Help:Special page

From Eugene Neighbors

(Redirected from MediaWiki User's Guide: Using the random page function)

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MediaWiki Handbook: Contents, Readers, Editors, Moderators, System admins Template:Edi

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MediaWiki Handbook: Contents, Readers, Editors, Moderators, System admins Template:Edi

{{#if:|Other languages:}} Template:H-langs: {{#if: Help||}}}} The namespace "Special:" consists of "special pages". These have no corresponding wikitext; they are created by the software on demand. Some depend on the preferences that have been set, e.g. classic or enhanced Recent Changes, and the number of titles in Recent Changes and the watchlist, etc.

1 Special pages for all users
2 Restricted special pages
3 Special pages currently not enabled on Wikimedia wikis
4 Logs
5 Miscellaneous
6 See also
7 Links to other help pages
8 Links to other help pages

[edit] Special pages for all users

All of the below linked Special pages produce content particular to whatever wiki you are viewing this document on. If you are looking for a list of the available Special pages from a given wiki, use its Special:Specialpages page to get a list, or try viewing the page on this wiki, then editing your web address to change the server name, leaving the page portion intact.

Special pages

Special:Specialpages : A list of all special pages for all users.

See also: SpecialPages grouped into categories which is a modification that can sort the SpecialPages into categories

All pages

Special:Allpages : all pages in a specified namespace in ASCII order, including redirects (to distinguish redirects, one can set ".allpagesredirect" class in the style sheets); on Wikimedia sometimes temporarily disabled. Both a namespace and a starting page can be specified:

Special:Allpages/Template - main namespace, from "Template"
Special:Allpages/Template: - Template namespace, from start
Special:Allpages/Template:T - Template namespace, from "T"

From MediaWiki 1.5 one can also select all namespaces except a specified one. Namespace prefixes are given, but the sort key is the page name without prefix.

All pages with prefix

Special:Prefixindex; if the last character of the prefix is a space or underscore it is ignored. One of many important applications is to find subpages with "fullpagename/".

Articles with the fewest revisions

Special:Fewestrevisions

Articles with the most categories

Special:Mostcategories : lists articles from whose number of categories is largest.

Articles with the most revisions

Special:Mostrevisions : Articles with the most revisions.

Blocked IP addresses and usernames

Special:Ipblocklist : Blocked IPs and usernames

Book sources

Special:Booksources : ISBN Book Sources

Broken redirects

Special:BrokenRedirects

Captcha

Special:Captcha on projects supporting this feature. Shows "Captcha help."

Categories

Special:Categories : shows the number of members, see also Help:DPL.

CategoryTree

Special:CategoryTree : displays categories in tree structure.

Cross-namespace links

Special:CrossNamespaceLinks : provides a list of links from a page in the main namespace to a page in other namespaces (except for Special, Talk, Meta and Template namespaces), which are not advisable to use.

Confirm my email address

Special:Confirmemail

Dead-end pages

Special:Deadendpages : Pages without any outgoing links.

Disambiguation pages

Special:Disambiguations : shows pages that link to a disambiguation page, which should link to the appropriate topic instead. A disambiguation page is defined as a page on which a disambiguation template is transcluded; a disambiguation template is defined as a template linked from MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage.

Double redirects

Special:DoubleRedirects : lists redirects that redirect to another redirects. May contain false positives.

Expand templates

Special:ExpandTemplates (extension, enabled on Wikimedia sites): Provides an input box to enter wikitext, and another one to enter a page name, and produces expanded wikitext, i.e., templates, parser functions and variables are expanded recursively; variables depending on page name are expanded based on the supplied page name. See also mw:Extension:ExpandTemplates.

Export pages

Special:Export : Produces an XML file containing the wikitext and metadata of either the current version only, or all revisions, of one or more pages, specified in the form of a list; the XML file is in the format required for Special:Import; exporting is typically done either in preparation of applying the latter at another MediaWiki project, or for searching within old page revisions. See Help:Export.

