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Working with data in Wikimedia and MediaWiki

Niklas Laxström and Susanna Ånäs

September – December 2016

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Outline

  • Content organization
  • User management
  • Change tracking
  • Content management
  • Wikitext

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Content organization

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Content organization methods

  • Pages
  • Page naming
  • Namespaces
  • Categories
  • Links

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Everything is a page in the wiki.

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Wiki page

  • Has a name
  • Has text content
  • Can be displayed
  • Can be edited
  • Can be linked
  • And many tools work with pages automatically

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Page naming

Namespace:Name/subpage

  • Main namespace is assumed if left out
  • First letter of name is usually case insensitive
  • Subpages per namespace (ex.)
  • Subpages of subpages (ex.)
  • Subpages often used for translations
  • In file namespace, file extensions

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Namespace

  • Separates content with different purposes
  • Has a numerical identifier and a canonical name
  • Name can be translated
  • Each non-talk namespace has corresponding talk namespace

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Standard namespaces

Each wiki has the following namespaces

  • Main
  • User
  • Meta/Project
  • File
  • MediaWiki
  • Template
  • Help
  • Category

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Main namespace

  • Has no name
  • Primary content of the wiki
    • Articles
    • Dictionary entries
    • …

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User namespace

Users write information about themselves

  • Language skills ({{#babel:fi}})
  • Areas of interest

User talk pages

  • Public way to reach the user
  • User gets notifications

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Meta namespace

  • Usually named after the wiki
  • Generic name is “Project”

Contains

  • Policies
  • Discussions (an exception!)
  • Process support
  • Anything shared within the community

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File namespace

  • Used for uploaded files
  • Renders additional metadata about the file

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MediaWiki namespace

Used for customization of

  • the interface texts
  • the wiki look (CSS)
  • the wiki functionality (JavaScript)

Editing restricted to wiki administrators

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Template namespace

Templates

  • are reusable pieces of wikitext
  • can take parameters
  • know which page they are used on

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Help namespace

  • Used for documentation
  • Empty in most wikis
  • MediaWiki documentation located centrally at MediaWiki.org

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Category namespace

Categories are property of a page

  • Can be used as tags
    • No good tools included to query category intersections
  • Can be used as hierarchical system by categorizing categories
    • Easy to create loops - frequently not a tree structure

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Other namespaces

Extensions can add namespaces

  • e.g. Translations (Translate)
  • e.g. Property (Semantic MediaWiki)

Wiki system admins can add namespaces

  • e.g. Grants, Iberocoop

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User management

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Different types of admins

System admins

  • Change wiki settings
  • Add or remove extensions
  • Update wiki

Wiki admins

  • Manage content
  • Manage users
  • Customize the wiki

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Groups vs. rights

Groups

  • Groups have rights
  • Users belong to group(s)
  • Defined by system admins

Rights

  • Technical permission to do something
  • Defined by MediaWiki and extensions

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Default groups 1/2

All

  • Implicit group
  • Applies to all visitors

User

  • Implicit group
  • Applies to all registered users who are logged in

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Default groups 2/2

Bureaucrat

  • Add users to groups

Administrator (sysop)

  • Delete content
  • Block users

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Example

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Change tracking

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Recent changes

  • The best view to get insight what is happening in the wiki
  • Lists all edits and other actions in the wiki in reverse chronological order
  • Extensive filtering options

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Watchlist

  • Like recent changes, but only about the pages you care
  • Possible to get notifications
  • Keeps track what you have seen

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Content Management

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Basic page functions

  • Creating a page
  • Editing a page
  • Reverting an edit
  • Moving (renaming) a page
  • Deleting a page

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Wikitext

The wikitext is full of surprises

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Wikitext

  • Easy to write
  • Be forgiving about syntax
  • Has tags similar to HTML

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Syntax help:

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Wikitext: Links

[[Page]]

[[Page|text]]

[[:Category:Example]]

[[:File:Example.jpg]]

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[[File:Example.jpg]]

  • Shows image

[[Category:Example]]

  • Categorizes the page

Explore more:

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Wikitext: Templates

Usage

{{Template}}

{{:Main Page}}

{{A|value1|value2}}

{{A|key=value}}

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Definition

I see {{{1}}}

I see {{{1|nothing}}}

I see {{{key}}}

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Wikitext: Magic words

__NOTOC__

{{PAGENAME}}

{{uc:text}}

{{#language:ar|en}}

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Explore more:

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Home Assignment

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Templates

You will:

  • Create pages
  • Create a template
  • Use a template

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LET’S REVIEW SOME CONCEPTS

Namespaces

Divides content. Some have special functionality.

Administrators

System administrators can update and configure wiki.

Wiki administrators curate content.

Groups

Users are given rights via user groups.

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Change tracking

You can use recent changes and watchlist to follow changes.

Pages

There are multiple ways to create a page.

Templates

You saw how to create and use templates.

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