Category talk:MediaWiki configuration

I have removed the following text by from the category page:

Please note that excessive customisation in mediawiki such as disabling logo and changing the margins of mediawiki content area or even chaging the width of content area or adding new content area in the existing configuration of the mediawiki might cause the wiki to crash during long use.Users should note that in such cases content recovery may become very difficult and thus result in loosing of your content.Please try to customise your wiki by not changing its default monobook skin settings.Below is the list to configure your mediawiki package to suit your needs please read and apply the instructions carefully.

This does not belong here, and wouldn't even if it was true. But skin customization is not linked to data loss. It's unclear what the author is getting at. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 11:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Sir,i have given the best information as possible bcoz sometimes the users while editing the skin change the variable thus corrupting the wiki i have seen few cases like that...please make your point more clear in this regard

What kind of edit will corrupt a wiki in what way?

Editing the skin means changing the software. This always includes the possibility of braking it. It's always a good idea to make a backup of all files you intend to change. It's of course also always good to have a backup of your data.

However, I do not see how editing the skin could corrupt wiki content, unless you start making database calls in the skin code -- which is of course possible, but not an easy mistake to make. What can happen when you break the skin is that your Wiki becomes inaccessible. Even a simple syntax error will do that -- a syntax error means that PHP will no longer execute the program, so you no longer have a wiki. This is true for any change made to any part of any software.

Recovering your content in such a case is easy, however: just put restore the broken program files from backup. Or if you can't figure it out, or don't have a backup, reinstall the wiki software. The content will still be there.

So, advising people to make backups is a good thing. But please do this for the right reason, in the appropriate place.

Apart from this, styling your wiki can usually be done just by editing MediaWiki:common.css and MediaWiki:monobook.css -- this is much easier and safer than editing the skin code. If you must edit code, it's a good idea not to edit an existing skin, but to copy it first, and make modifications to your own copy. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 11:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)