Help:MediaWiki basics/Introduction to MediaWiki and wikis
"What is MediaWiki?" you ask. Formally it is free server-based software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). MediaWiki is a powerful, scalable, and feature-rich wiki implementation that uses PHP to process and display data stored in a database, such as MySQL.
Pages use MediaWiki's wikitext format, allowing users not versed in the use of XHTML or CSS to more readily edit wiki content. When a user submits an edit to a page, MediaWiki writes it to the database, but without deleting the previous versions of the page, thus allowing easy reverts in case of vandalism or spamming. MediaWiki can also manage and store image and multimedia files within the file system.
What is a wiki?
MediaWiki is also wiki software. So what is a wiki?
A wiki is typically a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in collaboration with others. A wiki also may act as a type of content management system, though it differs from a blog or most other such systems in that the content is created without any defined owner or leader. Additionally, wikis have little implicit structure, emerging according to the needs of the users. Wikis can serve many different purposes, utilized by both public and private entities. Wikis may act as knowledge management systems, notetaking software, community websites, and intranets. Some allow varying levels of access to different functions. For example, editing rights may permit changing, adding, or removing material. Others may permit access without enforcing access control.
For more about what a wiki is, view the following video:
Wikipedia is one of the most well-known public wikis, and it also uses MediaWiki software. LIMSwiki bases many of its policies off of the Wikipedia model.
For more about what Wikipedia is and how it's used, view the following video:
