diff --git a/includes/DefaultSettings.php b/includes/DefaultSettings.php
index cf3bfa0d30c..0fe482d58b6 100644
--- a/includes/DefaultSettings.php
+++ b/includes/DefaultSettings.php
@@ -138,6 +138,12 @@ $wgSharedUploadDirectory = "/var/www/wiki3/images";
 $wgSharedUploadDBname = false;
 /** Cache shared metadata in memcached. Don't do this if the commons wiki is in a different memcached domain */
 $wgCacheSharedUploads = true;
+/**
+ * Point the upload navigation link to an external URL
+ * Useful if you want to use a shared repository by default
+ * without disabling local uploads
+*/
+# $wgUploadNavigationUrl = 'http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload';
 
 /** 
  * Give a path here to use thumb.php for thumbnail generation on client request, instead of 
@@ -150,7 +156,6 @@ $wgCacheSharedUploads = true;
 $wgThumbnailScriptPath = false;
 $wgSharedThumbnailScriptPath = false;
 
-
 /**
  * Set the following to false especially if you have a set of files that need to
  * be accessible by all wikis, and you do not want to use the hash (path/a/aa/)
@@ -1305,7 +1310,6 @@ $wgCountCategorizedImagesAsUsed = false;
  */
 $wgExternalStores = false;
 
-
 } else {
 	die();
 }
diff --git a/includes/SkinTemplate.php b/includes/SkinTemplate.php
index c9f0233b10e..7fd5adcaa27 100644
--- a/includes/SkinTemplate.php
+++ b/includes/SkinTemplate.php
@@ -724,7 +724,7 @@ class SkinTemplate extends Skin {
 		wfProfileIn( $fname );
 		
 		global $wgUser, $wgRequest;
-		global $wgSiteSupportPage, $wgEnableUploads;
+		global $wgSiteSupportPage, $wgEnableUploads, $wgUploadNavigationUrl;
 
 		$action = $wgRequest->getText( 'action' );
 		$oldid = $wgRequest->getVal( 'oldid' );
@@ -740,8 +740,12 @@ class SkinTemplate extends Skin {
 		// $nav_urls['sitesupport'] = array('href' => $this->makeI18nUrl('sitesupportpage'));
 		$nav_urls['sitesupport'] = array('href' => $wgSiteSupportPage);
 		$nav_urls['help'] = array('href' => $this->makeI18nUrl('helppage'));
-		if( $this->loggedin && $wgEnableUploads ) {
-			$nav_urls['upload'] = array('href' => $this->makeSpecialUrl('Upload'));
+		if( $wgEnableUploads ) {
+			if (isset($wgUploadNavigationUrl)) {
+				$nav_urls['upload'] = array('href' => $wgUploadNavigationUrl );			
+			} else {			
+				$nav_urls['upload'] = array('href' => $this->makeSpecialUrl('Upload'));
+			}
 		} else {
 			$nav_urls['upload'] = false;
 		}