Skin:MonoBook

MonoBook is a skin. It was the previous default man-skins>Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Skins|skin for wmf>Special:MyLanguage/Differences_between_Wikipedia,_Wikimedia,_MediaWiki,_and_wiki#Wikimedia|Wikimedia Foundation websites since mw-hist>MediaWiki 1.3|MediaWiki 1.3 (2004), as the replacement for the old usemod>Skin:Standard|Standard skin.

Installation
This skin is included in the download>Special:MyLanguage/Download|MediaWiki download tarball.

You only need to install it separately if you installed MediaWiki using a different method.

Historical notes
It became the most popular and most widely supported skin in the MediaWiki ecosystem until it was finally superseded by the vector>Special:MyLanguage/Skin:Vector|Vector skin as the default on May 13, 2010 (MediaWiki 1.17, ), as a result of the efforts of the wui>Special:MyLanguage/Wikipedia Usability Initiative|Wikipedia Usability Initiative to improve Wikipedia user experiences and potentially draw in more contributor participation.

It served as a common backup for Vector and is still present on many wikis using older versions of MediaWiki software.

See 1>m:Layout design document|Layout design document and 2>m:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports/Archive|MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports for related discussions during MonoBook's development.

Current status
1>meta:Turning_off_outdated_skins#Why_are_you_keeping_these_four_skins?|In 2013, MonoBook became primarily supported by volunteer developers, not the Wikimedia Foundation. As of 2019, it is one of the four volunteer-supported skins used on Wikimedia projects: MonoBook,, , and.