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. Glossary is broader and better. 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.


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


 * 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 Rarely, the term may refer to the an historical archive page, for outdated historical material related to MediaWiki.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: Short for application programming interface. A set of definitions for subroutines and communication protocols that simplify software maintenance and implementation.

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 rollout: Enhancements to the Vector skin and page editing made in 2010 as part of a usability initiative.
 * 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.


 * Bug wrangler: Person responsible for sorting and solving bug reports in Phabricator (and previously in Bugzilla).
 * Bugmeister: See Bug wrangler.
 * Bugzilla: Previous website to track bug reports and feature requests for MediaWiki, now superseded by Phabricator.
 * 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.


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


 * CV, cv
 * Abbreviation of Copyvio.


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

D

 * Db, DB
 * Abbreviation of "Database".


 * 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).


 * 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.


 * Dummy edit
 * An edit made with no change in it, to reload the page cache. That function is not that much used since all caching options have been re-enforced.


 * 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.

F

 * Float, floating
 * To add coding to a template, image, or other feature so that it appears in a specific position on the page.


 * Foo
 * A placeholder name, used to provide a generic example. Thus, "an article on the culture of Foo", means "an article on the culture of any of the places under discussion, or any that it may also apply to". When two placeholders are required, Bar is usually used as the second (e.g., "an article on the Foo of Bar").


 * fmt
 * Format. Abbreviation commonly used in edit summaries to signify formatting of the page, or wikification.


 * Free link
 * A link pointing to another page within this wiki or its sister projects by using the wiki markup double square-brackets "" and "" . Sometimes they are referred to as wikilinks or internal links. Unless otherwise specified in a user's monobook.css, these links usually show up as blue if they are working and you haven't visited them before, red if they are broken, and purple if they are working and you have visited them before; note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.


 * Friendly notices
 * A contributor who sends friendly notices as a means of canvassing appropriately must ensure that these neutrally worded notifications are sent to a small number of editors, intending to improve rather than to influence a discussion and while avoiding excessive cross-posting.

G

 * Gadget
 * A gadget is a JavaScript tool that can be enabled from user preferences.


 * Gerrit: A git code review tool (used for Wikimedia code review)
 * GF
 * Good faith, a tenet of Wikipedia.


 * GFDL
 * GNU Free Documentation License. Many of Wikipedia's articles are released under this license. See also Project:Copyrights.


 * GFE
 * A good faith edit
 * A good faith editor. See also giffee


 * Ghits, G-hits, GHits
 * "Google hits" – the number of successful searches for a particular word or phrase using the Google search engine. Sometimes used as a very rough assessment of notability on AFD. See also Google test.


 * Giffee
 * Same as GFE, definition 2.


 * GLAM
 * Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums


 * gloss, glosses, glossing
 * In editing, a gloss is brief explanation that accompanies a text. It can also refer to the addition, modification, or deletion of hyperlinks like this one.


 * Godwin's Law
 * Godwin's Law is particularly concerned with logical fallacies such as reductio ad Hitlerum, wherein an idea is unduly dismissed or rejected on the ground of it being associated with persons generally considered "evil". Godwin's Law is: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." It is often cited as soon as it occurs as a flag that discussions have gone on too long or gotten out of hand on a particular topic.


 * Google test
 * Running sections or titles of articles through the Google search engine for various purposes. The four most common are to check for copyright violations, to determine which term among several is the most widely used, to decide whether a person is sufficiently notable to warrant an article and to check whether a questionable and obscure topic is real (as opposed to the idiosyncratic invention of a particular individual). See also Ghits.


 * GPL
 * GNU General Public License. MediaWiki software is released under this license.


 * gr
 * Grammar, used in edit summaries to indicate that a grammar problem is being corrected

H

 * Handwaving, armwaving
 * An assertion not supported by evidence.


 * Hatnote
 * A short note placed at the top of an entry before the primary topic.


 * History
 * All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state. Also called page history.

I

 * IANAL, IANaL
 * An abbreviation for "I Am Not a Lawyer", indicating that an editor is about to give their opinion on a legal matter as they understand it, although they are not professionally qualified to do so, and may not fully understand the law in question. May be generalized to other fields, e.g., IANAA (administrator), IANAD (doctor).


