MediaWiki

Creating a New Page

The simplest way to create a page is via the URL:

Go to your browser's address bar

Type: https://wiki.gi7b.org/index.php/Your_Page_Name

MediaWiki will show "this page does not exist"

Click the Create tab at the top

Write your content and click Save page

Use underscores for spaces in page names. The title displays with spaces automatically.

Subpages

To create a page that belongs to a section, use a slash in the name:

https://wiki.gi7b.org/index.php/Open_Source/My_New_Guide

This creates My_New_Guide as a subpage of Open_Source. MediaWiki automatically adds a breadcrumb link back to the parent page.

Linking to Pages

Inside any wiki page, link to another page using double brackets:

[[Page Name]]

[[Page Name|Display Text]]

External links:

[https://example.com Display Text]

Formatting Reference

Markup	Result
== Heading ==	Level 2 heading
=== Subheading ===	Level 3 heading
'''bold'''	Bold text
''italic''	Italic text
# item	Numbered list item
* item	Bullet list item
[[Page]]	Internal link
[https://url Text]	External link
<code>text</code>	Inline code
<pre>block</pre>	Preformatted code block
<s>text</s>	Strikethrough

Embedding Media

Images and GIFs

Upload files first via Special:Upload. Then embed using the [[File:...]] syntax.

Markup	Effect
[[File:photo.png]]	Full-size image, inline
[[File:photo.png|thumb|Caption here]]	Thumbnail with caption, floats right
[[File:photo.png|300px]]	Fixed width
[[File:photo.png|center|500px|Caption]]	Centred, fixed width, with caption
[[File:animation.gif|thumb|My gif]]	Animated GIF — plays automatically, same syntax as images

Supported upload formats: PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG, WebP (depending on server config). GIFs animate in place with no extra steps.

Tip: To link to the file's description page without embedding it, use a colon prefix: [[:File:photo.png|link text]]

Diagrams

There is no diagram extension installed on this wiki. The current options are:

Upload as an image

Create your diagram in any tool (draw.io, Excalidraw, LibreOffice Draw, Inkscape), export as PNG or SVG, and upload via Special:Upload. SVG scales cleanly at any size.

ASCII diagram in a code block

For simple flow diagrams, use a <pre> block:

[Input] --> [Process] --> [Output]
|
v
[Error handler]

Install an extension (admin)

The Mermaid extension adds code-block-based diagram syntax for flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, and more. Once installed, diagrams are written in fenced blocks and rendered automatically.

YouTube Videos

The EmbedVideo extension is not currently installed on this wiki. Without it, YouTube links display as plain clickable links only:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID Watch the video]

To enable YouTube embedding (admin action): Install the EmbedVideo extension. Once installed, embed a video with:

{{#ev:youtube|VIDEO_ID}}

Or with custom dimensions:

{{#ev:youtube|VIDEO_ID|640x360}}

The video ID is the part after ?v= in the YouTube URL. For example, in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK2z_UimUls the ID is QK2z_UimUls.

Admin: Special Pages

Special Pages are system-generated pages for administration and maintenance. Access them at Special:SpecialPages or via the sidebar.

Account Management

Page	What it does
Special:CreateAccount	Create a new user account manually
Special:UserRights	Assign or remove user groups (e.g. promote a user to sysop/admin)
Special:ListUsers	Browse all registered accounts and their groups
Special:Block	Block a user or IP address from editing
Special:Unblock	Reverse a block
Special:ChangeCredentials	Change your own password or credentials
Special:PasswordReset	Send a password reset to a user's email

Content & Files

Page	What it does
Special:Upload	Upload images, GIFs, and other files
Special:ListFiles	Browse all uploaded files
Special:AllPages	Browse every page on the wiki
Special:RecentChanges	See all recent edits across the wiki
Special:Nuke	Mass-delete pages by a user (useful after spam)

Maintenance

Page	What it does
Special:Statistics	Page count, edit count, user count
Special:Version	MediaWiki version and installed extensions
Special:Interwiki	Manage interwiki link prefixes
Special:Log	Unified log of all admin actions (blocks, deletions, rights changes)

To access admin-only special pages your account must be in the sysop group. Assign this via Special:UserRights.

Naming Conventions on This Wiki

Pages on this wiki follow a Topic-YYMMDD naming convention where the date identifies when the page was created or the work was done. Example: Claude_Code_Isolation_and_Burner_Workflow_260211.

Section index pages (this page, Open_Source, Repositories, etc.) are the exception — they have short, stable names with no date.

Further Reading

MediaWiki User's Guide

MediaWiki FAQ