Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

Glossary

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This page aims to collect and present concise definitions of the terms used in communication within the Wikimedia movement. Links are fine, but shouldn't replace a proper plain English explanation of the terms.

Please note that this collection is to be focused on the meta-level rather than project-level, so terms used exclusively at Wikipedia should not be placed here. See below for links to project glossaries, of which two of the largest are the MediaWiki glossary and the English Wikipedia glossary.

 · See also

0–9

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+1
a notation that, depending on context, often pertain to one of the following definitions:
  1. in communication (on wiki, IRC, e-mail, mailing lists) the action to agree with a previous statement.
  2. in Code review jargon, the action to review a commit and agree with its purpose and implementation.
  3. by metonymy, the technical ability to do this action in the Code review interface.
+2
a notation that, depending on context, often pertain to one of the following definitions
  1. in Code review jargon, the action to review a commit, accept its purpose and implementation and make it part of the code.
  2. by metonymy, the technical ability to do this action in the Code review interface.

A

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AbuseFilter (edit filter)
refers to an extension used to create filters (like anti-spam filters) or to one of the aforementioned filters itself
Active project
any Wikimedia project with at least 100 articles.
See also Which projects are active?
Administrator (admin)
someone with administrative rights on a wiki, which includes the rights to delete pages and block other users. Standards for being given admin rights vary widely across projects. Also often called sysops in English. In other languages and projects, they may have different names such as janitors, moderators, bibliotecarios (Spanish), etc.
Affiliations Committee (AffCom)
a Wikimedia community committee entrusted with advising the Board of Trustees on the approval and support of Wikimedia movement affiliates: national or subnational chapters, thematic organisations and user groups.
AFT
abbreviation of Article feedback tool.
Anonymous editor (Anonymous, anon)
in a wiki context, someone who hasn't logged in when they edit and therefore displays their IP address in the edit history and list of contributions. This is a misnomer as a non-logged in user expose their internet identity, that is their IP address.
Anti-vandalism
Autoconfirmed users
wiki users who are members of the “Autoconfirmed users” user group, which mainly have a purpose of helping to track missbehavior of newly created accounts. Indeed it is a special user group which is allocated automatically based on certain criteria.
AutoWikiBrowser (AWB)
a tool to make rapid semi-automated edits; often used for lots of repetitive minor changes.
Article Feedback Tool (AFT)
a MediaWiki extension that implements an easy way for readers to send comments about articles. It was developed from November 2011 to June 2013, as a tool for one of the five priorities then defined in the 2010–2015 strategic plan. It was deployed on some Wikipedia wikis, but later undeployed. The extension was subsequently developed and used by third parties. See also the English Wikipedia page Article feedback.

B

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Babel
refers to multilingualism. Specifically may mean
  1. the "babel boxes" which are used across Wikimedia projects on user pages to indicate what languages the users speak. Originally implemented as templates, and later reimplemented as parser function with these same name. To use it, place {{#babel:en|es-1}} on your user page, replacing the language codes and numbers as appropriate — N means native speaker/mother tongue, while 1 is minimal knowledge.
  2. the multilingual discussion board on meta
Backlog
a list of to-do items that need to be dealt with on a wiki. For instance, most wikis have a cleanup backlog, with a long list of pages that need fixes such as expansion, spelling corrections, references updating, etc. Backlogs often suffer from not having enough editors working on them. They are implemented in various ways, such as categories, templates, bots, or manually-written lists on wiki pages.
Bikeshedding
The phenomenon whereby technologically simple proposals will result in substantial feedback and iteration while more complex proposals will result in little or no feedback. See http://bikeshed.com/
Board of Trustees (BoT)
All incorporated entities have Boards; the term Board of Trustees or just Board often refers to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, a partially community-elected, partially-appointed body of 10 volunteers who are responsible for governance and oversight of the WMF.
Boldness
as referenced in the Wikipedia principle "be bold!", refers to the wiki principle of: you have the edit button, so use it boldly!
Bot
short for "robot", a script that makes repetitious automated edits according to a preset algorithm. There are thousands of bots operating on the Wikimedia projects; see bot.
Bugmeister or Bug wrangler
Person responsible for sorting and solving bug reports in Phabricator.
Bugzilla
Website to track bug reports and feature requests for MediaWiki, powered by the Bugzilla software. Replaced in 2014 by Phabricator for Wikimedia wikis.

