I see why Fred suggested
Google as a better MediaWiki/WikiMedia/Wikipedia search master, perhaps
more so than MediaWiki/WikiMedia/Wikipedia searching within itself. I'm
getting the feeling that MediaWiki is w-a-y less mature or sophisticated
than it's notoriety and popularity suggests.
Actually my suggestion is if you have a question which involves say,
wgSpamBlacklistSettings that before you come to the list, you can probably see some
discussion, and the parts of MediaWiki it is included in, by googling for it. That will
allow you to try to figure things out on your own. If you have the usual questions,
someone has asked them before.
As to sophistication, there are types of sophistication, I doubt most the MediaWiki crew
would get far in the Federal bureaucracy, but there you go. This list seems to be heavy
sledding for you, but I'm sure you're a pretty sophisticated guy, just not
experienced in every conceivable aspect of life.
Fred