the archives first! All three lists are also available through [<tvar|1>http://www.gmane.org/</> Gmane] which provides access as newsgroups or in various web-based formats, and includes its own archives and archive search.

Social Media
Follow the MediaWiki accounts:


 * @MediaWiki (Twitter)
 * MediaWiki (Facebook)

More details at <tvar|1></>. <br style="clear:all;" />

Blog

 * The [<tvar|url>https://techblog.wikimedia.org</> Wikimedia Tech Blog] is a venue to share stories from Wikimedia's technical community across and beyond Wikimedia-tech. See the 1>Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_technical_blog_editorial_guidelines</>|editorial guidelines for more information.


 * There are some tech blogs hosted on [<tvar|url>https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/phame/blog/</> Phabricator].


 * The English Wikimedia planet blog aggregator sometimes contains tech stuff mixed in with posts mostly about non-technical aspects of Wikimedia projects.

Newsletter

 * 1>m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News</>|Wikimedia's Tech/News covers all the technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement.


 * There are further 1>Special:Newsletters</>|newsletters that you can subscribe to.

Groups

 * There are several 1>Special:MyLanguage/Groups</>|MediaWiki Groups which could match your location or interests.


 * The <tvar|1></> aims to advocate the needs of MediaWiki users.

Websites

 * <tvar|2></> is where feature requests and bugs may be reported or browsed.


 * 1>translatewiki:</>|Translatewiki is a MediaWiki site that allows collaborative translation, including of MediaWiki software.