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Wiki

This document provides information about wikis, including what they are, how they work, their characteristics and how editing works. It defines wikis as websites that can be collaboratively edited by users using just a web browser. Wikis allow for nonlinear and evolving text. The largest wiki is Wikipedia, which has millions of articles.

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Luka Qadagidze
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14 views

Wiki

This document provides information about wikis, including what they are, how they work, their characteristics and how editing works. It defines wikis as websites that can be collaboratively edited by users using just a web browser. Wikis allow for nonlinear and evolving text. The largest wiki is Wikipedia, which has millions of articles.

Uploaded by

Luka Qadagidze
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A 

wiki (/ˈwɪki/ ( listen) WIK-ee) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed


by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or
scope of the project, and could be either open to the public or limited to use within an organization
for maintaining its internal knowledge base.
Wikis are enabled by wiki software, otherwise known as wiki engines. A wiki engine, being a form of
a content management system, differs from other web-based systems such as blog software, in that
the content is created without any defined owner or leader, and wikis have little inherent structure,
allowing structure to emerge according to the needs of the users.[1] Wiki engines usually allow
content to be written using a simplified markup language and sometimes edited with the help of
a rich-text editor.[2] There are dozens of different wiki engines in use, both standalone and part of
other software, such as bug tracking systems. Some wiki engines are free and open-source,
whereas others are proprietary. Some permit control over different functions (levels of access); for
example, editing rights may permit changing, adding, or removing material. Others may permit
access without enforcing access control. Other rules may be imposed to organize content.
There are hundreds of thousands of wikis in use, both public and private, including wikis functioning
as knowledge management resources, note-taking tools, community websites, and intranets. Ward
Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described wiki as "the
simplest online database that could possibly work".[3] "Wiki" (pronounced [wiki][note 1]) is
a Hawaiian word meaning "quick".[4][5][6]
The online encyclopedia project Wikipedia is the most popular wiki-based website, and is one of the
most widely viewed sites in the world, having been ranked in the top twenty since 2007.[7] Wikipedia
is not a single wiki but rather a collection of hundreds of wikis, with each one pertaining to a specific
language. The English-language Wikipedia has the largest collection of articles: as of
February 2020, it has over 6 million articles.

Characteristics
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this
section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March
2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Ward Cunningham

In their book The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web, Ward Cunningham and co-author Bo
Leuf described the essence of the Wiki concept:[8][9][page  needed]

 "A wiki invites all users—not just experts—to edit any page or to create new pages within
the wiki web site, using only a standard 'plain-vanilla' Web browser without any
extra add-ons."
 "Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page
link creation intuitively easy and showing whether an intended target page exists or not."
 "A wiki is not a carefully crafted site created by experts and professional writers and
designed for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the typical visitor/user in an
ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the website
landscape."
A wiki enables communities of editors and contributors to write documents collaboratively. All that
people require to contribute is a computer, Internet access, a web browser, and a basic
understanding of a simple markup language (e.g. MediaWiki markup language). A single page in a
wiki website is referred to as a "wiki page", while the entire collection of pages, which are usually
well-interconnected by hyperlinks, is "the wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for creating,
browsing, and searching through information. A wiki allows non-linear, evolving, complex, and
networked text, while also allowing for editor argument, debate, and interaction regarding the content
and formatting.[10] A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be
created and updated. Generally, there is no review by a moderator or gatekeeper before
modifications are accepted and thus lead to changes on the website. Many wikis are open to
alteration by the general public without requiring registration of user accounts. Many edits can be
made in real-time and appear almost instantly online, but this feature facilitates abuse of the system.
Private wiki servers require user authentication to edit pages, and sometimes even to read
them. Maged N. Kamel Boulos, Cito Maramba, and Steve Wheeler write that the open wikis produce
a process of Social Darwinism. "... because of the openness and rapidity that wiki pages can be
edited, the pages undergo an evolutionary selection process, not unlike that which nature subjects to
living organisms. 'Unfit' sentences and sections are ruthlessly culled, edited and replaced if they are
not considered 'fit', which hopefully results in the evolution of a higher quality and more relevant
page."[11]

Editing
"Wikitext" redirects here. For the Wikipedia help page, see Help:Wikitext.
Source editing
Some wikis have an edit button or link directly on the page being viewed if the user has permission
to edit the page. This can lead to a text-based editing page where participants can structure and
format wiki pages with a simplified markup language, sometimes known as wikitext, wiki markup or
wikicode (it can also lead to a WYSIWYG editing page; see the paragraph after the table below). For
example, starting lines of text with asterisks could create a bulleted list. The style and syntax of
wikitexts can vary greatly among wiki implementations,[example needed] some of which also allow HTML
tags.
Layout consistency

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