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MediaWiki namespace

< - MediaWiki User's Guide

Note: "MediaWiki namespace" is the name of one of the 16 namespaces in the database structure of the MediaWiki software, see for an overview.

Table of contents

1 Overview 2 Protection 3 Strings exclusive to language file 4 MediaWiki version 1.2.6 4.1 Access 4.1.1 MSG 4.1.2 MSGNW 4.1.3 SUBST 4.2 Backlinks 5 See also

Overview

The MediaWiki namespace is a mechanism allowing non-developers, in particular administrators, to customise or translate the MediaWiki web interface. It is enabled by default in recent mediawiki versions, $wgUseDatabaseMessages = true enables them.

The contents of the MediaWiki namespace pages override any corresponding settings in the language files listed in Locales for the Wikimedia projects, i.e., the static version of messages. Using the MediaWiki namespace is a bit slower.

Each message in the $wgAllMessagesEn array in Language.php [1] now corresponds to a page in the MediaWiki namespace. For example, there is a line in the php file:

"fromwikipedia" => "From $wgSitename, the free encyclopedia."

To this corresponds the page whose whole content is "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.". It is the message which is displayed at the top of each page of the English Wikipedia. When this page en:MediaWiki:Fromwikipedia is edited the new message appears automatically at the top of every page of the English Wikipedia. Similarly has the content "Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre." (note that the page name iself is not translated). All messages defined can be viewed at Mediawiki:All_messages or Template:All_system_messages in your wiki.

Due to the special role these pages have, the usual interlanguage links have to be dispensed with.

Messages (using Meta Wikimedia as an example):

• - a fast loading page without links, but live updated
• -- a big table of edit links, default text and current text
• -- uses ordinary links
• -- a list of unprotected pages
• -- a list of custom messages

Protection

By default, all messages are protected. This is necessary for a number of reasons:

• Many messages are in plain HTML, hence users could insert malicious scripts
• Vandalism of some messages would be extremely disruptive, for example changes to the text of the links in the sidebar would immediately be visible to all users
• A few messages can cause the software to stop working if they are changed, for example .

However, some messages do not suffer from any of these disadvantages, and it is expected that these messages will be identified and unprotected at some stage.

Strings exclusive to language file

Some text strings cannot be customised using this feature, and so can only be changed by editing the language file. These include:

• The namespace titles "User", "Wikipedia", "Image", etc.
• The names of the special pages
• Month and days-of-the-week names
• A number of items in

To view these text strings, see Locales for the Wikipedia Software.

For MediaWiki version 1.3, see further . What follows below is for earlier versions.

MediaWiki version 1.2.6

For versions before 1.3, another important function of the MediaWiki namespace is to provide customised, often used messages to use in articles (see Access section below and the use of MSG and SUBST).

Access

Besides use by the PHP script, messages can be accessed from inside articles. There are three special tags for this purpose, listed below. This makes it possible to create messages for boilerplate text, such as notices and warnings. Instead of pasting in the stub warning from , you could just type {{SUBST:stub}}.

A new custom message can be created by making a link in the MediaWiki namespace, such as [[MediaWiki:Example]] and editing the page with the text you wish it to contain. You may want to consider protecting the messages you create. Also list any new pages in the MediaWiki namespace in the appropriate page that tracks them.

MSG

Displays a message as the page is rendered, similar to {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}

Example: {{msg:rcnote}} → Below are the last $1 changes in last $2 days.

MSGNW

Same as MSG, except the message is enclosed in tags.

Example: {{msgnw:rcnote}} → Below are the last $1 changes in last $2 days.

See also .

SUBST

Same as MSG, except that the message is substituted as the page is saved, not as it is viewed. So if someone edits the page later on, they will not see the tag in the wikitext, they will just see the message itself. This is similar to the "pipe trick" and signing on Talk pages, see Wikipedia:How to edit a page.

Example: {{subst:rcnote}}

If you want to use a modified version of the standard message, you have to save the standard version first, then edit it, because when applying preview the subst code is not yet replaced by the standard message in the edit box. In the edit summary of the temporary edit you can put "tmp" to indicate that you have not made an error but are still working on the page.

See also .

Backlinks

It is very important to realise that if {{msg:something}} contains a [[wikilink]] then "What links here" on wikilink page will not show the article containing the msg, but MediaWiki:something instead. This behaviour was requested by editor consensus.

To see the backlinks to pages using {{msg:something}} you have to use "What links here" of MediaWiki:something.

(This problem doesn't exist when using subst.)

See also

, Message substitution

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