C

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CentralNotice
a MediaWiki extension that allows for the delivery of large-scale announcements and calls to action across Wikimedia wikis via HTML banners at the top of browser window.
Chapters committee (chapcom)
a committee that worked on approving new chapters, now replaced by the Affiliations Committee.
Chapters Meeting
annual physical meeting of representatives of the Wikimedia Chapters organized since 2008. Later evolved into the Wikimedia Conference, which, in turn, was renamed in 2019 to Wikimedia Summit.
Cleanup
An edit on a wiki page or a change in software code that doesn't make significant functional changes, but removes something unnecessary or outdated or fixes a minor problem.
C-levels
upper management at the WMF. For instance, the CTO, CFO, etc. The 'C' stands for 'chief': 'chief technical officer'.
Cluster
A group of servers within a datacenter.
CoC
abbreviation for Code of Conduct.
Code review
Command-Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS)
Name of a pattern used in the domain of Architecture Repository, that pertains to differentiating between reading and editing processes.
Comcom
abbreviation for Communications committee.
Commit
A change to one or more files, usually software code, managed in the git version control system.
Committee
a group of volunteers charged with advising the Board of Trustees and taking care of a specific part of the Foundation's activities.
Committer
anyone granted the permission to make commits to a shared git/svn repository.
Commons
multiple alternate definitions
  1. Creative Commons (CC) : licenses used as legal tools to place contributions under libre terms of use.
  2. Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia project)
Communications Committee
Community
The people working on a particular wiki. Within Wikimedia, often used to refer to Wikimedia project editors in general, as in "the community", or to the subset that works on a particular project: "the Wikibooks community". There is little consensus about who exactly is a part of the community (though if you participate in some way on the projects you're probably part of it, and if you self-identify as a community member you definitely are), but the term often is used to mean those editors who share a sense of ownership in a particular site and participate in a sustained way on it, including working on policies, behind-the-scenes tasks, etc.: work that is not necessarily visible to casual readers or editors. Also refers to having a sense of "community": that is, sharing common values and working towards similar goals in a common way.
Community Resilience and Sustainability (CR&S)
a wing of the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal department, which as of April 2021 consists of Community Development, Human Rights, Movement Strategy Support, and Trust and Safety.
Consensus
An elusive term, referring to the principle of making decisions by a mechanism of discussion and proposal revision that results in consensus among the parties participating in the discussion (as opposed to other decision making mechanisms, such as voting or top-down decrees). Consensus-building values reasoned arguments, inclusiveness and building compromise, and is a time-intensive process. It co-exists in the wiki world with the principle of "being bold."
ContentHandler
Content Translation
A MediaWiki extension that helps editors create the first version of a Wikipedia article by writing its translation from another language. Abbreviated as CX (not CT). See Content translation on mediawiki.org.
Continuous integration
Copyvio
abbreviation for a copyright violation.
Core
refers to:
  1. Core operations, activities or expenses of an entity like the Wikimedia Foundation or a Wikimedia chapter.
  2. MediaWiki core.
Council Member (CM)
Country codes
a two-letter code used to refer to a country, often used when identifying national level chapters. Wikipedias are named after language codes, which are a distinct two or three letter code (though sometimes the same as that used to refer to a country).
Creative Commons
refers to either the Creative Commons free licenses, which all of the Wikimedia wikis use; or to the organization that develops the licenses.
CheckUser (CU)
the technical tool/set of rights that allows privileged users to access data like IP (Internet protocol) addresses and UAs (user agents) behind edits even if the author was logged in.
CX
abbreviation for Content translation.

D

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DB
abbreviation of Database.
DC
abbreviation of datacenter.
Data dump
database
datacenter
a place in which Wikimedia Foundation operates servers that host the Wikimedia projects.
Deployment
Designer
Dev
short for Developer.
Developer
Wikimedia contributor who work to improve and maintain the MediaWiki software that runs the Wikimedia wikis.
Development
Can mean a lot of different things (citation). Besides "what software developers do", it is a common term in non-profit fundraising, and as such is used by WMF's Foundations and Major Gifts team. WMF has had "Global Development", "Engineering and Product Development", and "Community Development" teams in the past.
Diff
The difference between one revision of a wiki page and another. Diffs are viewable from the edit history of a page.
Disambiguation
or differentiating between similarly-named items; often 'disambiguation page', which is a wiki page that disambiguates between similar terms, such as a Wikipedia article about several people that share the same name.
Discussion Tools
a MediaWiki extension that adds several features to talk pages: easier replying, mentioning, new topic creation, etc. As of 2021, it is being actively developed and available in many wikis as a beta feature.
Double redirect
a page that redirects to a second page that in turn redirects to a third page. Double redirects do not work -- the redirect mechanism only works if it's one step -- so these should be fixed by changing the first redirect page to point to the ultimate destination (the third page).
Dump
abbreviation of Data dump.
DPML
abbreviation of Data Protection Management License, also called intellectual property.

