Advanced Wiki Use

Here are some advanced MediaWiki features:

Namespaces

• MediaWiki supports the concept of namespaces for organizing content
• Default namespaces include:
  • Main -- Main wiki content
  • Template - Used for template text that will be transcluded into other pages
  • User - User pages (generally account info, but additonal pages can be created)
  • Name of Wiki - Used for policy information, such as copyright/licensing policy, privacy policy, and so forth
  • MediaWiki - Used for special pages, such as the sidebar and configuration options
  • Special - Used for special pages generated on-the-fly from the database, such as the list of users, usage statistics, and system messages.
  • Each category also has a corresponding Talk page, which contains the Talk pages accessed through the Discussion tab
• Pages within a namespace are accessed by prepending the namespace name to the page name: [[Namespace:Page]] If no namespace is given, the Main namespace is used.

Categories

• Categories are collections of related pages.
• Basic syntax (location on the page does not matter): [[Category:category-name]]
• This has two effects:
  1. It puts a Category link at the bottom of the page
  2. It adds the page to the Category page (a type of Index)
     • The Category pages does not "exist" until you add some text to it, but it will still show pages in that category even before it "exists". It's a good idea to add introductory text -- even one line -- so the category links don't show in red. If you do this for all legitimate categories, you can spot mistyped category names easily (red links).
• To link to an actual category page: [[:Category:category-name]]

Tips:

• You can nest categories by placing a parent Category link in a Category page. Example:
  • Each CDOT Workstation could have it own page, with a [[Category:CDOT Workstations]] link.
  • The CDOT Workstations page would have a [[Category:CDOT]] link.
  • The CDOT category page would show CDOT Workstations as a subcategory.
• You can place category tags in templates
• Categories have their own, distinct namespace

Transclusion and Templates

• Transclusion is pulling text into a page from another page (line #include in C++)
• Basic syntax: {{Template}}
• By default, transclusion will pull in pages from the Template namespace
• There are two tags available to control what text is transcluded:
  • <includeonly>''text''</includeonly> - The text applies only when transcluded. This is useful when you want to include a Category tag in a template, and you don't want the template itself to appear in the category index.
  • <noinclude>''text''</noinclude> - The text appears only when not transcluded. This is useful for including explanatory text on the actual template page, or when you have a page that may be viewed directly as well transcluded. For example, a page of upcoming lists could include introductory text as well as a bullet list of upcoming events; tagging the introductory text <noinclude> will allow just the bullet list to be transcluded.
• Templates may accept arguments; these arguments may then be used within the template as text, filenames, pagenames, or for some other syntax. Arguments are delimited with the vertical-bar (pipe) character. Example: {{Admon/note|Unstable API!|This API is marked Unstable, and may change without warning. If you use this API, be prepared to revise your code frequently.}} -- which produces:

Unstable API!
This API is marked Unstable, and may change without warning. If you use this API, be prepared to revise your code frequently.

• Useful templates:
  • {{Draft}} - Marks a page as a Draft (warning users) and adds the page to the Drafts category.
  • Admonition templates. These templates accept two arguments, and produce a coloured text box containing an icon, a bold title, and some text.
    • Admon/note - used to mark items of particular note to users. Icon: notepad
    • Admon/tip - used to mark suggestions/tips/ideas for users. Icon: lightbulb
    • Admon/caution - used to mark items the users should be wary of
    • Admon/important - used to mark important notices

Interwiki Links and Scary Transclusion

• Links between wikis are supported using InterWiki links. This involves placing a interwiki name in front of the page name (optionally, with a namespace), surrounded by colons: [[:fedora:Architectures/ARM]]
• Our interwiki table includes entries for the Mozilla MDC/Education wikis and the Fedora wiki, as well as a number of standard wikis (such as Wikipedia and Wicktionary).
• It is also possible to transclude interwiki text: {{:''interwiki'':''Page''}}

Page Naming

• Good page names makes wiki navigation and gardening much easier.
• Choose page names that reflect:
  • the fact that the wiki is used/shared between a many different projects
  • the (semi-)permanent nature of the wiki and include appropriate versioning.
• You can use path-style namespace division -- for example: Project/Component/Topic
• Pages which are personal versions of drafts/proposal/idea sketches should be placed the User namespace, using a path-style name starting with your name (example: User:Chris Tyler/Drafts/Fedora Arm - Support for armv7tej). Recommendation: use a template to mark all of your personal drafts as drafts and to include them in a personal draft category: {{Chris Tyler Draft}}

Examples:

Bad Title	Better Title
Ideas for Next Summer	Foo Project Ideas for Summer 2011
Notes on This Release	Notes on Foo release 1.41
My Feature Ideas	User:FrankSmith/Ideas/Foo-Features-1.5
Research Plan	Foo Project/Summer 2010/Research Plan

Redirects

• Used to redirect from one page name to another.
• Useful in three situations:
  • As trampolines: a standard page name that can be redirected to different pages as circumstances change. Example: Foo Release Notes could redirect to Foo Release 1.41 Notes, and be updated as new releases are issued.
  • To make pages easier to find by linking a likely search term to the correct page for that term: SheevaPlug could redirect to Fedora ARM Secondary Architecture, and P.js could redirect to Processing.js Project.
  • To allow people to find a page after it is moved (this type of redirect is usually set up automatically).
• Syntax: in the body of the page, place only: #REDIRECT [[Page]]

Tips

• Create categories and templates as needed.
• Place every page in one or more categories.
• It can be easier/faster to type a template transclusion than a category tag: {{JS}} vs. [[Category:CDOT JavaScript Projects]]
• Templates can be very short. For example, the Fedora project has a template which is simply the current release number.
• Templates can hold any kind of text. They can be used to provide page names or media filenames, for example.