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Help:Special page

MediaWiki Handbook: Contents, Readers, Editors, Moderators, System admins, Researchers

Special pages are created by the software on demand. They are located in the "Special:" namespace and have no corresponding wikitext. An automatic list of most special pages is available by the Special pages link on every wiki page.

Below is an arranged list of special pages available on most Wikimedia projects. Page names are case-insensitive; their default names were converted from capitalized lowercase to CamelCase in March 2008.

For many special pages the option Preferences→Recent changes→"Number of edits to show in recent changes, page histories, and in logs, by default:" determines the number of titles per page.

Contents

ListsEdit

All pagesEdit

Mediawiki searches all pages in a specified group of names in a special ASCII order. Capitals come before lowercase letters; special characters, such as é, come after z.

Mediawiki searches include redirects (Example: #REDIRECT[[Page name]]) These redirects are usually displayed in a different style than normal pages because of allpagesredirect class.

If a person uses "Display pages starting at:" to search, both Special:Prefixindex and Special:Allpages will show the list of pages starting with this word, then Allpages will display all of the other pages in ASCII order which don't have this word.

For example, if a person types in "Computer" in the "Display pages starting at:" box on the Special:Allpages page, mediawiki will first list all pages that start with the word computer:

  • Computer
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Computer-Aided Test Tool
  • ComputerWorld Smithsonian Award

Mediawiki will then list all of the other pages that don't start with "computer" in ASCII order.

ProtectedEdit

CategoriesEdit

List of all categories, alphabetically ordered, showing the number of top elements in each category. Not very convenient, so many projects create index pages like w:Portal:Contents/Categorical index.
The tree of pages and subcategories, using mw:Extension:CategoryTree. The same tree functionality is used on categories pages, and can be inserted into any page with <categorytree> tag.

ImagesEdit

List of uploaded files with descriptions, can be sorted by date, name or size.
Gallery of uploaded files with thumbnails, sorted by upload date.

Cached listsEdit

All these lists are updated periodically (not in real time). They say "The following data is cached" and show the day of the last update.

All these lists are limited to 5000 titles, on several large Wikimedia projects to 1000 titles.

Record pagesEdit

These lists only show main namespace pages:

The following lists are no longer updated in Wikimedia projects due to big server load:

ProblematicEdit

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 (defined in MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage) is transcluded.
Redirects to non-existent pages, usually left after deletions. Periodically fixed or deleted by administrators.
Redirects to other redirects. May contain false positives. Double redirects are fixed by bots in many projects.
Main namespace pages with no links to them in the wiki.
Main namespace pages without any outgoing internal links.
Main namespace pages without Interlanguage links
Non-existent categories used on wiki pages. These should either be created (by adding category description and upper categories) or those wiki pages should be fixed (e.g. if someone mistyped a category name).

The following lists are no longer updated on Wikimedia projects:

Non-existent pages that on 22 October 2009 had at least 2 incoming internal links. Applying #ifexist to a page and links to which "display:none" is applied also count as link.
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.

Without categoriesEdit

Usually these pages need to be either categorized or deleted.

UnusedEdit

If the pages are not used, they probably need to be deleted. Note however that images might be used externally, and templates may be used for substitution.

ToolsEdit

This link is available on every wiki page, see Help:What links here.
Available only to autoconfirmed users on most projects.
Returns the complete path for a file, previously was mw:Extension:Filepath.
By mw:Extension:ExpandTemplates. 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.
ISBN Book Sources
mw:Extension:Cite/Special:Cite.php is not enabled on Meta, but enabled on Wikipedia, see w:Special:Cite and w:wp:Citing Wikipedia.
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.

SearchEdit

See Help:Search
By mw:Extension:LinkSearch. See Help:Linksearch.
Filters files for its MIME-type.

RandomEdit

These links redirect to a random page/redirect from the main namespace. Other namespaces can be specified as a parameter.


Users actionsEdit

See #Logs below.
See Help:Recent changes. Limited to 30 days on Wikimedia projects, just like two following special pages and the watchlist.
See Help:Related changes.
See mw:Help:New pages. Can be patrolled on Wikimedia projects.

ProjectEdit

AccountEdit

Creates new login cookie.
Destroys cookie, see also Privacy policy. This link is not included in the automatic list because it is present on every page.

Pages available only to registered users:

UsersEdit

Alphabetic list of all registered users, can be shown by group. There also is Special:Listadmins, which is a redirect to Special:Listusers/Sysop. For some project families, notably Wikia, this applies for the whole family.
Blocked IPs and usernames
Requires a target user: e. g. Special:Contributions/Example. This link is also present on every user/user talk page. Registered users also have the link to their own contributions on top.
A special mode newbie contribs shows recent changes made only by new users.

