Help:Special page

From PyroGuide

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 Currently unavailable special pages
4 Logs
5 Miscellaneous
6 See also

[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
Preferences: Special:Preferences : Set your user preferences; for some project families, notably Wikia, this applies for the whole family. See Help:Preferences.
My watchlist: Special:Watchlist : Show the pages you are watching. (Watchlist help)
Recent changes: Special:Recentchanges : The latest edits in the project.
Upload file: Special:Upload : Upload a file to the wiki.
Image list: Special:Imagelist : List of images uploaded that can be sorted by size or date
User list: Special:Listusers : A list of all registered users. For some project families, notably Wikia, this applies for the whole family.
Admins list: Special:Listadmins : A list of all Administrators.
Statistics: Special:Statistics : total number of pages and users
Random page: Special:Randompage : redirects to a random page from the main namespace which is not a redirect.
Orphaned pages: Special:Lonelypages : Lonely articles.
Uncategorized pages: Special:Uncategorizedpages : Pages without category tags (note that after adding a tag to a page refreshing this page does not immediately reflects the change)
Unused images: Special:Unusedimages
Wanted pages: Special:Wantedpages : Articles which have been requested / most wanted, specifically those that have at least 2 incoming links, but do not exist.
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
Long pages: Special:Longpages - pages in the main namespace, with size in bytes, in order of decreasing size
New pages: Special:Newpages : new pages in the main namespace - newest pages in the main namespace, 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 creation date and time, in order of creation
Dead-end pages: Special:Deadendpages : Pages without any outgoing links.
All pages: Special:Allpages : all pages in a specified namespace in alphabetical order, including redirects (unfortunately without showing which are redirects); is on Wikimedia sometimes temporarily disabled. Template:H:new

List of blocked IP addresses and usernames: Special:Ipblocklist : Blocked IPs and usernames
Book sources: Special:Booksources : ISBN Book Sources
Categories: Special:Categories
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 and import.
Version: Special:Version : The version of the software the site is currently running
Wikimedia Board of Trustees election: Special:Boardvote : Voting software for the now finished elections; Special:SiteMatrix : list of all projects
Talk page: Special:Mytalk : Link to the talk page of the user who follows it.

[edit] Restricted special pages

Block user: Special:Blockip : Sysop only. Used to block or unblock users, IPs and ranges of IPs.

Template:H:new

Restore deleted page: Special:Undelete : Sysop only. One way to undelete a page.
Make a user into a sysop: Special:Makesysop : Bureaucrat only.
Lock database: Special:Lockdb : Developer only. Puts the wiki in read only mode.
Unlock database: Special:Unlockdb : Developer only. Puts the wiki in read/write mode.
Show process list: Special:ShowProcesslist : Developer only.

[edit] Currently unavailable special pages

SQL query: Special:Asksql : Sysop only. Database interface for running queries. Currently disabled.
All system messages: Special:Allmessages : Displays all pages in the MediaWiki namespace. Currently disabled.
Unicode Converter: Special:UnicodeConverter : Converts Unicode to HTML entities : Not currently available outside of the test wiki
Popular pages: Special:Popularpages : The most visited pages. Currently disabled.
Maintenance page: Special:Maintenance : Currently disabled.

[edit] Logs

Special:Log - combined display of upload, deletion, protection, blocking, and sysop logs. You can narrow down the view by selecting a log type, the user name (case-sensitive!), or the affected page (usual case-sensitivity, but full name required, e.g. "Image:Map South Holland.png".

Old logs on PyroGuide, until Dec 2004:

PyroGuide:Block log - blocks and unblocks
PyroGuide:Deletion log - deleted and undeleted pages
PyroGuide:Protection log - protected and unprotected pages
PyroGuide:Upload log - list of images uploaded

[edit] Miscellaneous

Special pages can be linked to as usual, like Special:Recentchanges.

Special pages requiring a target page:

Special pages requiring a target user:

Special:Contributions/Jimbo Wales

Special page allowing a starting page:

Special:Allpages/Template (Standard prefixes are ignored, compare Special:Allpages/Template:C and Special:Allpages/Templat:C)

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

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

"Special:" in URLs is e.g. "Speciaal" in Dutch, "Spezial" in German, "Speciális:" in Hungarian and "מיוחד:" in Hebrew. See e.g the prefix of "Recentchanges" in the URL of the link to the Recent changes.

On a special page the tab labelled with the namespace, in this case "Special Page", oddly links to the Main page.

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