E

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E2, EE
abbreviation of the Editor engagement team at the WMF.
E3
abbreviation of Editor engagement experiments team.
Eqiad
Wikimedia datacentre in Washington DC (EQ = Equinix, IAD = Washington Dulles Airport).
Echo
Editathon or edit-a-thon
an event in which people work together in person to build content on a wiki. Edit-a-thons can be very informal or very structured; they can be designed as primarily outreach events (to draw in new contributors) or they can be set up more to meet the needs of longtime contributors. See also hackathon.
Edit conflict
when two people try to edit the same portion of the same wiki page at the same time; this results in a conflict where only one person can save their revision and the second person gets a notice that there is a conflict. With sections and improvements in the software these are less common than they used to be.
Edit filter
a common English alias for AbuseFilter.
Edit history
see history.
Editor
someone who edits a wiki (regardless of the type of edit they make). There are no hard and fast standards for what makes someone "an editor", beyond making an edit somewhere, but the term is often used to mean people who are part of that wiki's community.
Editor engagement
a name of various teams and initiatives to attract and retain Wikimedia participants. See also WikiProject Editor Retention in English Wikipedia, list of editor engagement projects, polemical essay about this topic and list of features related with this issue.
Editor engagement experiments
a team launched on April 16, 2012 to find ways to attract and retain Wikipedia editors. In 2013 renamed into "Growth" to more clearly reflect its goal. Inactive from October 3, 2014.
Edit summary
a brief summary of an edit that is entered in the box at the bottom of the edit window; meant to explain to other readers/editors what the edit is all about. Edit summaries show up in recent changes, the page history, and the list of an individual editor's contributions.
Edit war
a back-and-forth dispute between two or more editors, each revising the page as they see fit and reverting the other's edits. Led to the "three-revert rule" on the English Wikipedia. Edit warring is considered bad form; those involved are supposed to take it to the talk page and sort it out in discussion.
Embassy
a page that exists on some wikis, through which editors from other wikis, especially wikis in other languages, can communicate with the local community.
Engineer
Esams
Wikimedia datacentre in Amsterdam (ES = EvoSwitch, AMS = Amsterdam Schipol Airport).
Existing Wikimedia chapter
see Official Wikimedia chapter
Extension
additional software that adds features to MediaWiki core code. Developers have written over 2000 extensions to draw chemical formulae, embed maps, enhance the editor, etc. etc. Take a look at the extensions running on this wiki.
External links
links to non-wiki pages, that is to external websites. On the Wikimedia projects, there are usually conventions for how and where these should be placed.

F

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Features
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
sometimes used preemptively as a format for an explanatory document about a proposal/project.
Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)
a committee set up to distribute large grants to movement entities
File
Fiscal year
the WMF fiscal year is July 1 to June 30,[1] a period of time that is sometimes referred to in planning documents. If only one year is given, it is generally the end year (i.e. FY2021 = FY2020-21 = 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021). Q1 is July to September, Q2 October to December, Q3 January to March, and Q4 April to June.
Fishbowl wikis
wikis that are not publicly editable, but are publicly readable. Generally requires registration to edit. See the list of Wikimedia fishbowl wikis.
Flow
a MediaWiki extension that provides a structured interface for talk pages. Was in active development in mid-2010s. As of 2021, it is installed on many Wikimedia wikis and used on many discussion pages, but it is in maintenance mode. Replaced by Discussion Tools.
Foundation
see Wikimedia Foundation
Foundation-l
the former name for the Wikimedia-l mailing list
Free Content
content (writing, scientific work, images, creative works, etc.) that is unhampered by restrictive copyright. See freedomdefined.org for a detailed definition.
Fundraising campaign or annual campaign
the yearly process aiming at raising the Wikimedia Foundation's budget through online campaigns, notably through displaying banners on the Wikimedia projects. Historically it was held in November–December.
Fundraising committee (Fundcom)
a joint effort, organized and operated by volunteers and Wikimedia staff to coordinate cross-wiki efforts of outreach, tech logistics, social media, localizing and translating messages pertaining to fundraising process. It was created June 7, 2006 and active throughout its first year of operation. It was disbanded in its original description in August 2007. See also previous membership list and official mention of Committee's abandonment.
FY
see fiscal year

G

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GAC
abbreviation of Grant Advisory Committee, a group of volunteers from the community reviewing proposals for the Wikimedia Grants Program, and advising both applicants and the Foundation.
Gadget
JavaScript and CSS code that a user can activate in his or her preferences, similar to a #userscript.
Ganglia
a deprecated system monitor tool once used to view statistics about the Wikimedia grid. Replaced by Grafana.
GeoData
Gerrit
a git code review tool (used for Wikimedia code review)
GFDL
a free content license that was used on the Wikimedia projects until the switch to Creative Commons licenses.
Git
a wildly-successful "distributed version control system" that tracks changes to the files for a project.
GLAM
is an acronym for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums: the term is often used to refer broadly to all cultural institutions of this type, or Wikimedia outreach to this type of institution.
Global block
a block of an IP address or IP range that applies to all wikis (but can be disable locally by admins).
Global Council (GC)
a planned body that is intended to serve as "a global structure that responds to the needs of our Movement as a whole and represents communities in an equitable way", and would be "representative of the Movement in its role and composition".
Global groups
groups like stewards and global sysops which have "global rights" which apply to a subset of all wikis.
Global rights
permissions that a user has on all or a subset of Wikimedia wikis (see #Global groups).
Global sysop
a user with sysop rights on most Wikimedia wikis, but not most of the large ones.
GPL
GNU General Public License. MediaWiki software is released under this license.
Grafana
a system monitor tool used to view statistics about the Wikimedia grid.
Grants
the giving of movement funds to support volunteer projects, as in the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikimedia Grants Program and several Wikimedia chapters' grants programs. See also the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC).

