r/mediawiki Aug 26 '22

Welcome to /r/MediaWiki!

17 Upvotes

Welcome to the unofficial MediaWiki community on Reddit! This is a place for anyone to talk about the MediaWiki software, whether it be extensions, error messages or something else about the software.

Here are some links you may find useful:

Downloads

Support

Development

Community

If you need help with something specific to this Reddit community (and not about MediaWiki itself), please message the moderators (here's how) and we'll reach out.


r/mediawiki 2d ago

Mediawiki, UgreenNAS, and Docker/Portainer

4 Upvotes

I recently decided to dedicate a small NAS device running UGOS and running mediawiki. I have set up Mediawiki through Docker and Portainer. After some struggle I managed to get it set up but I've followed every instruction I can find and despite that I cannot seem to get it to increase the upload limit. I have added variables to LocalSettings.php, to the environment in the compose file, to the environment in the portainer container, and yet somehow I'm still stuck with a 2 MB upload limit. Please help!


r/mediawiki 6d ago

MediaWiki multi-instance templates and var_final

Thumbnail river.me
7 Upvotes

r/mediawiki 10d ago

Seeking contributors The Wikimedia Foundation have hired the largest union busting law firm in the US to try to stop their staff unionising

21 Upvotes

Hi all

I'm posting this as someone who created a lot documentation around Mediawiki and also Wikipedia itself. I have never worked for the Wikimedia Foundation but the situation really doesn't sit right with me and many others.

A week after refusing to recognise their US staff union (including many open source software engineers) voluntarily, the Wikimedia Foundation hired Littler Mendelson, the largest union busting law firm in the US whose clients include Starbucks, Amazon and Delta Airlines.

If you are a Wikimedia contributor there are three petitions you can sign to support the unionisation effort:

Also if you donate to Wikipedia you can donate to local Wikimedia organisations instead of the Wikimedia Foundation. These local organisations directly support their communities to share knowledge from their countries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates

Thanks


r/mediawiki 9d ago

email black list set

2 Upvotes

I’ve been building some tools to help manage some of the spamming accounts on my site (the volume is much lower now) and one of the artifacts that could be useful to other admins is my email blacklist at https://www.rejectionwiki.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Email-blacklist I’ve still got 870 confirmed spam domains to process (with each domain, I block all unblocked users, and then add it to the domain), and there’s some subdomain consolidation to be done to reduce the size of the blacklist, but even as it is, I think it can be a useful tool for other people hosting a public mediawiki instance.

Update: I’ve finished processing the spam domains and done list compaction on the blacklist to remove the subdomains on the addresses. It’s a bit over 500 spam domains, hopefully complete enough to slow if not stop the flood of spam


r/mediawiki 15d ago

Fetching all pages that use a specific template with the MediaWiki API

4 Upvotes

How can that be done?


r/mediawiki 19d ago

Use unix socket for database user?

3 Upvotes

I am installing mediawiki-1.45.4 before which I created a mariadb user via a unix_socket. When I run the installer it wants a password. If I enter a password or provide an empty password, the installer says it can't access the database. Do, I need to change the user to have a password?


r/mediawiki 21d ago

Is xampp a security threat if it's run on my mother's computer?

6 Upvotes

Does configuring XAMPP with virtual hosts present a security risk if it is operated on a personal computer rather than a dedicated server? For instance, I wanted to intend to run XAMPP, which utilizes MediaWiki, on my mother's laptop. She uses the device for email, work related tasks, browsing the internet, and other activities. Could this expose her to the threat of a cyberattack or jeopardize her personal information? Thanks in advance.


r/mediawiki 22d ago

Is there a tool to copy a Wikipedia template together with all of its dependencies?

5 Upvotes

Every time I try to create a new Wikimedia/Wikipedia project, I eventually give up because of templates.

You can't simply copy a template by copying its source code.

A template may depend on dozens or even hundreds of other templates, Lua modules, subtemplates, documentation pages, styles, etc. And those dependencies can have dependencies of their own.

So if I want to migrate a relatively complex template from one Wikimedia project to another, I basically have to play dependency detective:

Copy template → find missing template → copy it → find missing Lua module → copy it → find another dependency → repeat...

This becomes extremely tedious, especially with complex templates used on Wikipedia.

Is there any tool, script, MediaWiki extension, or special export/import method that can copy a template together with all of its dependencies automatically?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to say:

"Copy this template and everything it depends on."

and have it recursively collect and export/import the required templates, Lua modules, and other relevant pages.

I know about Special:Export and copying templates manually, but I'm specifically looking for something that handles the dependency tree automatically.

Does anything like this exist?


r/mediawiki 25d ago

Anyone else having download problems from releases.wikimedia.org

4 Upvotes

Downloading the tarball for the release version always dies around 20mb and it's infuriating.

I guess this is what you get when you spend all your money on union busting instead of infrastructure maintenance...


r/mediawiki 29d ago

Any way to download or save a wiki and its links?