MediaWikiEdit

Shows MediaWiki version the site is currently running, and a listing of extensions installed.
Project statistics, appearance is defined by MediaWiki:Sitestatstext.
Automatic list of most special pages. See also SpecialPages grouped into categories - modification that can sort the SpecialPages into categories.
All pages in the MediaWiki namespace, see Help:System message.
By mw:Extension:Gadgets.

WikimediaEdit

By mw:Extension:SiteMatrix. Displays all sites of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Voting software for Wikimedia Board of Trustees elections.

Restricted special pagesEdit

These pages are only available to users with special rights. Most of them are linked from the corresponding places in MediaWiki interface.

Sysops
Block or unblock users, IPs and ranges of IPs.
Restore all or some revisions of deleted page
Show user's contributions to deleted pages, see mw:Extension:DeletedContributions.
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.
List of pages not watched by anyone.
Mass deletions of pages recently added by a given user or IP. This is mw:Extension:Nuke, enabled only on some Wikimedia projects.
Bureaucrats
CheckUsers
Oversight
Stewards
  • User rights (Userrights): give and remove user access rights (e.g. sysop, bureaucrat, checkuser) on any Wikimedia project. On some projects also available to sysops for giving users patrol or rollback flags.
Developers

Other pagesEdit

These pages are not listed in the automatic list because they are already present in MediaWiki interface.

Also, by definition these pages can be considered special:

Not enabled on Wikimedia wikisEdit

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

Links to special pagesEdit

Special pages can be linked to as usual, like Special:Recentchanges. Instead of "special" prefix, a localized namespace name can be used, e.g. "Speciaal" in Dutch, "Spezial" in German, "Speciális:" in Hungarian and "מיוחד:" in Hebrew. The localized name also appears in the URLs.

Redirects to Special pages have been disabled because of their complications.

Some special pages accept (and some require) a parameter after /. For other pages and parameters the full URL has to be given, for example //meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=10 (last 10 changes).

  • Allpages and Prefixindex allow a namespace and a (partial) pagename, for example:
Besides, these special pages can be transcluded into wikitext, so the result appears as the part of the page, e.g. {{Special:Prefixindex/User:Example/}}.
  • Whatlinkshere, Recentchangeslinked, Movepage, Undelete, Contributions and Blockip, being interface links, accept (or even require) a page or a user name, e.g. Special:Whatlinkshere/Help:Special page.
  • Log can be used with a log type: move, protect, block, delete, e.g. Special:Log/move.
  • Random and Randomredirect accept namespace (see above).

Two special pages Mypage and Mytalk exist specially for internal links, they redirect to the pages of a user who follows these links. Examples: Special:Mypage, Special:Mypage/monobook.js.

TransclusionEdit

  • Recentchanges, Newpages, Newimages and OldReviewedPages can be transcluded:
    {{Special:Newpages/shownav}} — show with header
    {{Special:Newpages/10}} — show 10 elements
    {{Special:Newpages/limit=10,offset=10,shownav}} — start from 10th element, plus previous parameters

From MediaWiki 1.19 template-like syntax works also, see bugzilla:15558. For example:

{{Special:Newpages|limit=3}} gives

LogsEdit

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

  • selecting a log type, including:
  • 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)

It is possible to add other events to the logs; for an example, see the code for mw:Extension:Globalblocking or for Article.php.

See alsoEdit

Links to other help pagesEdit

Help contents
Meta · Wikinews · Wikipedia · Wikiquote · Wiktionary · Commons: · Wikidata · MediaWiki · Wikibooks · Wikisource · MediaWiki: Manual · Google
Versions of this help page (for other languages see further)
What links here on Meta or from Meta · Wikipedia · MediaWiki
Reading
Go · Search · Stop words · Namespace · Page name · Section · Backlinks · Redirect · Category · Image page · Special pages · Printable version
Tracking changes
Recent changes (enhanced) | Related changes · Watching pages · Diff · Page history · Edit summary · User contributions · Minor edit · Patrolled edit
Logging in and preferences
Logging in · Preferences · User style
Editing
Starting a new page · Advanced editing · Editing FAQ · Edit toolbar · Export · Import · Shortcuts · Edit conflict · Page size
Referencing
Links · URL · Piped links · Interwiki linking · Footnotes
Style and formatting
Wikitext examples · CSS · Reference card · HTML in wikitext · Formula · List · Table · Sorting · Colors · Images and file uploads
Fixing mistakes
Show preview · Testing · Reverting edits
Advanced functioning
Expansion · Template · Advanced templates · Parser function · Parameter default · Variable · System message · Substitution · Array · Calculation · Embed page
Others
Special characters · Renaming (moving) a page · Preparing a page for translation · Talk page · Signatures · Sandbox · Legal issues for editors
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