Building A Wiki With Mediawiki

By Author: David Tanguay
Total Articles: 78
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When people are looking for information about almost any topic, they turn to Wikipedia. This encyclopedia project is written collaboratively by volunteers around the globe. Any visitor or user can edit a Wiki. MediaWiki is a free Wiki software package. It is written in PHP and originally was for use on Wikipedia. The scope of Wikis has broadened to offer a variety of options for webpreneurs.

Today MediaWiki is used by other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit company that funds and manages them. Many people who work on the Wikimedia projects also work on the MediaWiki software. The result is the best possible software for wiki sites so you can build a robust, interactive website. Users can update content, participate in development and become an ongoing participant in your website.

A MediaWiki website can handle millions of hits every day. It is very powerful software with great scalability. The wiki implementation has many features. MediaWiki uses PHP to process and display the information in its database.

A major benefit of building a Wiki with MediaWiki is the pages can be easily edited ...
... without any special html or coding knowledge. When a user edits a page, MediaWiki will write it to the database but doesn't delete the former version. Reverts are easy if a page is spammed so your content is always valuable and fresh. Users don't need advanced technical savvy to make changes, revisions or additions to Wiki pages.

Images and multimedia files are easily stored in the MediaWiki file system. If your Wiki has a lot of users, caching is supported. Pages can be modified with no programming skills. MediaWiki makes it easy to create updated pages for your website and allow others to update them as changes and new information becomes available. The result is the most accurate, updated info possible.

MediaWiki offers a variety of useful options for users. They are able to supply and edit the summary when they are editing a particular Wiki page. This snippet of text is typically one line and summarizes the changes made. While it is not inserted in the article itself, it is stored with the page revision. Users can then explain what was done and why. With every version of the page stored, the most accurate article can be developed very. Each revision is viewable and accountable.

Building your own Wiki is a streamlined process even if your computer knowledge is very basic. MediaWiki software offers prompts to make your Wiki exactly what you want it to be. Include visuals, graphics and meaningful content to attract targeted traffic to your online offerings. With editing that shows you exactly what you get, you know what it will look like right away to make necessary changes immediately. Add links to boost your targeted traffic even more. Get into the Wiki wave is a breeze with MediaWiki.
David Tanguay is the owner of Interactive Online who provides Blog Hosting and WordPress Hosting services.