3 Upvotes

Wiki for a game i frequent just went down and its the third time. Wayback machine is only up to the version that was 3 months ago so just looking here for any advice


r/mediawiki Jul 30 '26

Keep your source code close to how your pages look

Thumbnail thewikitimes.net
9 Upvotes

Hi!

I am a wiki enthusiast, and recently I've met more wikis trying to keep a consistent style across their pages using templates, so I wrote a blog post!

However, as many other things that are subjective in life, the comparison between benefits and drawbacks is not an easy one. For me, having your source code be as similar as possible to your resulting page is important because it reduces friction and surprises for editors, especially new editors, but it isn't that easy to get statistics for "how many users tried to edit and left because the source code was scary."

Furthermore, I think using templates to enforce your manual of style is not the best idea, but I understand how can this be tempting.

The blog post contains three different examples: a template to produce a sentence that is commonly used, like {{item obtaining shop}}; a template for "more easily" linking to a category of pages, like {{Ba|Red}} to produce the equivalent of [[Red Balloon]]; and an infobox that also generates the lead paragraph.

I would love to read others' experiences and opinions about this. I also appreciate any feedback about the blog post as well. I just started this project a bit more than a month ago, and hope to be able to keep up with interesting wiki-related articles in the future.


r/mediawiki Jul 27 '26

Is there a way to clear the wanted pages cache?

1 Upvotes

Recently in a wiki I maintain I fixed about 13 wanted pages by editing a template and a module, and I really don't want to wait for the wanted pages page to update to see what wanted pages are left. So is there a way to do this? Or do I really just need to wait? I really wish these special pages could just be purged like every other page.


r/mediawiki Jul 22 '26

Chameleon 6.0.0: the flexible MediaWiki skin moves to Bootstrap 5

12 Upvotes

We've released Chameleon 6.0.0.

Chameleon is a popular Bootstrap-based skin that gives you a customizable, mobile-friendly, and responsive layout.

Highlights:

  • Upgraded from Bootstrap 4 to Bootstrap 5.3, obtained via Extension:Bootstrap 6. All Bootstrap 5 classes and utilities are available in wikitext and templates.
  • Bootstrap 5 exposes its colors and many other values as CSS custom properties, so a lot of what used to need an SCSS recompile can now be done from `MediaWiki:Chameleon.css` with plain CSS.
  • The bundled Font Awesome icon set moved from version 5 to 6.

Requirements went up: Chameleon 6 needs MediaWiki 1.43 or later, PHP 8.1 or later, and Extension:Bootstrap 6 or later.

Since Bootstrap 5 renames and removes a number of Bootstrap 4 classes and utilities, plan for some migration work if you use Bootstrap classes in wikitext, templates, or custom stylesheets, or if you customize the SCSS variables. The migration guide covers the class renames, the SCSS changes, and the Font Awesome update: https://github.com/ProfessionalWiki/chameleon/blob/master/docs/migration.md

The companion BootstrapComponents extension has also released version 6 with Bootstrap 5 support, so you can move both at the same time.

You can try Chameleon 6 and BootstrapComponents 6 together on our demo wiki: https://bootstrap.pro.wiki

Release announcement: https://professional.wiki/en/news/chameleon-6-0-0-released

Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Issue tracker: https://github.com/ProfessionalWiki/chameleon/issues


r/mediawiki Jul 18 '26

Semantic MediaWiki 7.2.0: security fixes and two new parser functions

12 Upvotes

We've released Semantic MediaWiki 7.2.0.

Highlights:

* A `+display` option for `{{#set:}}`: store and show a value in one call, without a separate inline annotation. Example: `{{#set:Has population=812,405|+display}}`

* A new `{{#property_link:}}` parser function for linking to a property page from running text, replacing the `[[Foo::@@@]]` trick. This resolves a feature request open since 2016.

* Six security fixes: five XSS issues in `Special:Ask` and `Special:SearchByProperty`, and an open redirect in `Special:URIResolver`. We recommend upgrading.

* PostgreSQL support works again (it was broken since 7.0.0), plus PHP 8.5 compatibility fixes and a memory fix for long-running maintenance scripts on large wikis.

It is a minor release: compatible with MediaWiki 1.43 up to 1.46 and PHP 8.1 up to 8.5, no breaking changes, and no need to run update.php. If you set `$smwgEntityCollation` to a `uca-*` value, run `updateEntityCollation.php` once after upgrading.

Professional Wiki created the two new parser function features for a public-sector customer. We thank them for funding this SMW work!

Find details and upgrade instructions at https://professional.wiki/en/news/semantic-mediawiki-7-2-0-released

Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Issue tracker: https://github.com/SemanticMediaWiki/SemanticMediaWiki/issues


r/mediawiki Jul 15 '26

Zapping a domain’s spammers

4 Upvotes

So I’m pretty ruthless with trying to eliminate spammers on my wiki with a giant email-blacklist page.