 * IAW
 * An abbreviation for "in accordance with"


 * ICBH
 * An abbreviation for I couldn't be happier.


 * Infobox
 * A consistently formatted table which is present in articles with a common subject. See also: navbox, taxobox.


 * Internal link
 * See free link, wikilink.


 * Interwiki
 * A link to a sister project; this can be an interlanguage link to a corresponding article in a different language, or a link to a project such as Wikibooks, Meta, etc. The abbreviations iw or i/w are often used in edit summaries when an interwiki link has been added or changed.


 * IP, IP contributor, IP user, IP editor
 * A user who contributes to a wiki without an account. See also: anon.


 * IPA
 * International Phonetic Alphabet, widely used to indicate pronunciation.


 * IRC
 * Internet Relay Chat. See also: MediaWiki on IRC.


 * IRL
 * Abbreviation for "In real life"


 * ITHAWO
 * I thought he already was one.


 * i/w, iw
 * See Interwiki.

J

 * Janitor
 * See Admin.


 * Jimbo
 * Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia

K

 * Kill / Kill with fire / Kill with a stick
 * Dysphemisms for "deleting" a page, expressing some disgust for the existence of the page.

L

 * Language link
 * See Interwiki.


 * Link rot
 * Because websites change over time, many external links from a wiki to other sites cannot be guaranteed to remain active. When an article's links becomes outdated and no longer work, the article is said to have undergone link rot.


 * Log
 * There are two meanings for 'log' in MediaWiki:
 * the wiki logs which track actions on-wiki are stored in the database and accessible at Special:Log (see Help:Log and Manual:Logging to Special:Log);
 * and the application logs which track actions by the program code (see Manual:Structured logging)
 * Category:Log contains pages relating to both types of log.


 * LST / Labelled Section Transclusion
 * A MediaWiki extension that allows a given section (and only that section) from a page to be transcluded onto another page.

M

 * m
 * On the Recent changes page, m (lower case, bold) indicates a minor edit.


 * Magic word, magicword, magic-word
 * a symbol recognized by the MediaWiki software and which when seen in the non-commented text of the page, triggers the software to do something other than display that symbol, or transclude a page with that name, but instead to use the symbol directly.


 * Main Page
 * The page to which every user not specifying an article is redirected. Due to its high exposure, all content on the Main Page is automatically protected.


 * Mainspace
 * The main article namespace (i.e. not a talk page, not a "Project:" page, not a "User:" page, etc.)


 * Maniphest
 * The part of Phabricator to track bug reports and feature requests for MediaWiki


 * Meh
 * Common edit summary used by many Wikimedians. Generally used for minor edits that no one is expected to care about. Also use (in edit summary or directly in talk page posts) in response to posts that the editor feels are uninteresting or pointless, or proposals not worth considering.


 * Merge
 * Taking the text of two pages, and turning it into a single page.


 * Meta
 * A separate wiki used to discuss general Wikimedia matters. In the past, this has been called Metapedia, Meta Wikipedia, Meta Wikimedia, and many other combinations.


 * Minor edit
 * A minor edit is one that the contributor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. An edit of this kind is marked in its page's revision history with a lower case, bolded "m" character (m).


 * Mop
 * A term used to refer to administrator duties (compare Janitor). Often seen in the phrase to give someone a mop (i.e., to make someone into an administrator).


 * Move
 * Changing the name and location of an article because of a misspelling, violation of naming convention, misnomer, or inaccuracy. Involves either renaming the page or moving it and constructing a redirect to keep the original link intact. See also Help:Moving a page.

N

 * N
 * On the Recent changes page, N (upper case, bold) indicates a new page or article.


 * N/a
 * An abbreviation for new article, often used in edit summaries. Easily confused with the common non-Wiki use, "not applicable" or "not available".


 * Namespace
 * A way to classify pages. See also Help:Namespaces.


 * Navbox, Navigation template
 * A navbox is a type of template placed at the bottom articles to enable the reader to navigate easily to other articles on related topics. See also: Infobox, taxobox.


 * Newbie test, noob test, newb test
 * An edit made by a newcomer to Wikipedia, just to see if "Edit this page" really does what it sounds like. Newcomers should use Project:Sandbox for this purpose.


