1. Getting Started

   1. Chapter 1 A First Look

      1. What’s MediaWiki?MediaWiki
      2. A Typical Day on a MediaWiki Site
      3. When to Use MediaWikiMediaWikistrengths
      4. When Not to Use MediaWikiMediaWikilimitations
      5. Additional Resourceshelp

   2. Chapter 2 Basic Use

      1. Quick Tour of a Wiki Page
      2. Articlesarticles
      3. Editing Primerediting
      4. Menu Referencemenusmenus by name
      5. Getting Helphelp

   3. Chapter 3 Your User Identity

      1. Creating an Accountcreatingaccountsuserscreating
      2. Logging In and Outlogging in
      3. User Pagesuser page
      4. Signaturessignaturesuserssignatures
      5. Watchlistswatchlist
      6. Tracking Your Contributionscontributions
      7. Preferencespreferences
      8. User CSS and JavaScriptuser JavaScriptJavaScriptuser CSScascading stylesheetscascading stylesheetsper userJavaScriptper user

2. Writing and Editing Articles

   1. Chapter 4 Editing Articles

      1. Getting Started with Editingeditingintroduction to
      2. Creating an Articlearticlescreatingcreatingarticles
      3. Paragraphs and Headingsparagraphswikitextparagraphs
      4. Typestyles and Fontswikitextfontswikitexttypestylestypestylesfonts
      5. Links (Briefly)links
      6. Images and Uploaded Filesuploaded files
      7. Listslistswikitextlists
      8. Tablestableswikitextwikitexttables
      9. Mathematical Formulasmathematical formulaswikitextmath
      10. Escaping Wikitext with <nowiki>escaping wikitextnowiki tagwikitextnowikiwikitextescaping
      11. Conflictsconflicts
      12. Beyond the Basics

   2. Chapter 5 Links

      1. Internal Linksinternal links
      2. External Linksexternal links
      3. Interwiki Linksinterwiki links
      4. Interlanguage Linksinterlanguage links
      5. Graphical Linksgraphical linksimage links; image tags
      6. File Linksfile links
      7. Linking Tipslinksstrategies

   3. Chapter 6 Organizing Articles

      1. Categoriescategories
      2. Namespacesnamespaces
      3. Subpagessubpages
      4. Redirectsredirects
      5. Disambiguation Pages
      6. Renaming Articlesrenaming articlesarticlesrenaming
      7. Deleting Articlesarticlesdeletingdeleting articlesremoving an article

   4. Chapter 7 Advanced Article Construction

      1. Maintaining a Consistent Wikiorganizing articlesarticlesorganizing
      2. Variablesvariablesindividual variable names
      3. Templates and Transclusiontemplatestransclusiontransclusiontemplatestemplatesparser functions; transclusion
      4. Logical Parser Functionsparser functionslogicallogical parser functions
      5. Dynamic Page ListDynamic Page ListextensionsDynamic Page List
      6. Recipes for Refactoringrefactoringtechniques

   5. Chapter 8 Special Pages

      1. Maintenance Reports
      2. List of Pages
      3. Login/Sign Uplogging in
      4. Users and Rightsuser rightsspecial pages
      5. Recent Changes and Logsrecent changeslogs
      6. Media Reports and Uploadsuploaded filesspecial pages
      7. Wiki Data and Tools
      8. Redirects and Random Pages
      9. High-Use Pageshigh use pagesarticleshighly active
      10. Page Tools
      11. Other Special Pages
      12. Special Pages Grouped by Taskspecial pagesreference, grouped by task

3. Running and Administering MediaWiki

   1. Chapter 9 Installing MediaWiki

      1. Before You Begin
      2. Installing the Prerequisites
      3. Installing MediaWikiinstalling MediaWikiMediaWikiinstalling
      4. Important Optional Featuresinstalling MediaWikioptional features
      5. A Tour of MediaWiki’s Filessource codelist of filesfiles in MediaWiki source codedirectories in MediaWiki source code
      6. Maintaining the Codesource codemaintenance

   2. Chapter 10 Practical Wiki Design

      1. Adopting MediaWikiMediaWikilimitations
      2. Planninginstalling MediaWikiplanning
      3. Establishing Standardsstandards
      4. Governancegovernancewho’s in chargeownership of content
      5. Integrating with Other Websites