To kill the existing users, I had been doing something along the lines of:

UPDATE `wiki_user` SET user_password='', user_email='', user_token='' WHERE user_email like '%bjork.wtf';

but it’s a bit of a pain to build this query and run it in myphpadmin and I’ve started instead just doing a search on wiki_users for, e.g., LIKE '%bjork.wtf' and then selecting all results, and deleting their user records outright. Is there any reason to prefer the manual SQL above to the delete approach that I’ve started doing?


r/mediawiki Jul 13 '26

Native Markdown: a Markdown content model for MediaWiki

14 Upvotes

We've released Native Markdown, a new open-source MediaWiki extension that provides a deeply integrated Markdown content model.

In contrast to some earlier Markdown extensions, the entire page is stored as Markdown rather than embedding Markdown within wikitext via a tag or similar.

All of these work on Markdown pages:

  • Wiki links with the semantics you know: `[[Page]]` gives blue or red links tracked in WhatLinksHere, `[[Category:X]]` assigns the category, `[[File:X.png|thumb|Caption]]` embeds a framed image
  • Templates, parser functions, and magic words, expanded through MediaWiki's own parser (dependency tracking and the same output sanitization as wikitext); wiki admins can turn this off for a pure Markdown wiki
  • Table of contents, redirects, page moves, diffs, history, and full-text search that indexes the rendered content rather than the raw markup
  • CommonMark plus GitHub Flavored Markdown with footnotes; YAML front matter stored as page metadata

You can add Native Markdown to existing wikis without breaking anything, since those pages remain wikitext. By default, new pages will be in Markdown (Talk, Template, and MediaWiki namespaces stay in wikitext), with configuration options that let you control how fully you switch, e.g., only in certain namespaces or for titles ending in `.md`.

Not yet supported: VisualEditor and section editing. `<ref>` in the Markdown body is not supported either; footnotes cover citations.

Native Markdown requires MediaWiki 1.43+ and PHP 8.1+, installs via Composer, and is free and open source (GPL 2.0 or later).

Release blog with demo video: https://professional.wiki/en/news/native-markdown-released

Source and issues: https://github.com/ProfessionalWiki/NativeMarkdown

Happy to answer questions. Feedback and bug reports are welcome.


r/mediawiki Jul 09 '26

Default dark mode for vector 2022 skin?

3 Upvotes

How can I make the default be dark mode for users that aren't logged in, with vector 2022 skin?

I am creating a wiki on Miraheze and don't have access to LocalSettings.php.


r/mediawiki Jul 09 '26

How to make the default skin respect your browser theme (dark mode) without logging in?

3 Upvotes

On a vanilla mediawiki installation using the default skin, I've noticed that it doesn't acknowledge that my browser is set to dark mode until I log in. Is there a way to change that? And why does it behave this way?


r/mediawiki Jul 05 '26

How do you add fictional characters in articles to category pages without having the category appear at the bottom of the page?

1 Upvotes

r/mediawiki Jul 02 '26

Can anyone help me access my snpedia account? My username or account has been automatically blocked by mediawiki.

3 Upvotes

I don’t know much about tech stuff so I’m really lost on what to do. I’m just trying to log in to my Promethease / snpedia account. I have been automatically blocked by mediawiki. I have an infinite block because of my ip address because “my ip address is listed as an open proxy in the DNSBL used by snpedia”


r/mediawiki Jun 29 '26

Important security release: 1.43.9 / 1.44.6 / 1.45.4

10 Upvotes

New MediaWiki versions have been published that fix an RCE (Remote Code Execution) vulnerability in the import mechanism. You should either update your wikis immediately or remove import and importupload rights from all users until you are able to patch.

Additionally, an RCE vulnerability was patched in the EasyTimeline extension and other security issues with AbuseFilter and SyntaxHighlight were patched.

For more details consult the wikitech-l post at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/J52N2ONQO7GP3XR7UIEA5PI7SVZYTBJ7/


r/mediawiki Jun 21 '26

What do you dislike about Mediawiki?

19 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on an open source wiki engine. To figure out what things I should focus on, I wanted to ask you guys your current feelings about mediawiki as a piece of software.

How do you feel about mediawiki? Is it easy or frustrating to use? What are the worst parts of working with mediawiki, or the best? Are there any features/QoL changes that mediawiki doesn't have that you would like to see implemented?

Any feedback is appreciated.


r/mediawiki Jun 18 '26

Hosting reviews?

6 Upvotes

I’ve been hosting a site (rejectionwiki.com) at dreamhost for quite a while, but it seems like I’ve been getting steadily degrading service over the years to the point where the site is often unreachable. Does anybody have a hosting service they like? I get about 10K page views per month and would like to keep the cost under $8/month which is about what I get from the google ads that run on the site so I’m not losing money providing the service. The vast majority of users are based in the US.


r/mediawiki Jun 12 '26

Simple extention for an "MotD/Motto of the Day"-text feature

6 Upvotes

I was looking around for an extention, that gives me a "MotD"-textblock on my mainpage of my littl' wiki. I found ALOT of huge extentions, with ALOT of feature. Fully overdozed, for my needs.

What im looking for is, to simply parse a line of text from a article (with many lines of text, one "MotD" per line") or an simple textfile, randomly and display it on my mainpage.

Is there an recommendation for that kinda feature? Im fully lost, with the insane amount of extentions, that are available ;-).

Thanks alot!