Special pages are pages that have no wikitext, but are generated by the software on demand. They are found in the "Special:" namespace. It is not possible to make a redirect to a special page, or to create normal pages beginning with the "Special:" prefix.
Special pages often take parameters. Sometimes these can be supplied after a slash (as in Special:Log/block); in other cases an index.php call is used, as in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&days=3&limit=10. Also the content of some special pages depends on preferences that have been set by the user, e.g. classic or enhanced Recent Changes, the number of titles in Recent Changes and the watchlist, etc.
Although special pages are not themselves editable, they generally contain standard text which is modifiable (although only by administrators). This text is contained in pages in the MediaWiki namespace. To find the right portion of text, see Special:AllMessages. To propose a modification, leave an {{editprotected}} request on the talk page of the relevant MediaWiki page. An administrator will make the change if it seems appropriate.
Available special pages
General information
Special:SpecialPages: a list of all special pages currently available to all users.
Special:Statistics: total number of pages and users in various categories.
Special:Version: shows the version of the software the site is currently running, and a listing of extensions installed.
Special:SiteMatrix: lists all Wikimedia projects (such as different language Wikipedias) and their codes.
Page listings
Special:AllPages: allows the user to access a portion of an alphabetical list of all Wikipedia pages in a specified namespace. A starting point can be given as a parameter, e.g. Special:AllPages/T (pages in the main namespace, from "T"), Special:Allpages/Template: (pages in the Template: namespace, from the start). For the order in which pages are listed, see Help:Alphabetical order.
Special:Export: produces an XML file containing the wikitext and metadata of either the current version only, or all revisions, of one or more pages, specified in the form of a list; the XML file is in the format required for Special:Import; exporting is typically done either in preparation of applying the latter at another MediaWiki project, or for searching within old page revisions. See Help:Export.
Special:Random: redirects to a random page from the main namespace which is not a redirect. Other namespaces can be specified as a parameter, e.g. Special:Random/Talk.
Special:NewPages: newest pages with creation date and time, current size, user who created the page, and first edit summary, in reverse order of creation. See Wikipedia:New pages patrol.
Special:Log: combined display of various logs. The type of log, user and page affected can be specified. Parameters "block", "delete", "protect" and "upload" are available. e.g. Special:Log/block displays the block log directly. For more information, see Help:Log.
Special:Disambiguations: shows pages that link to a disambiguation page, which should link to the appropriate topic instead. A disambiguation page is defined as a page on which a disambiguation template is transcluded; a disambiguation template is defined as a template linked from MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage.
Special:DoubleRedirects: lists redirects that redirect to another redirect. May contain false positives.
Special:LongPages: pages in the main namespace, with size in bytes, in order of decreasing size.
Special:ShortPages: pages in the main namespace, with size (of the wikitext excluding that of templates used) in bytes, in order of increasing size.
Special:MostLinkedFiles: lists images and other files linked from the largest number of pages.
Special:ExpandTemplates: an extension used to produce expanded wikitext, i.e. templates, parser functions and variables in the input text are expanded recursively. See also mw:Extension:ExpandTemplates.
Special:MostLinkedTemplates: lists templates for which the number of pages in which the template is transcluded is largest, not counting transclusions through redirects.
Special:LonelyPages: orphaned articles i.e. articles with no links to them in the wiki.
The term in the site language equivalent to English "Special" is used in each project. E.g. "Speciaal" in Dutch, "Spezial" in German, "Speciális:" in Hungarian and "מיוחד:" in Hebrew. These also appear in the URLs. However, the English word "Special" works as an alternative in most sites.
See also
Writing a new special page on the MediaWiki site
Special page extensions: MediaWiki category
Special page extensions: Meta category
Help:Special page on Meta
MediaWiki special page class definitions
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Special_page"