   3. Chapter 11 Configuring MediaWiki: An Overview

      1. Administrative Roles
      2. Advanced Page Constructs
      3. Special Pages for Sysops and Bureaucratsspecial pagesrestricted
      4. System Messagessystem messages
      5. Cascading Stylesheetscascading stylesheets
      6. JavaScriptJavaScriptprogrammingJavaScriptsystem-wide
      7. Configuration Settingsconfiguration settingssettings by name, wg...global variablesPHPglobal variables
      8. Extensionsextensions
      9. Skinningskins
      10. SQL ProgrammingSQL programmingdatabaseSQL
      11. Maintenance Scriptsmaintenance scripts

   4. Chapter 12 Controlling Wiki Features

      1. Usersusersconfiguring
      2. User Rights and Permissionsuser rightsaccess controluser rights
      3. Article Contentarticlesconfiguration settings
      4. Configuring the Editing of Articlesedit pageconfiguring
      5. Maintaining Articles
      6. Configuring Namespacesnamespacesconfiguring
      7. File Uploadsuploaded filesconfiguring
      8. Searchsearchconfiguring
      9. Special Page Listspecial pageslist of allreordering
      10. Database Configurationdatabaseconfiguration
      11. Email Configuration
      12. JavaScript ConfigurationJavaScriptconfiguring
      13. Logging and Debuggingloggingdebugging

   5. Chapter 13 Changing Appearances

      1. The Basics
      2. Menusmenusconfiguring
      3. Search Boxsearch boxconfiguring
      4. Tables of Contentstable of contentsconfiguring
      5. External Link Appearanceexternal linksconfiguringexternal linksicon
      6. Page Creditsarticlescreditspage creditscreditsarticle authors
      7. Overall Look and Feel
      8. International Supportinternational supportlanguageconfiguring

   6. Chapter 14 Installing Extensions

      1. Obtaining Extensionsextensionsfinding
      2. Installing an Extensionextensionsinstalling
      3. Recommended Extensionsextensionsrecommended

   7. Chapter 15 Creating Extensions

      1. Overview of Extension Types
      2. Creating a Variableextensionscreatingvariablesvariablescreating
      3. Creating a Parser Functionextensionscreatingparser functionsparser functionscreating
      4. Creating a Tag Extensionextensionscreatingtag extensionstagscreatingextensionsHello World tag
      5. Behavior Changesbehavior changesextensionscreatingbehavior changes
      6. Creating a Special Pagespecial pagescreatingextensionscreatingspecial pages
      7. Useful Tasks for Extension Writers
      8. Creating a Skinextensionscreatingskinsskinscreating
      9. Publishing an Extensionextensionspublishing
      10. Other Extension Topics
      11. Finding a MediaWiki Programmerextensionshiring a programmer

   8. Chapter 16 Wiki Administration

      1. Maintenance Scriptsmaintenance scriptsscripts by namescriptsmaintenance scripts
      2. Backupsbackups
      3. UpgradesMediaWikiupgradingupgrading MediaWiki
      4. Read-Only Wikiread-only wikiwrite-protected wiki
      5. Performance and ScalingMediaWikiperformanceMediaWikiscaling
      6. SecuritysecurityMediaWikisecurity
      7. VandalismVandalismspam
      8. Common Maintenance Tasks
      9. For More Information

1. Colophon

The animals on the cover of MediaWiki are mimic butterflies. Several species of butterflies mimic other butterflies to protect themselves from predators or to gain an advantage over other insects.

Mimic butterflies often employ two types of mimicry: nonpoisonous (Batesian mimicry) and poisonous (M llerian mimicry). Because predators will become sick (or, in some cases, die) after eating a poisonous insect, nonpoisonous butterflies benefit from mimicking their poisonous look-alikes. However, an advantage of poisonous mimicry is that fewer overall insects die as predators become skilled at avoiding both poisonous species.

For instance, the Ash Borer (Podosesia syringae) has markings that look strikingly like those of the paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus). As such, potential predators steer clear from the Ash Borer for fear of being stung, even though the butterfly has no ability to sting. The Queen butterfly (Danaus gilippus) is perhaps doubly protected, as it is poisonous, just like its twin, the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus).

Some would also call the mimic butterfly a trickster. As a caterpillar, the Blue butterfly (Everes comyntas) will secrete skin molecules that are nearly identical to those of the fire ant. After secretion, an adult fire ant will usually find the butterfly and "adopt" it, bringing the larva back to its home, where it feeds the caterpillar until it is able to turn into a butterfly. The Blue butterfly repays the ant's kindness by eating the majority of its available food and also by devouring the ant's young.

The cover image is is from Lydekker's Library of Natural History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSansMonoCondensed.