There's no need to guess whether or not the files really have extensions. The OP says the files are from MediaWiki, which is a free open source software project. Specifically, it is the software that powers Wikipedia and many other wikis. Its source code repository can be browsed online and doing so readily verifies that the filenames are exactly as shown in the question.
The OP seems to be using Windows. But besides that, the question itself is not related to Windows in any way (I explain exactly why this is below). I think the good options, at this point, are (a) to migrate the question to another site or (b) to edit and reopen the question. I slightly favor editing and reopening it, but I am not sure that's better and I think either is acceptable.
There's no need to guess whether or not the files really have extensions. The OP says the files are from MediaWiki, which is free open source software project. Specifically, it is the software that powers Wikipedia and many other wikis. Its source code repository can be browsed online and doing so readily verifies that the filenames are exactly as shown in the question.
As currently asked, the question does not look like it is about Ubuntu. The screenshot very strongly appears to show Windows Explorer. One can even deduce that the files truly have no extensions, through a discerning examination of how Windows Explorer shows them. The circled files in the question show the generic file icon, which is used for files whose types Windows doesn't know, and thus can't associate with any application. As you've said, Windows Explorer never hides the extensions of unassociated files. It's possible for that generic icon to be used as the icon of some file type or application, but this is fortunately rare.
Deducing a file's true name from how it is displayed in Windows Explorer and other file managers is an interesting topic, and someone should write a monograph on the subject. But the files the OP was talking about are public, and a better way to find their names is to just check.
One approach is to migrate the question to Super User.
The OP is using Windows, which is on-topic there. It's a general software question, and I believe those are on-topic and fully embraced there. Furthermore, the OP seems amenable to migration:
Hi @ThomasWard I agree I have placed this question in the wrong forum, I am a hardware engineer and we try our best. I find the response and content here very useful, can we move this to a better location?
That might have been partly based on the assumption that the question couldn't be edited to be on-topic here (which it could, see below), but at the very least it suggests the OP doesn't strongly feel that it should remain here.
Another approach is to edit it so that it is on-topic.
This would be quite easy to do. It might be sufficient simply to replace the screenshot.
But it is possible to go beyond that, because MediaWiki is officially packaged for Ubuntu and available in the universe repository--which in a way makes it already more about Ubuntu than Windows. (The downstream has a patch, but the patch does not affect the naming of those files.)
ek@Gnar:~$ apt policy mediawiki
mediawiki:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 1:1.31.2-1ubuntu1
Version table:
1:1.31.2-1ubuntu1 500
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe amd64 Packages
Consider the following variation of the question:
Why do developers choose to not use file extensions for certain files? Here is an example from MediaWiki:
ek@Gnar:~/src$ apt source mediawiki Reading package lists... Done NOTICE: 'mediawiki' packaging is maintained in the 'Git' version control system at: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/debian.git Please use: git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/debian.git to retrieve the latest (possibly unreleased) updates to the package. Need to get 35.4 MB of source archives. Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe mediawiki 1:1.31.2-1ubuntu1 (dsc) [2,428 B] Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe mediawiki 1:1.31.2-1ubuntu1 (tar) [35.3 MB] Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe mediawiki 1:1.31.2-1ubuntu1 (asc) [95 B] Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe mediawiki 1:1.31.2-1ubuntu1 (diff) [112 kB] Fetched 35.4 MB in 17s (2,038 kB/s) dpkg-source: info: extracting mediawiki in mediawiki-1.31.2 dpkg-source: info: unpacking mediawiki_1.31.2.orig.tar.gz dpkg-source: info: unpacking mediawiki_1.31.2-1ubuntu1.debian.tar.xz dpkg-source: info: using patch list from debian/patches/series dpkg-source: info: applying pear-phail-fail-shebang.diff ek@Gnar:~/src$ cd mediawiki-1.31.2/ ek@Gnar:~/src/mediawiki-1.31.2$ ls -F api.php debian/ includes/ opensearch_desc.php StartProfiler.sample autoload.php docs/ index.php profileinfo.php tests/ cache/ extensions/ INSTALL README thumb_handler.php CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md FAQ jsduck.json RELEASE-NOTES-1.31 thumb.php composer.json Gruntfile.js languages/ resources/ UPGRADE composer.local.json-sample HISTORY load.php SECURITY vendor/ COPYING images/ maintenance/ serialized/ CREDITS img_auth.php mw-config/ skins/ ek@Gnar:~/src/mediawiki-1.31.2$ xdg-open .
That's on my Lubuntu 19.10 system with the
mediawikisource package, but the files appear to be named the same upstream as well.
I'm not saying we need to go that far in editing it, though in my opinion it would be acceptable if we did. But perhaps the above example of what the question could look like will be useful if we do edit it. Needless to say, any of the above may be used with or without modification, by anyone, in editing the question.
Given that we can easily edit the question to be on-topic--and that it's asking about files that are also in Ubuntu's repositories with the same filenames!--one argument for keeping the question is that, as you alluded to, it already has answers that are valuable to us here. On the other hand, those answers will likely be valuable elsewhere, too.
The long-standing official guidance by Shog9 seems to indicate that we should modify and keep the question rather than migrating it:
Respecting your own community
As members of a community, your first loyalty should be to that community. When evaluating a question, you shouldn’t be looking to push it off on some other site; instead, ask if it could be appropriate and on-topic for you, the experts who the author decided to ask. Be a bit jealous of your site – don’t blithely turn askers away simply because their question could be asked somewhere else. Don’t hit them over the head with your scope, help them tailor their question to fit into it – and if that means your site’s scope overlaps a bit with another site’s, so be it.
From "Respect the community – your own, and others’" by Shog9. Emphasis in original.
In my opinion, this guidance is consistent with having closed (put on hold) the question in its current form. But if applied straightforwardly, it would suggest that the best course forward is to edit the question and reopen it, at least if the OP is comfortable with this approach.
On the other hand, in a very deep way there is, perhaps, something Windows-specific about the question: among users of all operating systems, Windows users are probably the least accustomed to seeing files without extensions. Furthermore, Windows users might make the same incorrect assumption you made--that the files really did have extensions after all--and having the question somewhere Windows users are more likely to find it by searching could help mitigate that.
Given that, and how the OP seems to be fine with migration, I think either approach is acceptable in this situation.