 * Null edit
 * A null edit is made when an editor opens the edit window of a document then re-saves the page without having made any text changes. This is sometimes done as a lazy way to purge – to update the functioning of templates (which require articles containing them to be edited in order for any changes to take effect). The term also applies to making a very small, non-substantive change (e.g., removing an unneeded blank line or adding one) in order to get the article history to register a change, for the purpose of leaving an edit summary that responds to a previous one.

O

 * OBE
 * Abbreviation for Overcome By Events or Overtaken By Events.


 * Original post, original poster
 * In a discussion thread, refers to the topic/person/message which started the discussion. Depending on context, OP may stand for either "original post" (the message which started the thread), or "original poster" (the person who started the thread).

P

 * Page
 * Any individual topic within a wiki; the web page without the top, bottom and sidebars. Pages include articles, stubs, redirects, disambiguation pages, user pages, talk pages, files, documentation and special pages.


 * Parameter
 * A template can appear differently at different pages, if a parameter is assigned a unique value in each template call. The parameter value may be a text that is substituted into the template, or a value that may control which action the template performs, much like an argument in a computer program function call. A parameter may be named or numbered. See Templates.


 * Parent; Parent category
 * A larger, more general category of which the category under discussion is a subcategory. Compare Child. See also Help:Categorization.


 * Parent-only category
 * A category which only contains subcategories


 * Patent nonsense
 * A humorous pejorative applied to articles that are either completely unintelligible or totally irrelevant.


 * PD
 * Abbreviation for public domain, material not presently under copyright and thus available for use without permission.


 * Permalink, permanent link
 * A link to a specific version of a Wikipedia page, which will not reflect later edits to the page.


 * Personal attack
 * A comment that is not directed at content, but rather insults, demeans or threatens another editor (or a group of editors) personally, with obvious malice.


 * Phabricator: Website to track bug reports and feature requests for MediaWiki
 * Phase I
 * The wiki software UseModWiki. Wikipedia used this software before January 25, 2002.


 * Phase II
 * The wiki software written by User:Magnus Manske and adopted by Wikipedia after January 25, 2002 (Magnus Manske Day).


 * Phase III
 * A rewritten and improved version of the Phase II software. It was eventually renamed to MediaWiki.


 * Phase IV
 * A dream proposal for the next generation of wiki software made back when complete rewrites were in vogue. Development is now focused on incremental progress. See also Wikipedia4.


 * Pipe, Piped link
 * A link where the text displayed in the article is not the name of the link target. Such links are created using the pipe character "|" e.g., Displayed text . The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for the editor in certain circumstances. Piped links may also be used to sort pages in categories by other than their name, e.g., if is placed on an article, the article will be listed alphabetically at "Bar" in category "Foo", irrespective of its title.


 * Project namespace
 * The project namespace is a namespace dedicated to providing information about the wiki. Pages in the project namespace can always be accessed with the prefix "Project:".


 * Protected page
 * This term indicates a page that cannot be edited except by administrators, or in some cases, established users. Usually this is done to cool down an edit war.

R

 * Random page
 * The Random page link is on the left of each page for most skins. It will take you to an entry that is chosen by a computer algorithm without any deliberate pattern or meaning to the choice.


 * RC
 * An abbreviation for Recent changes


 * Re
 * Remark or Regarding


 * Recent changes
 * A dynamically generated page (found at Special:Recentchanges) that lists all edits in descending chronological order. Sometimes abbreviated as RC.


 * Redirect, redir
 * A page title which, when requested, merely sends the reader to another page. This is used for synonyms and ease of linking.


 * Red link, redlink
 * A wikilink to an article that does not exist shows up red. See also blue link.


 * Render
 * In the context of the World Wide Web, rendering is the operation performed by the user's browser of converting the Web document (in HTML, XML, etc. plus image and other included files) into the visible page on the user's screen.


 * Repoint, re-point
 * To change the destination article of a redirect, either to avoid a double redirect or to change the redirect so that it leads to a more appropriate article. The term retarget is also frequently used.


 * Req
 * Abbreviation for "Request".


