Help:Special page

Special pages are pages that are automatically generated by the MediaWiki software on demand. They are located in the "Special:" namespace, and thus their names will always begin with the Special: prefix (note the colon). They do not have the same attributes as other pages in that they cannot be edited, do not contain wikitext, do not have talk pages, and cannot be redirected to. They can be linked to normally like any other page, and some can even be transcluded.

Special pages are typically used to display maintenance reports, logs of actions, tools to assist editors, and user account management options, among others. An automatically generated list of special pages can be found at Special:SpecialPages.

Commonly used special pages
This list is not exhaustive, and will list some of the most notable and commonly used special pages that may be of interest. An automatically generated list of special pages can be found here.

General information

 * Special:AllMessages: displays a list of all pages in the MediaWiki namespace.
 * Special:Statistics: displays wiki statistics, such as the number of pages and registered users.
 * Special:Version: displays the MediaWiki software version that is currently running, along with a list of installed extensions.
 * Special:Analytics: displays collected analytics data, such as viewership counts and site referrals.

Page listings

 * Special:AllPages: displays a list of all pages on the wiki, sorted alphabetically and divided by namespace.
 * Special:PrefixIndex: displays a list of pages that begin with the specified prefix. Useful for locating subpages.
 * Special:Categories: displays a list of all categories.
 * Special:ListFiles: displays a list of all uploaded files.
 * Special:ListRedirects: displays a list of all redirects.
 * Special:ProtectedPages: displays a list of all pages that have been protected from editing.
 * Special:ProtectedTitles: displays a list of all titles that have been protected from creation.

Tools

 * Special:Search: provides the search function on.
 * Special:WhatLinksHere: displays a list of all pages that link to the specified page or title.
 * Special:Diff: compares the differences between two revisions. At least one parameter is required for use—the revision ID number of the revision in question.
 * Special:ComparePages: compares the differences between two pages.
 * Special:MobileDiff: same as Special:Diff, but stylized for mobile browsers.
 * Special:MovePage: for moving pages to different titles.
 * Special:Upload: for uploading files to the wiki.
 * Special:Export: for exporting page histories in an XML format, to be imported into another MediaWiki installation.
 * Special:Gadgets: lists user gadgets that can be enabled in user preferences.
 * Special:AbuseFilter: Abuse filter management interface.
 * Special:Tags: lists the tags with which edits may be marked.
 * Special:TemplateSandbox: for testing template and Lua development. See Help:TemplateSandbox.
 * Special:ApiSandbox: for experimenting with the MediaWiki API. See mw:Help:ApiSandbox.

Logs

 * Special:Log: combined display of all public logs.
 * Special:RecentChanges: list of recent edits made to the wiki. See Help:Recent changes.
 * Special:NewPages: list of newest pages created on the wiki. See Help:New pages.
 * Special:RecentChangesLinked: list of recent edits made to pages linked from a specified page, or pages in a category.
 * Special:NewFiles: gallery of recently uploaded files.
 * Special:AbuseLog: logs generated by abuse filters.

Users

 * Special:ListUsers: lists all registered user accounts on.
 * Special:ActiveUsers: lists editors that have performed at least one action in the past 30 days.
 * Special:BlockList: lists accounts and IP addresses that have been blocked from editing.
 * Special:Contributions: lists all the edits made by the specified user.
 * Special:ListGroupRights: shows the user rights assignable to user groups.
 * Special:EmailUser: allows to email another user using the on-wiki interface.
 * Special:CentralAuth: shows the global account status of the specified user.
 * Special:GlobalUsers: lists all global user accounts on Miraheze.

Personal

 * Special:MyPage: redirects to your user page.
 * Special:MyTalk: redirects to your user talk page.
 * Special:MyContributions: redirects to your user contributions.
 * Special:UserLogin: used to log in to.
 * Special:UserLogout: used to log out of your account.
 * Special:ChangePassword: used to change your password.
 * Special:ChangeEmail: used to change the email address registered to your account.
 * Special:MyUploads: list of files that you have uploaded.
 * Special:Notifications: lists all the notifications you have received.
 * Special:Watchlist: lists the recent changes to the pages you have added to your watchlist.
 * Special:Preferences: your user preferences page.
 * Special:MobileOptions: allows you to change your mobile website settings.

Maintenance

 * Special:DoubleRedirects: lists all double redirects.
 * Special:BrokenRedirects: lists all broken redirects.
 * Special:DisambiguationPages: lists all disambiguation pages on the wiki.
 * Special:DisambiguationPageLinks: lists all pages that link to a disambiguation page.
 * Special:LongPages: lists pages in the main namespace in order of decreasing size.
 * Special:ShortPages: lists pages in the main namespace in order of increasing size.
 * Special:MostLinkedFiles: lists files that have been linked to the most.
 * Special:UncategorizedPages: pages that are not in any categories.
 * Special:UncategorizedFiles: files that are not in any categories.
 * Special:UncategorizedTemplates: templates that are not in any categories.
 * Special:UnusedFiles: files that are not being used on any pages.
 * Special:UnusedCategories: categories that are not being used on any pages.
 * Special:UnusedTemplates: templates that are not being used on any pages.
 * Special:LonelyPages: pages that do not have any links to them.
 * Special:AncientPages: oldest pages on the wiki.

Miscellaneous

 * Special:BlankPage: shows a blank page. Useful for gadgets that may require a blank special page.
 * Special:Random: gets a random article.
 * Special:RandomRootpage: gets a random root page (anything that is not a subpage).
 * Special:RandomInCategory: gets a random page in the specified category.
 * Special:RandomRedirect: gets a random redirect page.
 * Special:CiteThisPage: allows you to generate a bibliographic citation for the specified page.
 * Special:BookSources: allows you to find books in libraries given the book's ISBN.
 * Special:ExpandTemplates: allows you to generate expanded wikitext, where templates and parser functions are expanded recursively. Useful for template development.
 * Special:Redirect: redirects to the direct path of a file, or to a revision ID. Useful for links in edit summaries or other scenarios where external links to revisions and files may not work.
 * Special:PermanentLink: for linking to a specific version of a page. See Help:Permanent link.

Restricted

 * Special:Block: available to administrators. Used to block editing access from users or IP addresses.
 * Special:Unblock: available to administrators. Used to remove blocks.
 * Special:Undelete: available to administrators. Used to reverse page deletions.
 * Special:DeletedContributions: available to administrators. Used to view deleted edits made by a user.
 * Special:Nuke: available to administrators. Used to quickly batch delete recently created pages.
 * Special:MassMessage: available to administrators. Used to quickly send messages to multiple users.
 * Special:UserRights: available to administrators. Used to add and remove user groups.
 * Special:ManageWiki: available to bureaucrats. Used to adjust wiki settings. See ManageWiki.
 * Special:CheckUser: available to users with CheckUser access.

Modifying special pages
While special pages cannot be edited themselves, they will usually use system messages stored in the MediaWiki namespace for their text. You can query the names of these system messages by appending  to the URL of the page. The names of the system messages will then be displayed in parenthesis.