External links

Special:Linksearch, see Help:Linksearch

File path

Special:Filepath : returns the complete path for a file.

Files

Special:Imagelist : List of images and other files uploaded that can be sorted by size or date.

Gallery of new files

Special:Newimages

Log in / create account

Special:Userlogin : Creates new login cookie.

Logout

Special:Userlogout : Destroys cookie, see also Privacy policy.

Logs

Special:Log : Combined display of various logs. See also below.

Long pages

Special:Longpages - pages in the main namespace, with size in bytes, in order of decreasing size

MIME search

Special:MIMEsearch : filters files for its MIME-type.

Most linked-to categories

Special:Mostlinkedcategories : lists categories from whose number of pages contained is largest.

Most linked-to images

Special:Mostimages : lists images from whose number of pages linked is largest.

Most linked-to pages

Special:Mostlinked : lists pages from whose number of pages linked is largest.

Most linked-to templates

Special:Mostlinkedtemplates : lists templates for which the number of pages in which the template is transcluded is largest, not counting transclusions through redirects; how many are listed depends on the settings; e.g. on w:en: 1000 (currently: templates transcluded in more than 1832 pages)

My page

Special:Mypage : Link to the user page of the user who follows it.

My talk page

Special:Mytalk : Link to the talk page of the user who follows it.

My watchlist

Special:Watchlist : Show the pages you are watching. (Watchlist help)

New pages

Special:Newpages : Newest pages with creation date and time, current size, user who created the page, and first edit summary, in reverse order of creation.

Oldest pages

Special:Ancientpages - pages in the main namespace, with date and time of last edit, in order of last edit.

Orphaned pages

Special:Lonelypages : Orphaned articles i.e. articles with no links to them in the wiki.

Pages without language links

Special:Withoutinterwiki

Preferences

Special:Preferences : Select preferences to customise the appearance and behaviour of the software. For some project families, notably Wikia, this applies for the whole family. See Help:Preferences.

Protected pages

Special:Protectedpages

Random page

Special:Randompage : redirects to a random page from the main namespace which is not a redirect. Other namespaces can be specified as a parameter, e. g.: Special:Randompage/Talk, Special:Random/Template.

Random redirect

Special:Randomredirect : redirects to a random redirect pages.

Recent changes

Special:Recentchanges : The latest edits in the project. See Help:Recent changes.

Related changes

Special:Recentchangeslinked : It works only if the target is specified. See Help:Related changes.

Redirects

Special:Listredirects : lists all redirects.

Search

Special:Search

Short pages

Special:Shortpages - pages in the main namespace, with size (of the wikitext excluding that of templates used) in bytes, in order of increasing size

Statistics

Special:Statistics : total number of pages and users

System messages

Special:Allmessages : Displays all pages in the MediaWiki namespace.

Uncategorized categories

Special:Uncategorizedcategories

Uncategorized pages

Special:Uncategorizedimages : Images without category tags (note that after adding a tag to a page refreshing this page does not immediately reflects the change)

Uncategorized pages

Special:Uncategorizedpages : Pages without category tags (ditto)

Uncategorized templates

Special:Uncategorizedtemplates : Templates without category tags (ditto)

Unused categories

Special:Unusedcategories

Unused files

Special:Unusedimages

Unused templates

Special:Unusedtemplates - templates which are not transcluded (however, they may be used for substitution))

Upload file

Special:Upload : Upload a file to the wiki.

User contributions

Special:Contributions : Requires a target user: e. g. Special:Contributions/Jimbo Wales

Users

Special:Listusers : A list of all registered users. There also is Special:Listadmins, which is a redirect toSpecial:Listusers/Sysop. For some project families, notably Wikia, this applies for the whole family.

Version

Special:Version : Shows the version of the software the site is currently running, and a listing of extensions installed

Wanted categories

Special:Wantedcategories

Wanted pages

Special:Wantedpages : Articles which have been requested / most wanted, specifically those that have at least 2 incoming links, but do not exist.