H

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Hackathon
an event in which a large number of people with different skills meet and work together on a common goal. It can last between a few hours and several days. Wikimedia Hackathons normally last between 2 and 4 days and focus on technologies and projects powering Wikipedia and thousands of MediaWiki installations. See also edit-a-thon.
Hand-coding
manually transforming data (often language or images) into a form understandable by computers. At WMF "hand coding" often refers to manually examining edits to wiki pages to evaluate their quality for research and analytics.
Het deploy
see Heterogeneous deployment
Heterogeneous deployment
see documentation page
History
All editable pages on Wikimedia projects have an associated page history which consists of the old versions of the wikitext as well as a record of the date and time (in UTC) of every edit, the username or IP address of the user who wrote it and their edit summary. Access the page history by clicking the "history" tab at the top of the page. This may also be referred to as the revision history or edit history.
Home wiki
A wiki where an editor feels “at home”. While an editor may be active in many projects, the home wiki would be where a majority of their activity takes place, or where they are best integrated with the local community, or where they check their watchlist most frequently, etc. Contacting a user on their home wiki may be more successful than on another wiki (depending on how they have notifications set up).
Hook
a way software can affect the behavior of other software, for example the 'EditFilter' hook allows extensions to check for spam and vandalism. Usually refers to PHP code, but there is also mediaWiki.hook for JavaScript.

I

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i18n
see internationalization
Icinga
computer, network, and infrastructure monitoring software. See also #Ganglia
Incubator
see Wikimedia Incubator
Interim Global Council (IGC)
a temporary committee to oversee the development of a Movement Charter and the establishment of a Global Council, and to play a leadership role in supporting the implementation of Movement Strategy.
Internal wiki
wiki which was used until 2018 for private affiliate/Wikimedia Foundation topics and contacts. See internal.wikimedia.org.
Internal Wikimedia wikis
generally describes Wikimedia Foundation supported public, private, or fishbowl wikis used by Wikimedia affiliates, planning projects, Wikimedia committees, and project wiki support efforts. See Wikimedia wikis#Organizational and planning projects.
Internationalization
Interwiki
See help about interwiki linking.
IPA
IPv6
a new version of the Internet Protocol to connect computers on the net.
IRC
Internet Relay Chat

J

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J2ME app
Jenkins
Jimbo
User:Jimbo Wales, aka Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation

K

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Knams
Wikimedia datacentre in Amsterdam (KN = Kennisnet, AMS = Amsterdam Schipol Airport).
Kaltura
a software company working on open-source video tools, engaged in a partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation since 2008 to improve the integration of video on Wikimedia projects. TimedMediaHandler was developed as part of this partnership.
Kiwix
Kraken
the upcoming data services platform that the Wikimedia Foundation's Analytics team is working on. It will allow interested persons to query data to answer their questions about Wikimedia projects and users.

L

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L10n
See Localization
Labs
an ambiguous term covering several projects, all of which have since been renamed to eliminate the confusing "labs" element. See labs labs labs for details.
Langcom
abbreviation of Language committee
Langlink
Language codes
the short (two or three character) ISO codes that are used to identify languages, used in Wikimedia to identify language editions of the projects. For example, "en" is English, "es" is Spanish (Español), etc.
Language engineering
LevelUp
Limn
A javascript GUI visualization toolkit, used by the Wikimedia Report Card.
LiquidThreads
A threaded discussion extension for MediaWiki. Was in development in the early 2010s, but no longer developed. Replaced by Flow, and later by Discussion Tools.
Local chapter
see Wikimedia chapter
Localization

M

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Magic word
Main Page
Mainspace
Markup
Annotations to text that change its behavior and appearance. Click [Edit] on this page to see its wikitext markup, which the MediaWiki software turns into HyperText Markup Language, the native format of web pages.
MediaWiki
a wiki engine (software) originally developed for and used by Wikimedia projects, but also used by many other organizations. Also sometimes refers to the wiki about the software, MediaWiki.org.
MediaWiki core
The main code implementing MediaWiki, also the git repository mediawiki/core holding it. Most MediaWiki installations run numerous extensions as well.
MediaZilla
Archaic name for Bugzilla
Meetup
Memcached
Mentor
User who helps newcomers to make their first steps in the Wikimedia movement. Examples: Growth mentorship on wikis or Mentoring program at Hackathons.
Merge
Meta
see Wikimedia Meta-Wiki.
MicroDesign
see Micro Design Improvements on MediaWiki wiki
Minor edit
Mirror
Mobile
MobileFrontend
Movement Charter (MC)
a text that aim at laying out roles for a new Global Council and other Wikimedia movement entities in the frame of the Wikimedia movement strategy.
MySQL
Mediawiki
see MediaWiki

N

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Nagios
what WMF used before #Icinga
Namespace
Narayam
A MediaWiki extension that implemented typing tools integrated into MediaWiki, especially for languages that are written in writing systems that are not widely supported by operating systems. In 2012 its functionality was merged with the Universal Language Selector extension.
Newbies
short for newcomers.
Newcomer
NFS
Notifications
NPOV

