Help:Glossary
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This is a glossary of terms used here and on wikis in general, based on the Wikipedia glossary.
A
- An HTML term for code that lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page.
B
- The act of removing the ability to edit from a certain user or IP address on a single community, usually done by an administrator against users or IP addresses causing vandalism.
- Also used: edit link, red link.
- A link to a nonexistent page, usually colored red. List of such links can be found on Special:WantedPages.
- Redirect to a non-existent page. These are listed at Special:BrokenRedirects and should usually be removed or redirected.
C
- Moving a page by taking the text of the page, and copying it into the edit window for a second page. Generally considered worse than the 'move page' option, because it causes the page and its edit history to be in different places. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators.
- See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Fixing cut-and-paste moves
D
- The difference between two versions of a page, as displayed using the Page history feature, or from recent changes. The versions to compare are encoded in the URL, so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a specific change to an article.
- See also: MetaWikipedia:Help:Diff
- A redirect which leads to another redirect. Counter-intuitively, this will not bring one to the final destination, so it needs to be eliminated by linking directly to the final target page. Listed at Special:DoubleRedirects.
E
- Two or more parties both attempt to save different edits to the same page at the same time. Usually, if this happens, you will be asked to re-do your edit into a newly modified page.
- See also: Wikipedia:Help:Edit conflicts
- See Broken link
- The contents of the "Edit Summary:" field on the "Edit this page" page.
- Also used: revert war.
- Two or more parties repeatedly making their preferred changes to a page, and undoing the changes they do not agree with. An edit war should be stopped, and the disagreement resolved on a talk page.
- Also used: ext. ln, ext lk, or extlink.
- A link to a website outside of this wiki. The alternatives are an internal link within the same wiki, and an interwiki link to a different wiki on ShoutWiki.
H
- Also called: page history
- All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state.
- See also: Help:Page history
I
- Also used: wikilink
- A link pointing to another page within the same site created (in the source editor) by using the wikitext markup double square-brackets "[[" and "]]". These links usually show up as blue if they are working, and red if they are broken. Note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.
- An infobox is a standard template used on mainspace pages. Infoboxes have "fields", with each field denoting a different piece of information based on parameters set in the template. An example is for a television show, episode pages may rely on an infobox specifically for episodes, and will include information such as episode, season, and director.
- See also: Help:Infoboxes
- A link to a different wiki on ShoutWiki. See also: Shoutwiki Interwiki links help and all usable interwiki prefixes
- An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g. computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing.
M
- The software that powers this wiki, and a namespace. Originally developed for Wikipedia, and now one of the most frequently used platforms for hosting wikis.
- See also: Help:Contents on MediaWiki
- "MediaWiki" is also the namespace for messages that allow customization of the interface of a wiki.
- See also: Help:System messages
N
- A way to classify pages. This wiki has namespaces for the main content, pages about the project (which on many wikis will be in the main namespace), user pages (User:), special pages (Special:), MediaWiki pages (MediaWiki:) and talk pages (Talk:, Wikipedia talk:, and User talk:), and more.
- See also: Help:Namespace
- A null edit occurs when an editor opens the edit window of a document then re-saves the page without having made any text changes. This is sometimes done as a lazy way to purge – such as to update the functioning of templates (which require articles containing them to be edited for any changes to take effect). Moreover, a null edit can more quickly populate the page into a new category. The term also applies to making a slight, non-substantive change (e.g. removing an unneeded blank line or adding one) to get the article history to register a change, for the purpose of leaving an edit summary that responds to a previous one.
O
- A page with no links from other pages. You can view lists of orphaned articles and images.
P
- A link where the displayed text is not the name of the target article. Such links are created (in the source editor) using the pipe character "|" e.g. [[Target article|Displayed text]]. The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for you in certain circumstances.
- See also: Wikipedia:Piped link
- A policy is a wiki rule, usually having to do with page creation or layout, but can be about almost anything (images, signatures, templates, etc.). It is usually strictly enforced and tends to have stronger consequences than not following a guideline.
- A page that cannot be edited by all users. A page can be protected against anonymous users and new accounts, or against all users except admins. Often this is done to protect against frequent vandalism or to cool down an edit war.
R
- Also used: redir.
- A page title which sends the reader to another page. This is used for synonyms and ease of linking.
- See also: Help:Redirect
- See Broken link
- Also used: ref.
- References are external sources used to confirm information. A link can become a reference by placing the <ref></ref> tags around it. A list of references can be added to the page by adding <references/> under the appropriate header.
- See also: Help:Cite on MediaWiki
- An edit that reverses changes made by someone else.
- See also: Help:Reverting
- To change a page back to the version before the last edit. Admins and those with the "rollback" rights have special tools to do this more easily.
- The generally used top level category.
S
- A sandbox is a page that users may edit however they want. This is for users to experiment and gain familiarity with Wiki markup.
- Using the 'edit' links to the right of the page, one can get an edit window containing only part of the page, making it easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit. Javascript is needed for section editing. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.
- A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, e.g. linking Help:Contents in the article "Help:Contents". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.
- Also used: sock, alt
- Another user account created secretly by an existing user of the site, often to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument, or to avoid a block.
- See also: Wikipedia:Sock puppetry
- A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g. it is a cross-wiki redirect).
- A page connected to a parent page. You can only create subpages in certain namespaces. For example, a parent page can have the name "Parent article", and a subpage can have the name "Child page" with a slash (/) before it, so the subpage would actually be called "Parent article/Child page".
T
- A page reserved for discussion. Many pages within this wiki (except talk pages themselves) have talk pages attached to them.
- See also: Help:Talk pages
- A way of automatically including the contents of one page within another page, used for boilerplate text, navigational aids, etc.
- See also: Wikipedia:Template namespace
- A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling), with intent to be disruptive. For example, a troll would intend to vandalize a few articles in a wiki, and then eventually get blocked.
- See also: Wikipedia:Internet troll
U
- A personal page for editors. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used to communicate with other users via the Message Wall or user talk page.
V
- Deliberate defacement of pages on a community with the intent to be disruptive. This can be by deleting text or publishing nonsense, bad language, etc. The term is often incorrectly used to discredit the views of an opponent in edit wars.
W
- A set of pages selected by the user, who can then click on My watchlist to see recent changes to those pages.
- A link to another page on the same wiki, as opposed to an external link.
- Also used: wiki text, wikitext.
- Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example '''bold''' instead of <b>bold</b>. It is the source code stored in the database and shown in the editor in source mode. Searching by the MediaWiki software is done in the wikitext, as opposed to searching by Google, which is done in the visible text. The size of a page is the size of the wikitext.
- See also: Help:Editing on MediaWiki