Not sure if there is a function for this already that I missed somewhere, or if there needs to be a plugin for it.
I'd like the ability to use a simple tag such as
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}
in mediawiki to display a quick count of all articles.
EDIT: To take that further, it'd be nice to also be able to show other information such as the last page that was created, the time it was created, last page edited, the time it was edited, who created/edited that page, and so forth. Enough info that could be used to create a "statistics" or "wiki info" box on the home page.