O

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Office
Wikimedia Foundation office in San Francisco, California, USA and staff working at that office.
For contact details, see the Contact us page on the Foundation website.
Office actions
refers to editing/sysop actions taken by the WMF Office, usually for legal reasons.
Officers
  1. the Board of Trustees
  2. people with official positions within the Wikimedia Foundation
Official Wikimedia chapter
the Wikimedia chapter which has signed a chapter agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation. This term is used to differentiate between chapter in forming and established entities, endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Onboarding
the process of bringing a new hire or new user up to speed.
Orphan
OSM
One of the map services supported by geohack and used for the WikiMiniAtlas.
OTRS
Former name of VRT and VRTS.
Operations (Ops)
  1. The activity to keep Wikimedia projects running from a technical perspective, e.g. maintaining and improving the servers and the network.
  2. By metonymy, the people (system administrators) engaged in this activity.
Ops
See Operations
Originals
Pmtpa
Former Wikimedia datacenter in Florida (PM = Power Medium, TPA = Tampa Airport).

P

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Page
Page curation
Page triage
Parser
(in the context of the MediaWiki software) a program that translates wikitext into HTML that browsers can display.
Parsoid
A rewrite of the MediaWiki parser for use with the VisualEditor.
Patchset
patrol
PD
Public domain, set of works whose intellectual property rights have expired, been forfeited, or are inapplicable.
Performance
Permalink
A permanent link to a particular revision of a wiki page, which can be accessed by 1) clicking "permanent link" under the 'toolbox' in the default MediaWiki skin; 2) from the page history, clicking on the date/time link of the revision you want. This is very useful for providing attribution.
Phabricator
abbreviated as Phab. Software for tracking tasks and projects (and more). It replaced #Bugzilla and various project management tools at WMF in 2014.
PHP
the scripting language in which most of the MediaWiki backend code (core and extensions) is written.
PII
Personally Identifiable Information, a type of data controlled by the foundation, which restricted access is normally possible only through a non disclosure agreement.
Planet
see Planet Wikimedia.
Platform Engineering Team (PET)
This team has the primary responsibility for the Platform that supports the projects of the Wikimedia Movement. The platform is comprised of MediaWiki and the Wikimedia service infrastructure which provides our services, APIs and tools. Additionally, the team supports MediaWiki as a FLOSS product to be used by 3rd parties to host and share knowledge in a variety of contexts. see Core Platform Team.
PM
product manager or project manager
POV
Point of view; see also NPOV.
Private wikis
wikis which are not publicly editable or readable. Generally requires registration to edit and read. See Wikimedia wikis#Private wikis.
Product
Production
Productize
a terrible corporate-speak word that everyone should cease using immediately. Also, a term referring to making a product out of something.
Project
a form of organized activity undertaken by WMF, a chapter or members of the community (e.g. Wikiprojects). This term is often used to reference Wikimedia projects (i.e. the wikis: Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc.), although it actually has a much broader meaning.
Project namespace
A namespace that refers to the wiki itself, typically used to collect policies, guidelines, and help pages specific to that wiki. Examples include "Wikipedia:" on the English Wikipedia and "Meta:" on this wiki. On a MediaWiki-based wiki, this namespace can be referred to by using the prefix "Project:".
Proxy
Pseudo-namespace
A prefix used in a wikilink that does not correspond to a real namespace on the wiki. This is often used to refer to a real namespace (especially the "Project" namespace) in a shortened form — for example, "WP:" on the English Wikipedia. Sometimes (as with the previous example) the pseudo-namespace is promoted to an official alias of the true namespace; in other cases (such as "MOS:" on the English Wikipedia), the correspondence is accomplished by using redirects.
Public wikis
wikis which are publicly editable and readable. Generally does not require registration to edit or read. See Wikimedia wikis#Public wikis.
Puppet
a program used by the Operations team that automates configuration of the Wikimedia servers, for ease in replication, troubleshooting, and collaborative development.
See also sockpuppet.
Pywikipediabot
Python Wikipedia Bot framework (PWB)

Q

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QA
abbreviation of Quality assurance.
Quality assurance

R

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Random page
A link (Special:Random) that displays in the left-hand sidebar in the default MediaWiki skin, that takes you to any main-namespace page on the wiki.
RC
abbreviation for Recent Changes
Recent changes
A list of all of the edits that are happening, in real time, on the wiki. Accessible via Special:RecentChanges or via a link in the left-hand sidebar in the default MediaWiki skin. Less useful on very large and busy wikis than it is on smaller wikis. The Special:RecentChanges page can be customized with links to subsets of changes, for instance all changes by IPs or all new pages.
Redirect
a wiki page that only points to another wiki page, or "redirects" there; these are often used in wiki projects to direct readers from synonyms, alternate spellings, etc. to the proper article. The code to create a redirect is #REDIRECT [[page name]]. To redirect Page A to Page B therefore, you would edit Page A and just place #REDIRECT [[Page B]] in the edit window for Page A then save the page. Redirects are not counted in the official article count of a project.
Red link
a wiki page that doesn't exist yet but is linked to from another wiki page; these wikilinks to blank pages are shown in the default skin as red text. Clicking on a red link takes you to a place to create the page.
Refactor
Release
Rename
Replication
Report card
graphs of key metrics at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/, presented at the Monthly metrics meeting.
RFA
Request for adminship
RFB
Request for bureaucratship or bot status, depending on context
RFC
Request for comment
RFCU
Either a request for CheckUser status, or a request to CheckUser certain accounts to see if they are related, depending on context.
RFD
Request for deletion
Rights
Right to vanish
A traditional guideline on many wikis that allows any user to "vanish", i.e. being renamed to another username, deletion of user page, hiding relevant log entries.
Roadmap
see mw:Roadmap
Rollback
Round-trip
RSpec
A sophisticated assertion library for the #Ruby programming language
RTV
Right to vanish
Ruby
A dynamically-typed programming language particularly useful for browser testing

S

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SAL
abbreviation of Server admin log.
Sandbox
An area of the wiki, usually a specific wiki page, where users are encouraged to make test edits; usually the sandbox is used for learning or experimenting with formatting and is regularly cleared out (by blanking the page).
SPF
Sender Policy Framework, an e-mail anti-forgery system
SUL
abbreviation of Single user login.
scap
abbreviation of sync-common-all-php. Script used by devops to push code updates to the production servers.
Sdtpa
Former Wikimedia datacenter in Florida (SD = Switch and Data (Now 365 Main), TPA = Tampa Airport).
Security
Server
Server admin log
SF
the Wikimedia Foundation's office in San Francisco, or the staff and contractors working out of that office.
Shell
Shortcut
A code set up to abbreviate a particular namespace so that "shortcut code" pages can be created. For instance, on Wikipedia, there is a shortcut WP for the Wikipedia namespace, which can lead to pages like WP:MOS (which is a redirect to Wikipedia:Manual of Style). Handy for saving typing and remembering the location of commonly-used procedure pages, but also a source of much insider jargon in discussion, which is a perennial source of irritation for those who don't know the codes.
Single user login
alternate term for the unified login system used across Wikimedia wikis. Implemented by CentralAuth extension to MediaWiki.
Sister projects
All of the Wikimedia projects that aren't Wikipedia: a catch-all term for referring to Wikipedia's sister projects; or beyond the projects previously mentioned/considered obvious in the context.
Skin
a collection of code and settings that affects the appearance and behavior of a MediaWiki installation. MediaWiki's default skin is called Vector, you can preview and choose another in Preferences > Appearance.
Small wiki monitoring team (SWMT)
Sockpuppet
Spam
Spam-bot
special pages
A collection of MediaWiki pages that serve various functions, all prefixed by "Special". These pages reflect tools that are a part of the MediaWiki code and can't typically be edited or modified. For instance, Special:Statistics counts how many pages and users are on the wiki. A link to the list of special pages can be found under "toolbox".
Speedy
Usually used to refer to "speedy deletion", which means deleting a page without referring to the usual deletion procedures on the wiki. For instance, pages that are strictly spam with no redeeming content are often speedily deleted.
SPI
SockPuppet Investigation, a procedure used on the English Wikipedia when someone suspects multiple accounts are being used improperly by someone.
Squid
Caching software and the server running it. WMF replaced Squid with Varnish.
Steward
An Administrator who has been empowered to change any user's status on any Wikimedia Foundation project, including granting and revoking Administrator status and granting bureaucrat status. Stewards are elected on Meta.
Structured Data on Commons (SDC)
project that provides a CC-0 licensed data associated to medias on Commons under a cohesively structured format which is especially suitable to automated tasks at large scale.
Stub dump
An incremental data dump.
SUL
see Single user login
w:Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". The SDGs were set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030. They are included in a UN Resolution called the 2030 Agenda or what is colloquially known as Agenda 2030.
SVG
Swift
OpenStack's distributed storage component software

T

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TAE
abbreviation of Total active editors
Tag
TAIM
Technical Advice IRC Meeting, weekly support event for volunteer developers
Talk pages
Tarball
TechOps
abbreviation of Technical operations.
Template
Testswarm
TimedMediaHandler
TimedText
TimedText, a custom namespace for Commons, numbered 102, to hold closed caption text ("Timed Text")
TMH
abbreviation of TimedMediaHandler.
TMPTA
TOC
short for "Table of Contents", which is automatically generated by using three or more section headings in a wiki page.
Toolbox
Toolforge
a hosting environment for developers working on tools (bots, webservices, scheduled jobs) that help maintain and support Wikimedia wikis.
Tool labs
the old name for Toolforge
Toolserver
replaced by Toolforge
Torrus
Total active editors
a key metric that WMF tracks on the Report card to measure the health of Wikimedia. See its analytics definition
TR
abbreviation of Translation requests.
Transclusion
Translation requests
a space on Meta-Wiki dedicated to such requests.
Translatewiki.net
Transwiki
see Help:Transwiki
TWN
abbreviation of translatewiki.net.

