Special pages are pages that are created by the software on demand. They are located in their own namespace (Special) and are not editable directly as other pages.
Some special pages depend on the preferences that have been set by a user, e.g., the number of titles which is displayed on a user's watchlist.
Special pages also take parameters, e.g., Special:Log/block takes you to the log of block users.
To view a directory of all special pages, use Special:SpecialPages.
Editing Special namespace pagesThe Special: namespace stands for special pages generated by MediaWiki. There is no matching talk space. The special pages are not made up of wikitext and are therefore not editable like other pages might be.
They usually contain system messages from MediaWiki namespace, which are editable by interface administrators.
The ampersand character (&) is not allowed.
Linking, transcluding, or redirecting to a special pageYou can link a special page as you would do for any other internal page; e.g. [[Special:Diff|see diff page]]. Some special pages can take a parameter value after a slash character; e.g. [[Special:Diff/6372234]] takes a user to the 6372234 revision ID of this page.
Some special pages are transcludable, and some other ones are not. For example, you may transclude the list of recent changes with {{Special:RecentChanges}}. But, transcluding {{Special:Random}} gives Special:Random.
You cannot create a redirection towards a special page: it will display a link towards the page instead of a direct redirect to it. However, some special pages have built-in aliases which redirect to them.
Links containing URL query stringsSince the ampersand (&) is not allowed, you can't create a standard link with &action=edit or &redirect=no in the URL query string.
Unlike other namespaces, the first heading of pages in the Special: namespace is not consistent with the page name in the URL. The Special: prefix is not displayed, and the heading text may vary a bit from the page name.
Each special page has a default English name, but it may also have aliases, i.e. other special page names which redirect to it. Besides, on non-English wikis (i.e. $wgLanguageCode different from “en”), special page names are localized, and English names are aliases which redirect to the localized page name.
The localized aliases only work in one language per wiki, in addition to English ones; e.g. Italian special page names only work on Italian wikis. Multilingual wikis with
Translate extensiononly support English names.
The Special: namespace prefix itself may be localized depending on the wiki content language.
For example, in each project's language, the word used for "Special" in special page names like Special:Statistics is different. Here is the equivalent term in each language:
Especial:EstadísticasSpeciaal:StatistiekenSpécial:StatistiquesSpezial:StatistikSpecial:SpecialPages shows a list of almost all special pages on a wiki. It is often linked in the toolbox on the side panel.
This list only includes special pages provided by MediaWiki core itself. Special pages provided by extensions are documented on the extension page.
By role General informationThe below pages are accessible only to users with a particular privilege level.
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