Extensions (such as the hieroglyphic module WikiHiero) are distributed separately. Drop them into this extensions directory and enable as per the extension's directions. If you are a developer, you want to fetch the extension tree in another directory and make a symbolic link: mediawiki/extensions$ ln -s ../../extensions-trunk/FooBarExt The extensions are available through svn at: http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ You can find documentation and additional extensions on MediaWiki website: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions Please note that under POSIX systems (Linux...), parent of a symbolic path refers to the link source, NOT to the target! If you need to include a file from mediawiki/, you will want to set and use MW_INSTALL_PATH env. $IP = getenv( 'MW_INSTALL_PATH' ); // points to mediawiki/ require( "$IP/maintenance/Maintenance.php" ); // a MediaWiki file