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Undergraduate Capstone Open Source Projects (UCOSP)
program that brings together students from across Canada to work together on open source projects. One team (UCOSP Spring 2012) worked on Wikimedia technologies in the spring of 2012.
User Datagram Protocol TO LOG (udp2log)
a subproject of the Analytics upgrade.
mw:Universal Language Selector (ULS)
project which provides a flexible way to configure and deliver language settings like interface language, fonts, and input methods (keyboard mappings).
United Layer San Francisco Airport (ULSFO)
San Francisco Data-centre
Copyright Infringement (copyvio) or UrheberRechtsVerletzung (URV)
unlawful use of works protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works.
User eXperience (UX)
abbreviation of User experience.
Wikimedia user groups
groups of Wikimedia volunteers that are organized and approved by the Affiliations Committee

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Vagrant
Software that sets up a "virtual computer" running, e.g. a MediaWiki installation, on your actual computer.
Vandalism
Varnish
Caching software that routes web site requests to appropriate datacenter. Previously Squid software was used for a similar purpose.
Vector
The default skin for MediaWiki since 2010, also an extension that adds some features and preferences.
Village pump
VisualEditor
a WMF project to let users edit wiki pages without dealing with the underlying wikitext markup ([[a link]] {{template|param}} ''italics'', etc.).
Volunteer
Depending on the context, this can refer to the Editors of the content projects, a volunteer contributor to the MediaWiki software, the active members of the Wikimedia Chapters, or any combination. Volunteers are unpaid, but can have an official function within the organizations (board member, etc.).
Volunteer Response Team (VRT)
A group of volunteers handling emails to Wikimedia projects from the general public. Previously known as OTRS, after the name of the software used at the time.
Volunteer Response Team Software (VRTS)
The software used by the Volunteer Response Team to manage emails. Originally ORTS.
VFD

