How Wikipedia Works/Appendix D

Appendix D. Glossary

Wikipedia's glossary, which contains many terms not found here, can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Glossary.

redirect:(noun) A page serving solely to send a reader to an article with another title; (verb) to redirect from one page to another
 * admin:A Wikipedia administrator; administrators are users with extra technical privileges to delete and restore articles and block accounts and IP numbers
 * AfD:Articles for Deletion; an open forum for discussing article deletion on a case-by-case basis
 * AGF:Assume Good Faith; a guideline requesting civility and mutual trust among editors
 * ANI:The Administrators' noticeboard for incidents, where Wikipedia administrators discuss and can be alerted to current problems with vandalism, edit wars, or other issues that require administrator attention
 * anon:An anonymous or IP user who is not logged in when editing
 * ArbCom:The Arbitration committee; a body that resolves on-site disputes
 * arbitration:The top-level, formal, and lengthy dispute resolution procedure performed by the ArbCom
 * backlinks:The wikilinks that link to a page, displayed by clicking What Links Here on the left-hand sidebar
 * BOLD:Short for the slogan, "Be bold in updating articles," which means if you see an article that needs work, don't hesitate to improve it
 * bot:An automated editing program operating on the site
 * bureaucrat:An administrator with power to promote other editors to administrator status
 * COI:Conflict of interest, which occurs when the editor of an article is somehow personally invested in the topic
 * Commons:See Wikimedia Commons
 * contribs:The list of contributions, or edits, made by an editor
 * copyvio:Short for copyright violation, such as an article or image that contains copyrighted material from another source
 * CSD:Criteria for speedy deletion; the policy detailing when articles may be deleted without going through a review process. See also speedy
 * disambiguation page:A page that links to alternate articles with similar titles. For example, the Boston disambiguation page lists at least 20 places named Boston, as well as the rock band and WWII-era aircraft
 * dead-end page:A Wikipedia page with no outbound wikilinks. See also orphan article
 * diff:The display showing the differences between two versions of a wiki page
 * DRV:Deletion review; the appeals system for deleted articles
 * edit:Any saved change made to a wiki page
 * edit conflict:A conflict that occurs when two editors try to save versions of a page at the same time
 * edit count:The total number of edits made by a user's account
 * edit war:An extended dispute between two or more editors over article content; during an edit war, changes to an article are reverted multiple times and no consensus emerges about the article's content
 * external link:A hyperlink leading to a site outside Wikipedia
 * featured article:An esteemed category of peer-reviewed Wikipedia articles; each day a different featured article is spotlighted on the main page
 * Featured Content:A category of Wikipedia content including featured articles, images, lists, and portals
 * fork:(verb) To split a wiki into two editing communities, with the intent to develop the existing content in different ways; (noun) the end product of such a split
 * GFDL:The GNU Free Documentation License under which Wikipedia content is released
 * IAR:Ignore All Rules; a traditional slogan suggesting Wikipedians should rise above formalities in unusual situations
 * internal link:A hyperlink on a wiki leading to another location on the same wiki; an internal link is implemented in wikitext using special syntax rather than a URL
 * interwiki:To link different wikis by extending internal link syntax; on Wikipedia, to link corresponding articles in different language versions of Wikipedia
 * lead section:The introductory section of an article, which appears before the first heading
 * main namespace:The main or article namespace is the namespace that articles appear in; this namespace does not have a prefix
 * Manual of Style:The collection of Wikipedia writing guidelines (WP:MOS)
 * meatpuppet:An account operated by someone who is acting for the benefit of another partisan editor. See also sockpuppet
 * mediation:A dispute resolution procedure, where a member of the mediation committee attempts to resolve a dispute between two or more editors through formal negotiation to reach consensus (WP:M)
 * MediaWiki:The open-source, free software used to run the Wikipedia sites and many others
 * Meta, Meta-Wiki:The site at http://meta.wikimedia.org/, for coordinating Wikimedia Foundation projects
 * mirror site:A website posting content from Wikipedia (legitimately, if GFDL conditions are fulfilled)
 * monobook:The default skin or template on Wikipedia; this is how pages appear to anyone who has not logged in and changed his or her user preferences. See also skin
 * namespace:A virtual container for different types of content on the wiki; namespaces are defined by different prefixes, such as talk: or Wikipedia:, which appear before page names; articles are in the main namespace
 * Notability:The criteria that article topics should be notable to an outside observer, as determined through outside sources
 * NPOV:Neutral Point of View; the Wikipedia policy that article content should be presented in an objective, neutral, and substantiated manner
 * orphan article:An article that has no incoming wikilinks from other articles
 * OWN:A shortcut for Wikipedia's policy on no ownership of articles (WP:OWN); in conversation, the term OWN may serve as a warning not to take control of an article's content
 * page history:The list of edits that have been made to a wiki page, displaying in reverse chronological order and viewable from the History tab
 * permalink:A link to a specific version of a Wikipedia page
 * portal:A project page that collects articles, images, and facts about a particular topic
 * PROD:Proposed deletion; the deletion process for article deletions expected to be uncontroversial
 * revert:To return an article to a previous version; often abbreviated as rvv or rv in edit summaries
 * RfC:Request for Comment; a part of the dispute resolution procedure in which editors can discuss issues such as the conduct of other users
 * sandbox:The sandbox is a page set aside for test edits Sandbox
 * sister project:A Wikipedia sister project (for example, Wiktionary) is a multilingual collection of wikis set up by the Wikimedia Foundation to pursue a generally reference-related goal
 * skin:The appearance of Wikipedia pages; logged-in users can select how Wikipedia pages appear in their user preferences
 * sockpuppet:A second account operated covertly by an editor with an existing account. See also meatpuppet
 * speedy:A speedy page deletion by an administrator, in line with the criteria for the speedy deletion policy and criteria for speedy deletion
 * steward:An administrator who can change any user's status on any Wikimedia project
 * subpage:A page constructed with a forward slash (/), as in User:Abelard/Letter to Heloise; subpages are not allowed in the main article namespace
 * sysop:Short for system operator; a synonym for administrator
 * Three-Revert Rule (3RR):The prohibition on reverting an article more than three times in 24 hours, except for reverting vandalism
 * transclusion:To include content stored on one page within another page, for example, by adding a template to a page
 * transwiki:To move an article to another wiki (usually deleting the original article)
 * user page:A registered user's personal page, usually containing information about the editor and his or her interests
 * userfy:To move an article into the User namespace as a subpage
 * watchlist:A personal list of articles that can be maintained by any logged-in user that lists all recent edits to the articles on the list
 * wiki:An online database of freely editable web pages, forming an evolving hypertext; Wikipedia is just one example of a wiki
 * wiki engine:The software underlying a wiki. See also MediaWiki
 * wiki markup language:The special simplified syntax for wiki page editing and formatting; also called wiki syntax
 * wikify:To add appropriate internal links to existing text and to impose standard format and other house style
 * wikilawyer:A pedantic, over-literal interpreter of Wikipedia policy and custom
 * wikilink:A synonym for an internal link. See also internal link
 * Wikimedia:Commons A project of the Wikimedia Foundation to collect free media (images and video); Wikipedia articles can contain links to files on Commons
 * Wikimedia:Foundation (WMF) The nonprofit organization that has overall responsibility for running the Wikipedia sites and sister projects
 * wikitext:The text of a wiki page visible when editing (as opposed to what readers see)