!1 hey! Names - Meta

Names - Meta

Names
From Meta

This page has been created to provide a quick-reference guide to distinguish some similar and often-confused terms. Please be careful to use the appropriate term, in order to avoid confusion. Please also note the canonical capitalisation of each name - particularly, the distinction between Wikimedia and MediaWiki is more noticeable when they are consistently capitalised differently.
Contents

* 1 wiki
* 2 Wikipedia
* 3 Wikimedia
* 4 MediaWiki
* 5 MediaZilla

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wiki

wiki is a generic term which describes a certain kind of collaborative website that can be edited by any user/visitor.

* wiki (as an adjective), the Wiki Way, and the antonym un-wiki are also used to describe the community-oriented philosophy that goes with such a system (e.g. "that's not a very wiki way of doing things").
* Wiki (with a capital 'W') and WikiWikiWeb are sometimes used to refer to the Portland Pattern Repository, which was the first ever wiki.
* wiki software and wiki engine are terms referring to pieces of software that power wiki-based websites. There are many different types of wiki software, some very simple, others enhanced with specific advanced features. See also: Wikipedia's entry on "wiki software" or the Portland Pattern Repository's "canonical" list of wiki engines.

For a more complete definition, see Wikipedia's entry on "wiki".
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Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a multi-language free encyclopedia, developed collectively using a wiki. The name "Wikipedia" is a trademark, and should not be used as a generic term.

Wikipedia's homepage is http://www.wikipedia.org.
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Wikimedia

Wikimedia is the collective name for a group of inter-related projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikibooks, and others, which aim to use the collaborative power of the Internet, and the wiki concept, to create and share free knowledge of all kinds. Like "Wikipedia", "Wikimedia" is a trademark, and should not be used for projects which are not officially affiliated. Wikimedia is also used as a shortened form of The Wikimedia Foundation.

* The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which funds and manages these projects. For more information, see the Foundation's homepage
* The term Wikimedia servers is often used, referring to the computer hardware on which all Wikimedia projects are hosted. The servers are supported primarily by volunteers, many of whom also work on the MediaWiki software (see below); the Wikimedia servers are not available for hosting projects not run by the Wikimedia Foundation, with the exception of some non-official IRC servers and other non-Foundation-approved installations made by those with access to the servers. See also: Wikimedia servers.
* The Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, commonly referred to as Meta, is the wiki used to discuss issues which affect all Wikimedia projects; it is also used for discussing the development of the MediaWiki software (see below), since this is often tightly linked to the needs of Wikimedia projects. This page is part of Meta. See also: Meta:About.
o Meta should not be confused with MetaWiki, a search engine that is not part of the Wikimedia group of projects.

See also: Wikimedia, Wikipedia's entry on "Wikimedia".
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MediaWiki

MediaWiki is the particular wiki engine developed for and used by Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. It is freely available for others to use (and improve), and there are many copies in use by all sorts of projects around the world.

See also MediaWiki, the software project page, Sites using MediaWiki.
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MediaZilla

This customized Bugzilla version is the feature request and bugs reporting system used by the MediaWiki developers, as well as for configuration issues with Wikipedia and the other Wiki-media projects..


This list is based, with thanks, on this mailing list post from Jens Ropers.