Manual:Glossary

 ''Note: While the definitions below may be useful for understanding and communicating on project namespace and discussion pages. Remember to explain jargon in manuals and MediaWiki software documentation, and write them in language which is readily understandable without specific knowledge of the MediaWiki software.''

Do not overdo the use of MediaWiki or Wikipedia jargon, at least not without providing explanatory links to the appropriate pages.

This is a glossary of terms commonly used in MediaWiki and on the MediaWiki wiki. For most recent glossary efforts, see also Terminology. For more help, see Project:Help, developer hub, sysadmin hub, or user hub.

0–9

 * +1:
 * In communication (on wiki, IRC, e-mail, mailing lists) the action to agree with a previous statement.
 * In Code review jargon, the action to review a commit and agree with its purpose and implementation.
 * By metonymy, the technical ability to do this action in the Code review interface.


 * +2:
 * In Code review jargon, the action to review a commit, accept its purpose and implementation and make it part of the code.
 * By metonymy, the technical ability to do this action in the Code review interface.

A

 * Academic wikis
 * Third-party wikis meant to be used in an academic context with a greater emphasis on features like access control, content approval, and research analysis.   See also: Academic hub


 * Admin
 * Short for Administrator. A user with extra technical privileges for "custodial" work on MediaWiki wikis – specifically, deleting and protecting pages, and blocking abusive users.


 * Agora:
 * AJAX:
 * Anon
 * Abbreviation for "anonymous user". As a user does not necessarily lose his or her anonymity by registering or logging in, this term should be avoided. See IP user.


 * Analytics:
 * Archive
 * A subpage of a Talk page to which some parts of the discussion are transferred, to reduce the size of the Talk page. Rarely, the term may refer to the an historical archive page, for outdated historical material related to MediaWiki.


 * Apache:


 * API:


 * App: Abbreviation of Application, often in the context of mobile.


 * Application:


 * Application server:

B

 * B/c
 * B/c, or backwards compatibility, is the ability of new code to not cause problems with the functioning of old code.


 * Ban
 * Banning is the extreme, last resort action by which someone is prevented from editing a wiki for a certain length of time, limited or unlimited. Banned users are not necessarily blocked, however, it is one mechanism to enforce a ban. See also: Block.


 * Beta cluster:
 * Beta rollout: Enhancements to the Vector skin and page editing made in 2010 as part of a usability initiative.
 * Bits:
 * Block
 * Action by an administrator, removing from a certain IP address or username the ability to edit a wiki. Usually done against addresses that have engaged in vandalism or against users who have been banned. See also: Ban.


 * Blue link, bluelink
 * A wikilink to an article that already exists shows up blue (or purple if it has been recently visited by that reader/editor). See also Sea of blue, and red link.


 * Blurb
 * A short (one sentence) summary of a recent news item for ITN.


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


 * Bot
 * A program that automatically or semi-automatically adds or edits Wikipedia-pages.


 * Broken link
 * A link to a nonexistent page, usually colored, depending on your settings. May also refer to dead links. See also: edit link, and red link.''


 * Broken redirect
 * Redirect to a non-existing page. Common opinion is that these should be removed.


 * Browser testing:
 * Bug wrangler: Person responsible for sorting and solving bug reports in Bugzilla.
 * Bugmeister: See Bug wrangler.
 * Bugzilla: Website to track bug reports and feature requests for MediaWiki, powered by the Bugzilla software.
 * Bureaucrat
 * A MediaWiki administrator who has been entrusted with promoting users to Administrator status. See also Crat, and Project:Bureaucrats.

C

 * Caching: APC, Memcached, Squid, Nginx, Varnish
 * Cabal
 * Sometimes assumed to be a secretive organization responsible for the development of Wikipedia, the word is usually used as a sarcastic hint to lighten up when discussions seem to become a little too paranoid. Discussions involving the term may have links to admin problems or pretty much anything to do with the foundation of Wikipedia. The term TINC ("There Is No Cabal") is occasionally encountered, used humorously in such a way as to suggest that maybe there is a cabal after all. The term is comparable to the use of the term SMOF in science fiction fandom. Compare Troll. See also Cabal, There Is No Cabal.


