What is MediaWiki?

MediaWiki table markup opens with {| and a class, marks headers with an exclamation mark and rows with |-.

Who uses it

Wikipedia editors and anyone running a MediaWiki install.

Reading MediaWiki

Both cell styles are read: one cell per line, and several on a line separated by exclamation marks or double pipes, which is the form most Wikipedia tables use. Cell attributes before a single pipe are dropped, since style="text-align:right" is presentation rather than data. Wiki links come through as their display text, so [[France|the French Republic]] arrives as the French Republic, and reference markers are removed.

Writing MediaWiki

The wikitable class is applied, which is what gives the table borders and header shading on Wikipedia.

What it can hold

MediaWiki is a wiki syntax. Tables open with {| and close with |}, and a cell can hold templates or another table. A machine can read it back, but only by following the conventions rather than a rule the format enforces.

It keeps

Nested values. A cell can hold a list or an object rather than only a single value.
A line break inside a cell, which survives rather than ending the row.
A header that is marked as one, rather than being the first row by convention.

It cannot express

Types. Every value is text. A column of digits is indistinguishable from a column of numbers until something downstream decides to read it as one, which is where a leading zero usually disappears.
A null. An absent value and an empty one look the same, and nothing in the file says which was meant.
A partial read. The document has to be complete to mean anything, so a truncated file yields nothing and a large one has to be held in memory whole.

What it looks like

Example MediaWiki

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! id !! name !! role !! started !! hours
|-
| 007 || Halima Yusuf || Analyst, data || 2024-03-15 || 38.5
|-
| 012 || Jonah "Jo" Pryce || Engineer || 2025-11-02 ||
|-
| 104 || Wei Chen || Manager || 2023-06-30 || 40
|}

Questions

How do I open MediaWiki files?

Any text editor will show you the contents. To read it as a table, paste it into the converter on this site and it appears in an editable grid. Nothing is uploaded.

Is MediaWiki a good format for sharing data?

It depends who is receiving it. Wikipedia editors and anyone running a MediaWiki install. If the recipient is outside that group, a plain CSV travels further than anything else.