Wiki matrix

Special:SiteMatrix : list of all projects

What links here

Special:Whatlinkshere : It works only if the target is specified. See Help:What links here.

[edit] Restricted special pages

Following pages are only accessible by sysops, bureaucrats, or stewards.

(unclear): Special:Oversight : see Special:Listusers.

[edit] All sysops

Block user: Special:Blockip : Used to block or unblock users, IPs and ranges of IPs.
Import pages: Special:Import : Imports the wikitext and metadata of one or more revisions of one or more pages by uploading an XML file in the format produced by Special:Export (typically after applying the latter at another MediaWiki project). See Help:Import.
Mass delete: Special:Nuke (extension) : Mass deletions of pages recently added by a given user or IP.
Restore deleted page: Special:Undelete : One way to undelete a page.

[edit] Bureaucrats only

Make a user into a sysop: Special:Makesysop :
Make a user into a bot: Special:Makebot (extension) : See MakeBot.

[edit] Developers only

Lock database: Special:Lockdb : Puts the wiki in read only mode.
Unlock database: Special:Unlockdb: Returns the wiki to read/write mode.

[edit] Stewards only

Set user rights: Special:Userrights : Give and remove user access rights (e.g. sysop, bureaucrat, checkuser) on any Wikimedia project.

[edit] CheckUsers only

Get user IP: Special:CheckUser : see Help:CheckUser and Special:Listusers/checkuser.

[edit] Special pages currently not enabled on Wikimedia wikis

Arbitration committee election: Special:ArbComVote : ditto for the finished Arbitration Committee elections.
Popular pages: Special:Popularpages : The most visited pages. Currently disabled.
SQL query: Special:Asksql : Sysop only. Database interface for running queries. Currently disabled.
Unicode Converter: Special:UnicodeConverter : Converts Unicode to HTML entities : Not currently available outside of the test wiki
Wikimedia Board of Trustees election: Special:Boardvote : Voting software for the now finished elections

[edit] Logs

Special:Log - combined display of various logs. You can narrow down the view by:

selecting a log type, including:
- Block log - blocks and unblocks
- Deletion log - deleted and undeleted pages
- Protection log - protected and unprotected pages
- Upload log - list of images uploaded
entering the full name without prefix of the acting user (usual case-sensitivity)
entering the full name of the affected page (usual case-sensitivity) e.g. "Image:Map South Holland.png"), or the full name including prefix of the affected user (in the case of blocking, setting user rights, setting bot status, and user creation) or without prefix (in the case of renaming a user)

It does not seem possible to search by editor for edits of deleted pages. They can only be seen by a sysop with Special:Undelete if the exact page name is known.

There are no logs available on the site for:

adding or removing a page from a user's list of page to watch (the user can only view the current state)
change of preferences of a user (ditto)
viewing a page (except that, if $wgDisableCounters is false, the total number of views of a page is displayed on it)
editing and previewing a page without saving
applying Special:Expandtemplates
applying Special:Export
unfinished operations (e.g. an attempted page move)

[edit] Miscellaneous

Special pages can be linked to as usual, like Special:Recentchanges. Redirects to Special pages have been disabled because of their complications.

The term in the site language equivalent to English "Special" is used in each project. E.g. "Speciaal" in Dutch, "Spezial" in German, "Speciális:" in Hungarian and "מיוחד:" in Hebrew. These also appear in the URLs. However, the English word "Special" works as alternative in most sites.

Special pages requiring a target page may give an error message if the target is not supplied:

Special:Recentchangeslinked/Help:Template

Special:Whatlinkshere/Help:Template

or prompt for the target if it was not supplied yet; with target the link is e.g.

Special:Linksearch/*.domain.com

In some cases, to specify some aspects the full URL has to be given, like an external link, for example http://wiki.eugeneneighbors.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=10 (last 10 changes).

Some special pages can be included, such as Newpages, Wantedpages, Allpages, Prefixindex, and Recentchanges.

{{Special:Newpages/5}} gives 5 new pages: