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Most Internet users have heard of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia that can be edited by just about anyone. Wikipedia changed the way websites could be created and edited. To make this technology available to other users, MediaWiki was developed. With this software and MediaWiki hosting the power of wiki can be placed into anyone’s hands.

 

MediaWiki is free, open source software that is written in PHP. The software was originally used to develop the now famous Wikipedia but is now available under the GNU General Public Licence. It uses a MySQL or PostgreSQL database to store the information. WikiMedia uses the wikitext format, a format that is almost like the WYSIWYG format that allows users to edit content without any knowledge of XHML or CSS. Even if a mistake is made or a page vandalised, MediaWiki always keeps a backup of previous pages to allow users to easily rollback to a previous version.

 

MediaWiki is very easy to use. With the click of a few buttons a new page can be created that integrates text, pictures and sound. MediWiki is also extremely customisable. Users cannot only change the layout and the look of the site to suit their specific needs, but they can also choose to customise the interface used to edit the wiki. This allows administrators to define every aspect of their site as well restrict where and what users can effectively edit with the wiki.

 

One of the advantages of MediaWiki is its scalability. MediaWiki consists of a core programme to which extensions can be added to increase its functionality and usefulness. Some extensions are simple scripts that allow the embedding of Flash or forms while others add complex new syntax to the wiki. These include the ability to check the author, origin and reliability of text or to add searchable attributes to text. Of course it is important that you MediaWiki hosting supports the extensions that you want to add.

 

The basic requirements for MediaWiki hosting are a web server and database server that supports PHP 5.0 or higher and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ingres or SQLite. Depending on which extensions are required other syntaxes and systems like TeX for mathematical formulae or ImageMagick for image thumbnails.

 

There are places that offer free MediaWiki hosting but this usually requires that a site have banner ads or, even worse pop-ups, as part of the website to help cover the costs of the server. While paid hosting servers do require a monthly cost there are no ads to detract from the website and one can be guaranteed better customer support.

 

MediaWiki makes creating an interactive website or collaborative website a breeze. It has a range of features available that make creating pages easier than ever before. With good MediaWiki hosting that supports all the extensions a person require, MediaWiki allows nearly anyone to create site in the scope of Wikipedia.

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