"A good book! It's a nice overview of wiki editing and administration, with pointers to handy extensions and further online documentation." -Brion Vibber, Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation "This book is filled with practical knowledge based on experience. It's not just spouting some party line." -Rob Church, a developer of MediaWiki MediaWiki is the world's most popular wiki platform, the software that runs Wikipedia and thousands of other websites. Though it appears simple to use at first glance, MediaWiki has extraordinarily powerful and deep capabilities for managing and organizing knowledge. In corporate environments, MediaWiki can transform the way teams write and collaborate. This comprehensive book covers MediaWiki's rich (and sometimes subtle) features, helping you become a wiki expert in no time. You'll learn how to:

• Find your way around by effective searching and browsing

• Create and edit articles, categories, and user preferences

• Use advanced features for authors, such as templates, dynamic lists, logical parser functions, and RSS, to organize and maintain large numbers of articles

• Install and run your own wiki, and configure its look and behavior

• Develop custom wiki features, called extensions, with the PHP programming language and MySQL database

This book also provides special guidance for creating successful corporate wikis. For beginners who want to create or work on collaborative, community-driven websites with this platform, MediaWiki is the essential one-stop guide. "I was a MediaWiki newbie before reading this book. Now, many aspects of the platform that were murky before are crystal clear." -JP Vossen, author of O'Reilly's Bash Cookbook

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 6 Ratings

Excellent Guide To MediaWiki for Users, Administrators & Developers - 2009-02-03
Reviewer Rating:
This O'Reilly Technical Guide provides an excellent introduction and reference to the most popular and successful wiki software for a variety of audiences. Whether you are a newbie who wants to know how Wikipedia works, a site administrator hosting a corporate wiki, the author of an entry who wants to ensure optimal presentation and usability, or the software developer who needs to extend this technology; you will find reference material to meet your needs. Two minor nits, which may be a result of my personal predilections are: I could have used a top-down architectural summary to guide my understanding of the MediaWiki architecture, and would have liked more than a one page reference to Semantic MediaWiki an important extension of this technology. But in being a valuable reference to a wide range of audiences on how to use, administer and extend this technology--the only reference on the internals of this important technology; this book provides an invaluable service.

Good basic primer - 2008-12-28
Reviewer Rating:
For someone who is just getting started with MediaWiki this is a good basic primer. Using this book I was able to answer many of the questions directed to the wiki development team. This book is very well organized and written in easy to understand language for anyone technically minded. It meets or exceeds expections of O'Reilly books.

Very informative for a new mediawiki administrator - 2009-02-10
Reviewer Rating:

I found this book very helpful to me as a brand new mediawiki adminsitrator. It gave me great guidance on installation and configuration of mediawiki, as well as best practices recommendations for initial deployment of a wiki.

Mostly there - 2009-12-01
Reviewer Rating:
Background: I'm as techie who for various reasons has avoided Wiki up until now. Now, I am told, get one running for a new project. So, after a serious amount of research, I purchased the MediaWiki book. I have not finished the book cover-to-cover, but thus far, I am finding it covers 80% of what I need. The 80% it covers has been enough to point me in the right direction for additional digging on-line for other documentation. As a starting point (after you have gotten past the actual installation of MediaWiki), it is a great resource. For what appears to be common configuration and usage, it is a great text. When it comes to fine-tuning configuration issues (say a mixed public and private configuration), it starts to run thin. When it comes to the messy issue of uploads, it does a pretty good job, but misses the mark slightly.

Editing, Using, Installing, Managing a wiki? You Need this - 2009-08-13
Reviewer Rating:
MediaWiki is an amazingly beautiful and powerful documentation and communication tool. However like many such powerful tools its configuration and management can be maddeningly complex. This book is a well done concise guide to all things MediaWiki. If you're simply making modifications to a wiki or installing and administering one this book is WELL worth the investment.

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