MediaWiki

MediaWiki is one of the most commonly used wiki software applications in the world. It had been used by a variety of sites both pro- and anti-boylove, including BoyWiki, Newgon Wiki, and Evil-Unveiled. One reason for its popularity is that content can be readily copied from one MediaWiki installation to another because they share the same wiki markup.

Security

MediaWiki's main security weakness is that it is not designed to restrict access on a per-page basis. However, the danger of MediaWiki sites' being hacked is low, because the software has been hardened against attack as a result of being used on some of the largest wikis in the world. The BoyWiki proposal noted:

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MediaWiki has the most mature concept of users, and allows specific pages to be protected from changes by non-admin (such as the main page, help pages and any other arbitrary page). It also uses the MySQL database engine to store user data, articles, and revisions. Like all other wikis, there is no function for purging specific revisions of text, but it should be simple to develop a tool which would delete offending revisions from the database. This tool might even be able to be incorporated into the software. The only other minor problem is that IP addresses are used to identify users who do not sign in. If editing is disabled for non-authenticated users, IP addresses are not recorded but still display locally when a user logs off or fails to login properly. This needs to be changed but poses no security threat to users. Because MediaWiki offers the most mature, complete user system and allows for varying user permissions and comment areas, it is the engine which is best-suited for BoyWiki and will require the least amount of modification. This is the same engine written and used for the Wikipedia Project, a high-profile site which is prone to vandalism and attacks. It is proven, well-tested, well-maintained, and actively developed. BoyWiki will be able to leverage the fire-tested security that this engine now offers.

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