 * CamelCase
 * CamelCase (camel case or camel-case)—originally known as medial capitals—is the practice of writing compound words or phrases in which the elements are joined without spaces, with each element's initial letter capitalized within the compound and the first letter is either upper or lower case—as in "LaBelle", BackColor, "McDonald's" or "iPod".


 * Canvassing
 * Canvassing is sending messages to multiple Wikimedians with the intent to inform them about a community discussion. Under certain conditions, canvassing is acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions (see Friendly messages), but inappropriate messages, written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion, are considered disruptive since they compromise the consensus building process.


 * Cat, cat.
 * "Category" or "categorize". Often pluralized as "cats" or "cats."


 * Category
 * A category is a collection of pages automatically formed by MediaWiki by analyzing category tags in articles. Category tags are in the form Category:Extensions. The part after the ":" is the name of the Category. Adding a category tag causes a link to the category and any super-categories to go to the bottom of the page. As stated, it also results in the page being added to the category listing.


 * Category declaration
 * A category name placed at the bottom of any page. Pages are made members of categories by the use of the category declarations. Some people refer to category declarations as category tags. A category declaration looks like where foo bar is the title of the category page.


 * CC-BY-SA
 * Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This wiki's content is released under this license. See also Project:Copyrights.


 * CDT
 * Current date and time


 * CE
 * Copy-edit


 * Ceph: a distributed file system
 * Child
 * A subpage or (more often) subcategory. Compare Parent.


 * Civil
 * Civility


 * Cleanup, cl
 * The process of repairing articles that contain errors of grammar, are poorly formatted, or contain irrelevant material. Cleanup generally requires only editing skills, as opposed to the specialized knowledge that is more often called for by pages needing attention.


 * Climbing the Reichstag
 * A humorous way of indicating that someone has over-reacted during an argument such as an edit-war in order to gain some advantage.


 * cmt
 * Comment.


 * Comment out
 * To hide from normal display whilst retaining the material for editors to see. This is done by inserting the characters at the end. These character strings are used to delimit comments in HTML code.


 * Commons
 * Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is integrated into MediaWiki wikis through the use of InstantCommons.


 * Consensus
 * The mechanism by which many (but not all) decisions within Wikimedia Foundation projects are nominally made. Not the same as a "majority vote".


 * Contribs, contributions
 * Short for contributions. A user has made these edits.


 * Contributor
 * Users submitting content to a wiki.


 * Cookie licking
 * Starting work on a task, or assigning it to oneself, and thereby deterring others from working on it; but not following up.


 * Copyedit
 * A change to a page that only affects formatting, grammar, and other presentational aspects.


 * Copyvio, CopyVio, copy vio, copyviol
 * Copyright violation. See also Project:Copyrights.


 * Corporate wikis
 * Corporate wikis are third-party wikis used by for-profit corporations for a variety of reasons including marketing, user documentation and enterprise use.   See also: ', and '


 * 'Crat
 * Short for Bureaucrat, used only occasionally.


 * Cross-browser testing
 * Checking appearance and function of a web application in different browsers, e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome
 * A commercial service for such checking available from crossbrowsertesting.com


 * Cross-namespace redirects
 * A redirect which links from one type of namespace to another.


 * Cucumber
 * Software written in the Ruby programming language to do Acceptance Test Driven Development in Given/When/Then style.


 * Cut-and-paste move, cut and paste move, cut 'n' paste move, cut-n-paste move, etc.
 * Moving a page by taking the text of the page, and putting it into the edit window for the second page. Generally considered worse than the 'move page' option, because it splits the page and its edit history. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators.


 * CV, cv
 * Abbreviation of Copyvio.

D

 * Db, DB
 * 2. Abbreviation for database


 * DB: Abbreviation of Database.


 * Data dump:


 * Database:


 * Datacenter:


 * Deployment:


 * Designer:


 * De-admin
 * See De-sysop.


 * Deprecated
 * Techie-speak for "tolerated in or supported by a system but not recommended (i.e., beware: may well be on the way out)".


 * Desc
 * Abbreviation for "description". Often used in edit summaries.


 * De-sysop
 * Take away someone's sysop (Administrator) status.


 * Developer, dev
 * Usually capitalized. A user who can make direct changes to Wikipedia's underlying software and possibly also the database, often being one of the MediaWiki developers (see next definition) or other Wikimedia Foundation technicians.
 * Usually not capitalized. One of the developers of the MediaWiki software; often but not always a Wikipedia Developer (in the above sense).


 * DevOps:
 * De-wikify, dewikify
 * To remove (de-link) some of the wikification of an article. This can be done to remove self-references or excessive common-noun wikification (also known as the sea of blue effect).


 * Diff
 * The difference between two versions of 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 change on an article's talk page.


 * Double redirect
 * A redirect which leads to another redirect. Counterintuitively, this will not bring one to the final destination, so it needs to be eliminated by linking directly to the target redirect. Double redirects are generated when moving a page that has redirects leading to it. See also Repoint.


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

E

 * EC, ec, e.c., Ec, (e/c), etc.
 * Same as Edit conflict.


 * Edit conflict
 * Also, rarely "edconf". Appears if an edit is made to the page between when one opens it for editing and completes the edit. The later edit does not take effect, but the editor is prompted to merge their edit with the earlier one. Usually no edit conflicts are thrown when your edit is in conflict with an own edit.


 * Edit creep, editcreep, edit-creep
 * The tendency for high quality content to degrade over time.


 * Edit link
 * See Broken link.


 * Edit summary
 * The contents of the "Summary:" field below the edit box on the "Edit this page" page.


 * Enterprise wikis
 * Third-party wikis meant to be used in a corporate (or organizational) context with a focus on enhancing internal knowledge sharing and a greater emphasis on features like access control, integration with other software, and document management.   See also: Enterprise hub


 * Extensions
 * Extensions let you customize how MediaWiki looks and works. Only someone with administration access to the filesystem on a server can install extensions for MediaWiki, but anyone can check which extensions are active on an instance of MediaWiki by accessing the Special:Version article.  See also: Manual:Extensions


 * External link, ext. ln., extlink, ext lk, EL, etc.
 * A link to a website not owned by Wikimedia. The alternatives are an internal link, wikilink or free link within Wikipedia, and an interwiki link to a sister project.

,, or  ) tags. This is very rarely used in articles, but is relatively common in votes and discussions when a contributor changes his or her opinion. As not to cause confusion, the outdated comments are struck out ( like this ). The inserted material (HTML  ) tag is sometimes used with it to show a replacement for the struck material ( like this ). Generally, one should strike out only one's own comments. Some editors prefer to simply remove or alter their updated material, though this is discouraged if others have responded to it and their responses would no longer make sense after the change. Note: Neither   nor   will exist any longer in HTML 5/XHTML 2, so   is recommended.


 * Subarticle, sub-article
 * 1. An article that has been split from an original, larger main article to keep the main article readable and to better develop the sub-topic of the split into a richer article in its own right. ''Contrast subpage.
 * 2. A page in multi-page list that was split to reduce list article size.


 * Subpage, sub-page
 * A page connected to a parent page, such as Somepage/Arguments. You can only create subpages in certain namespaces. Do not use subpages in the main article space. ''Contrast subarticle.


 * Subst, subst'ing
 * Short for "substituting" a template, which permanently copies its contents and breaks the link with the source template page. Contrast transclusion, a live updated reference to the source template page.


 * Substub
 * A very short stub article, usually consisting of only one sentence.


 * Succession box
 * A type of template, usually placed at the foot of an article, linking to articles on the immediate predecessors of and successors to the subject of the article. Thus, for example, an article on the tenth president of Foo would be linked by succession box to articles on the ninth and eleventh presidents. Compare Infobox.


 * SUL
 * Abbreviation for "Single user login", which refers to the process of unifying individual accounts with the same name across Wikimedia projects into one global account.


 * System administrator, SysAdmin, sysadmin
 * A web developer responsible for installation and maintenance of the wiki engine and the container web server of a third-party wiki installation. Generally also acts as an administrator on the wiki. See also Administrator.