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WCA
abbreviation of Wikimedia Chapters Association.
WebFont
wiki
A generic term describing a collaborative website that can be edited by its visitors.
Wikibooks
Wikidata
A Wikimedia project initially developed by Wikimedia Deutschland, which focuses on collecting data about the world and building free knowledge base, including interwiki language links between Wikipedia entries. There is only one Wikidata site, which is multilingual.
WikiDOM
WikiEditor
Wikify
To apply appropriate wiki markup to a page, such as linking terms or changing a manually numbered list into an automatically formatted one. Sometimes also used to refer to changes that enforce specific wiki policies or guidelines.
wikilink
A link from one page to another on the same wiki, accomplished by surrounding the page name by double square brackets, [[like this]]. This is also sometimes known as an internal link to distinguish it from an external link to a page on a different wiki or a non-wiki. A link to a page on another wiki is also called an interwiki link.
Wikilove
Wiki Loves
A concept developed by multiple Wikimedia Chapters where a competition is organized in order to get more people involved with the Wikimedia projects and at the same time collect more content. See also Wiki Loves Art and Wiki Loves Monuments.
Wiki Loves Africa (WLA)
a public photo competition with each year a different theme, organized by Wikimedia chapters, groups and local Wikipedia volunteers in and around Africa. The public takes photos of the theme, upload those to Wikimedia Commons, and then they can be used in Wikipedia and elsewhere. The goal of the contest is to document the African culture for the world wide public.
Wiki Loves Art (WLAN)
A photo competition, intially organized in Netherlands in partnership with the museums of country. For this project, museums from cities all over the country welcomed amateur photographers and allowed them to take pictures or their art collections for Wikipedia projects.
Wiki Loves Earth (WLE)
a public photo competition around natural heritage, organized by Wikimedia chapters, groups and local Wikipedia volunteers. The public takes photos of nature, upload those to Wikimedia Commons, and then they can be used in Wikipedia and elsewhere. The goal of the contest is to make the worlds natural heritage visible for the world wide public.
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM)
a public photo competition around cultural heritage monuments, organized by Wikimedia chapters, groups and local Wikipedia volunteers. The public takes photos of monuments, upload those to Wikimedia Commons, and then they can be used in Wikipedia and elsewhere. The goal of the contest is to make the worlds heritage in cultural heritage monuments visible for the world wide public.
Wikimania
An annual international conference held by the Wikimedia Foundation and centred around various aspects of the Wikimedia movement.
Wikimania bid jury
A group of volunteers that is organized every year to review, and decide among, the community bids to host Wikimania. Sometimes just Wikimania jury or bid jury.
Wikimedia
See Wikimedia movement.
Wikimedia Antarctica
A fictional chapter that is occasionally used humorously as an example or as a stand-in for any real chapter. While there are sometimes Wikimedians among Antarctica’s residents,[2] as of 2024 they have not organized into a user group or chapter.
Wikimedia chapter (chapter)
A corporation dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of free content created within Wikimedia projects. A Wikimedia chapter supports Wikimedia Foundation on a specific geographic (usually national) level.
Wikimedia Chapters Association (WCA)
central organization for all chapters that join. Its purpose is to promote coordination and accountability among the chapters, represent the chapters on common interests, facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience, and provide assistance and support in organizational development.
Wikimedia Commons
A Wikimedia project focused on collecting free media files, primarily images. There is only one Commons site, which is multilingual.
Wikimedia Conference
see Wikimedia Summit.
Wikimedia Foundation
An international non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of Wikimedia projects to the public free of charge.
Wikimedia Incubator
Where potential new language versions of existing Wikimedia Foundation projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, etc.) have their own wikis. There they are arranged, written, tested, and proven worthy of Wikimedia hosting.
Wikimedia-l
A mailing list for discussing the Wikimedia community and related organizations.
Wikimedia Labs
A former name for WMCS and/or Toolforge. See also Labs.
Wikimedia mark
See Wikimedia trademark.
Wikimedia Meta-Wiki
This website, a wiki used to discuss various issues affecting all Wikimedia projects. Often shortened to "Meta".
For more information see: Meta:About .
Wikimedia movement
The whole of people and efforts centered around Wikimedia projects, it encompasses Wikimedia Foundation, its chapters, thematic organizations, user groups and the community.
Wikimedia movement affiliates (Affiliates)
term grouping miscellaneous forms of entity officially recognized by the foundation as a representative of the Wikimedia movement. It includes chapters, thematic organizations, user groups and movement partners.
Wikimedian in Residence
a user from the Wikimedia movement who is hired by an organisation to help the organisation collaborate with Wikimedia.
Wikimedia Summit
an annual meeting of representatives of Wikimedia Chapters and Affiliates, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and other movement groups like the Affiliations Committee or the Funds Dissemination Committee. Before 2019, known as Wikimedia Conference, which, in turn, evolved from the Chapters Meeting. Unlike Wikimania, which is larger and more community-oriented, the Summit is smaller, and oriented more at organizational governance and professional development.
Wikimedia thematic organization
Incorporated independent non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work focused on a specific theme, topic, subject or issue within or across countries and regions. Thematic or focused organizations use a name clearly linking them to Wikimedia and are granted use of Wikimedia trademarks for their work, publicity and fundraising.
Wikimedia trademark
Select words, symbols, and phrases are the legally registered trademarks of the Wikimedia Foundation. They may only be used on the Wikimedia Foundation projects and by approved Wikimedia Foundation partners or movement organizations – such as chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups.
Wikimedia user group
Open membership groups with an established contact person and history of projects, designed to be easy to form. User groups may or may not choose to incorporate and are granted limited use of the Wikimedia trademarks for publicity related to events and projects.
Wikimedian
A general term for a person contributing to one or several Wikimedia projects. Each project has its own, more specific name for its contributors (e.g., Wikipedian, Wikinewsie, etc.).
Wikimedia project
A wiki-based internet service maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation (e.g. Wikipedia, but also Wiktionary, Wikibooks, etc.). There are more than 800 projects in well over 200 languages.
Wikimeetup
A meeting of Wikimedians of a certain area. Typically wikimeetups are announced in advance on the appropriate project wiki.
Wikinews
A Wikimedia project focused on citizen journalism and writing news stories. Available in many language editions.
Wikipedia
A Wikimedia project focused on writing encyclopedia entries. Available in many language editions.
Wikipedia Zero
WikiProject
Wikiquote
A Wikimedia project focused on collecting quotations. Available in many language editions.
Wikisource
A Wikimedia project focused on collecting original source texts. Available in many language editions.
Wikispecies
A Wikimedia project focused on collecting species and taxonomy information. There is only one Wikispecies site, which is multilingual.
Wikistats
Wikitech
Wikitext
The text of a page on a wiki before it is processed and rendered as an HTML page. It is what users edit when they change a page. Wikitext includes regular text and wiki markup.
Wikiversity
A Wikimedia project focused on teaching and learning, including building and collecting free educational resources such as lesson and course plans and materials. Available in many language editions.
Wikivoyage
A Wikimedia project focused on building a free travel guide for all parts of the world. Available in many language editions. Along with Wikidata, the newest Wikimedia project.
Wiktionary
A Wikimedia project focused on developing a free multilingual dictionary. Available in many language editions.
WiR
abbreviation of Wikipedian in Residence or Wikimedian in Residence.
WLM
abbreviation of Wiki Loves Monuments.
WM
abbreviation of Wikimedia.
WMAT, WMCH, WMDE, WMFR, WMNO, WMRU, WMSE, WMUK, etc.
National chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation in the specified country (AT = Austria, CH = Switzerland, DE = Germany, etc.).
WMCS
Wikimedia Cloud Services
WMF
abbreviation of Wikimedia Foundation.
WP
An abbreviation for Wikipedia (often, but not always, the English one). When used in the English Wikipedia, this is a "pseudo-namespace" prefix for a policy, guideline, or essay. If a user suggests that you read/follow/avoid WP:XYZ (where XYZ is any string of characters) without linking the reference to the appropriate page, just copy WP:XYZ into the search window to see what it corresponds to. When used on other wikis, you may need to go to the English Wikipedia to search for it.

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XFF
see XFF project

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Z

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See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki: Bylaws § Section 3. Fiscal Year, Audit, and Review.
  2. ↑ Ardini, Francisco (2024-04-24). "The first Wikipedia editathon from Antarctica in history". Diff (in en-US). Retrieved 2024-04-25. 
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