 * Rescope, re-scope
 * To change the subject matter of an article, a template or – most frequently – a category to one that is more acceptable for editorial or encyclopedic purposes. If by doing so the subject area is broadened, the term upscope is sometimes used.


 * Retarget, re-target
 * See Repoint.


 * Revdel
 * Abbreviation for revision deletion.


 * Revert
 * An edit that reverses edits made by someone else, thus restoring the prior version. See also m:Help:Reverting


 * RHS
 * The right-hand side of the main page.


 * RL
 * See IRL


 * Rm
 * Remove. Used in edit summaries to indicate that a particular piece of text or formatting has been deleted.


 * Rmv
 * 1. Remove (Rm) vandalism. Used in edit summaries when good edits were made after vandalism, requiring the editor to sort out the vandalism, as opposed to a simple reversion. See also rvv.
 * 2. Same as Rm.


 * Rollback
 * To change a page back to the version before the last edit. Administrators and rollbackers have special tools to do this more easily.


 * Rollbacker
 * A class of users who can use the rollback feature. This feature is automatically enabled for all administrators.


 * Rv
 * Revert. An edit summary indicating that the page has been reverted to a previous version, often because of vandalism.

S

 * s
 * Used in edit summaries to indicate that an editor has added a comment to support a proposal on a discussion page or process page where a consensus is being sought.


 * Sandbox
 * A sandbox is a page that users may edit however they want. Though it is meant to help users experiment and gain familiarity with Wiki markup, the public sandbox at Project:Sandbox is often filled with strange things and patent nonsense. In addition to the public sandbox, users may create private sandboxes on subpages of their user page.


 * Scap
 * A scap occurs when MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, is updated. Scap stands for "sync-common-all-php", the internal script used to deploy the update.


 * Sea of blue
 * The hard-to-read effect of far too many blue links in an article, caused by over-wikilinking. See also De-wikify.


 * Section editing
 * Using one of the '[edit]' links to the right of each section's title, one can get an edit window containing only the section of the page that's below the [edit] link. This makes it easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit, and helps you avoid an edit conflict. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.


 * Self-link
 * A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, e.g., linking MediaWiki in the article "MediaWiki". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.


 * Self-revert
 * A user self-reverts when they revert or undo an edit that they had previously made.


 * Sharpen cat
 * To place an article within a more specific category. In addition, sh cat in edit summaries.


 * Sheep vote
 * A vote that seems to be cast just to go along with the flow. This can typically be a vote such as "Support because x, y, and z are supporting." The opposite is called a wolf vote.


 * Skin
 * The appearance theme in Special:Preferences. Currently, these are available: Cologne Blue, Monobook, Modern and Vector.


 * SME
 * An acronym for subject matter expert.


 * Snap
 * Retarget a double redirect to point to the ultimate target.


 * Soft redirect
 * A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g., it is a cross-wiki redirect).


 * Sort key
 * A device to make an article file alphabetically (in a category or other list of articles) other than by the article title, e.g., "John Smith" under "Smith, John", or "The Who" under "Who, The". Can be assigned to a specific category, or as a . See also Help:Category.


 * sp
 * Short for spelling correction or space.


 * Split
 * Separating a single page into two or more pages.


 * Sprot, sprotect, sprotection
 * Short for semi-protect [ion]. Articles that are semi-protected cannot be edited by unregistered or newly registered users.


 * Steward
 * A user who has been empowered to change any user's status on any Wikimedia Foundation project, including granting and revoking Administrator status and granting bureaucrat status.


 * Strike out, strike-through, strikethrough, etc.
 * To place text in strike-through (HTML , , or ) tags. This is very rarely used in articles, but is relatively common in votes and discussions when a contributor changes their 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
 * A wiki template, in general.
 * Specifically, a template that will assign an article to a category (most often a stub template)
 * Specifically, a template applied to an article that indicates that it needs cleanup or that something about it is disputed.
 * Specifically, a template applied to a page that indicates that it has been nominated for deletion.
 * Specifically, a WikiProject banner template applied to a talk page.
 * Frequently: A category. Alternative for category declaration.
 * Verb: To apply any such template to a page, or to add a category.
 * An HTML element. See also Help:HTML in wikitext and Help:Table
 * 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.


 * 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   instead of . 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.