 * Sysop, Sys-op, Sys-Op
 * A less-used name for Administrator. See also De-sysop.

T

 * Tag
 * 1. A wiki template, in general.
 * 2. Specifically, a template that will assign an article to a category (most often a stub template)
 * 3. Specifically, a template applied to an article that indicates that it needs cleanup or that something about it is disputed.
 * 4. Specifically, a template applied to a page that indicates that it has been nominated for deletion.
 * 5. Specifically, a WikiProject banner template applied to a talk page.
 * 6. Frequently: A category. Alternative for category declaration.
 * 7. Verb: To apply any such template to a page, or to add a category.
 * 8. An HTML element. See also Help:HTML in wikitext and Help:Table
 * 9. A MediaWiki tag, brief message applied next to certain revisions by the software


 * Talk page
 * A page reserved for discussion of the page with which it is associated, such as the article page. Very confusingly, the link to a talk page is labelled "discussion". All pages within Wikipedia (except pages in the Special namespace, and talk pages themselves!) have talk pages attached to them.


 * Template
 * A way of automatically including the contents of one page within another page, used for boilerplate text, navigational aids, etc.


 * Templatise, Templatize
 * To delete a list or category and turn the contents into a template, usually either a navbox or infobox. Sometimes used in CFD discussions as shorthand for saying that "this group of articles would be better if presented in template form rather than as a category." See also: listify.


 * Test edit
 * Same as newbie test.


 * Third-party wikis
 * Wikis that are running the MediaWiki software, but are not a Wikimedia Foundation project. This applies to public and private wikis operated by community projects, corporations, nonprofits. social movements, etc.


 * Thread
 * A talk page discussion, usually with more than 2 indented replies. May refer to either a complete second level section (i.e. a section with heading surrounded by ==) of posts as is defined by talk page archiving bots. For this type of thread, the age is the time interval from the most recent post to current time. It can also refer to an individual sequence of indented paragraphs.


 * Tl
 * Short for "template". Also the name of a specific template, tl, which provides a template link, i.e., links a page to a template without allowing the template's code to operate on that page.


 * TOC, ToC
 * An article (or other page)'s table of contents, which lists the subsection headings within the page. This is usually close to the top left of the page, but may be placed at the top right, floated, or omitted entirely.


 * top
 * On a user's list of contributions, (top) indicates that the article has not been edited by anyone else since the user last edited it.


 * Transclusion
 * Transclusion is the inclusion of the content of a document into another document by reference. It is typically the use of the template functionality of MediaWiki to include the same content in multiple documents without having to edit those documents separately.


 * Transwiki
 * Move a page to another Wikimedia project, in particular Wiktionary, Wikibooks, or Wikisource. See also Transwiki and WikiProject Transwiki


 * Troll
 * A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling). There are some people who enjoy causing conflict, and there are those who make a hobby of it. However, these are few in number and one should always assume good faith in other users. Calling someone a troll in a dispute is a bad idea; it has an effect similar to calling someone a Nazi – no further meaningful debate is likely to occur. See also What is a troll?


 * Trout, trout-slapping
 * A rebuke.


 * Tweak
 * A small edit.


 * Tyop
 * A silly misspelling of typo.

U

 * Unregistered user
 * See IP user.


 * Un-wiki
 * Going against the character of a wiki. Usually, saying that something is "un-wiki" means that it makes editing more difficult or impossible.


 * Un-wikify, unwikify
 * Same as de-wikify.


 * Userbox
 * A small box which is stored in the template space, and which includes a small piece of information about a user (such as "This user likes cheese"). Many users use userboxes on their user page, although some look down upon it.


 * User page
 * A personal page for wiki users. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used by user to communicate with each other via the user talk pages. The process of Registration does not generate user pages automatically. A user page is linked to as SomeUserNameHere and appears as SomeUserNameHere.


 * Userspace draft
 * A draft created in a user's "userspace".

V

 * Vandal
 * One who engages in significant amounts of vandalism.


 * Vandalism
 * Deliberate defacement of wiki pages. This can be by deleting text or writing nonsense, bad language, etc.

W

 * Wall of text
 * An unusually long paragraph, presenting a solid block of text of a dozen or more lines. Walls of text are visually unappealing and difficult to read. A wall of text in an article may simply be a sign of an inexperienced editor unfamiliar with Wikipedia markup, or may be a sign of a more serious issue such as copy-and-paste copyright violation. A wall of text in a talk page may be taken to be a sign of soapboxing or shotgun argumentation.


 * 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.


 * Weasel words
 * Phrases such as "Some say that..." or "It has been argued..." that introduce a point of view without attributing it more specifically.


 * Wikibooks
 * A Wikimedia Foundation project that works to develop free textbooks, manuals, and other texts online.


 * Wikibreak, wikivacation, Wikiholiday, Wiki-break, etc.
 * When a user takes a break from wikis.


 * Wikify, wfy, wikiize, wiki-ise, etc.
 * To format using Wiki markup (as opposed to plain text or HTML). It commonly refers to adding internal links to material (Wikilinks) but is not limited to just that. To wikify an article could refer to applying any form of wiki-markup, such as standard headings and layout, including the addition of infoboxes and other templates, or bolding/italicizing of text. Noun: wikification; gerund: wikifying.


 * Wikilink, wl
 * A link to another wiki page or to an anchor on the same page, as opposed to an external link.


 * WikiLove, wikilove
 * A general spirit of collegiality and mutual understanding among wiki users.


 * Wiki markup, wikitext, wiki text, wiki-text, etc.
 * Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example  boldfaced text  instead of &lt;B>boldfaced text&lt;/B>. It is the source code stored in the database and shown in the edit box. Searching by MediaWiki is done in the wikitext, as opposed to searching by external major search engines, which is done in the resulting HTML. The size of a page is the size of the wikitext.


 * Wikimedia
 * Properly Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF), a non-profit organization that provides a legal, financial, and organizational framework for Wikipedia and its sister projects and provides the necessary hardware. Contrast MediaWiki.


 * Wikimedian
 * Wikimedians are users of any Wikimedia project and members of the Wikimedia movement. See also: Wikimedians


 * Wikipe-tan, Wiki-tan
 * One of the personifications of Wikipedia. She is the mascot character of various WikiProjects.


 * WikiProject
 * An active group of wiki users working together to improve a specific group of articles, usually those on one or more related topics. This often involves an attempt to standardize the content and style of the articles using an agreed standard format.


 * Wikiquette
 * The etiquette of working with others on a wiki.


 * Wikiquote
 * A Wikimedia Foundation project to create a free online collection of quotations.


 * Wikisource
 * A Wikimedia Foundation project to create a free online compendium of primary source texts.


 * Wikispace
 * The project namespace.


 * Wikispecies
 * A Wikimedia Foundation project. It is a wiki-based, species directory that provides a solution to the problem that there is no central registration of species data in Wikipedia. Wikispecies will provide a central, more extensive database for taxonomy. Wikispecies is aimed at the needs of scientific users rather than general users.


 * Wikistress, Wiki-Stress, wiki-stress, etc.
 * Personal stress or tension induced by editing wikis, or more often by being involved in minor conflict with another user.


 * WikiTerrorism, wikiterrorism, WikiTerror, wikiterror
 * A melodramatic term for the act of purposely trying to damage a wiki on a large scale. It can be vandalism, but it could include trolling, edit warring, or anything that could disrupt the wiki on a large scale. WikiTerrorism could also be "blitzing" a wiki, or vandalizing several articles in rapid succession. Some may consider this term in bad taste or hyperbolic.


 * Wiktionary, wikt.
 * A Wikimedia Foundation project to create a free online dictionary of every language.


 * WMF
 * See "Wikimedia" entry.


 * Wolf vote
 * A vote on which seems to be cast just to go against the flow. This can typically be a vote such as "Oppose because x, y, and z are supporting." The opposite is called a sheep vote.


 * WP
 * 1. Common abbreviation for Wikipedia.
 * 2. Also sometimes used as an abbreviation for WikiProject (see also WPP).


 * WPP
 * Abbreviation for WikiProject.

X

 * XNR
 * Acronym for Cross-namespace redirects.