User:MarkWiseman

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[edit] Mark Wiseman

A New Zealand physician with a particular interest in online learning and collaboration. Maintains allthewikis.com in his spare time.

Please do not edit this article he is currently working on:

WIKI

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A wiki is a website designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content.[1] The multiple author capability of wikis makes them effective tools for mass collaborative authoring.[2] Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is one of the best known wikis.[3]

Several characteristics of wikis facilitate the multiple author capability. The most frequently used of these are:

Ease of editing: traditionally this has been with wikitext, a markup language, which is easier to use than html or xhtml. However, many wikis now provide a simple WYSIWYG editor, which allows non-technical or occasional contributors to edit wiki pages.

Review and revert: often other authors will not agree to a change that has been made to a wiki page. Wikis usually provide a system in which authors can review changes to pages and revert to older versions if this is appropriate.

Navigation systems: a traditional hierarchical navigation menu often does not work for wikis because multiple authors create and delete pages. To overcome this problem wikis often rely on internal links, searches and tags to aid navigation.

Permissions: open access to wikis allows entry by spammers and vandals. Most wikis allow administrators to assign different levels of permissions to visitors to view, edit, create or delete pages. Assigning permissions helps prevent misuse of wikis but can also discourage genuine contributors.

Discussion pages: authors frequently need to discuss page contents to reach consensus on page contents. Most wikis facilitate this by having a discussion page attached to each wiki page or some other system for discussion.

[edit] History

Wiki Wiki bus at Honolulu International Airport
Wiki Wiki bus at Honolulu International Airport

WikiWikiWeb was the first such site to be called a wiki.[3] Ward Cunningham started developing WikiWikiWeb in 1994, and installed it on Internet domain c2.com on March 25, 1995. It was named by Cunningham, who remembered a Honolulu International Airport counter employee telling him to take the so-called "Wiki Wiki" Chance RT-52 shuttle bus line that runs between the airport's terminals. According to Cunningham, "I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for 'quick' and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web."[4][5] Wiki Wiki is a reduplication of wiki, a Hawaiian-language word for fast. The word "wiki" (IPA /wiːkiː wiːkiː/) is a shorter form of wiki wiki .

Cunningham was in part inspired by the Apple's HyperCard program developed by the idea of Vannevar Bush. Bush had designed a system allowing users to create virtual “card stacks” supporting links among the various cards. Cunningham developed Bush's idea by allowing users to "comment on and change one another's text".[3][6] In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in the enterprise as collaborative software. Common uses included project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially for technical users. Today some companies use wikis as their only collaborative software and as a replacement for static intranets. There may be greater use of wikis behind firewalls than on the public Internet.

On March 15, 2007, wiki entered the Oxford English Dictionary Online.[7][8]

Wiki is sometimes interpreted as the "backronym" for what I know is, which describes the knowledge contribution, storage, and the exchange function.[9]

[edit] Trustworthiness

Critics of open-source wiki systems argue that these systems could be easily tampered with; while proponents argue that the community of users can catch malicious content and correct it.[3] Lars Aronsson, a data systems specialist, summarizes the controversy as follows:

“ Most people, when they first learn about the wiki concept, assume that a website that can be edited by anybody would soon be rendered useless by destructive input. It sounds like offering free spray cans next to a grey concrete wall. The only likely outcome would be ugly graffiti and simple tagging, and many artistic efforts would not be long lived. Still, it seems to work very well.[10] ”

[edit] Characteristics

A wiki enables documents to be written collaboratively, in a simple markup language using a web browser. A single page in a wiki is referred to as a "wiki page", while the entire body of pages, which are usually highly interconnected via hyperlinks, is "the wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing and searching information.

A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be created and updated. Generally, there is no review before modifications are accepted. Many wikis are open to the general public without the need to register any user account. Sometimes session log-in is requested to acquire a "wiki-signature" cookie for autosigning edits. Many edits, however, can be made in real-time, and appear almost instantaneously online. This can lead to abuse of the system. Private wiki servers require user authentication to edit, sometimes even to read pages.

[edit] Editing wiki pages

Traditionally content structure and formatting on wikis is implemented with a simplified markup language, sometimes known as "wikitext'". For example, starting a line of text with an asterisk ("*") is often used to code an item in a bulleted list. Style and syntax of wikiexs can vary a great deal among wiki implementations, some of which also allow HTML tags.

The reasoning behind this design is that HTML, with its many cryptic tags, is not especially human-readable. The actual text content is hard to read within HTML, making it difficult to edit. Wikis therefore better to provide plain-text editing with a few simple conventions of wikitext for structure and style.


MediaWiki syntax Equivalent HTML Rendered output
"''Doctor''? No other title? A ''scholar''? And he rates above the civil authority?"

"Why, certainly," replied Hardin, amiably. "We're all scholars more or less. After all, we're not so much a world as a scientific foundation — under the direct control of the Emperor."		 <p>
&quot;<i>Doctor</i>? No other title? A <i>scholar</i>? And he rates above the civil authority?&quot;
</p>

<p>
&quot;Why, certainly,&quot; replied Hardin, amiably. &quot;We're all scholars more or less. After all, we're not so much a world as a scientific foundation — under the direct control of the Emperor.&quot;
</p>
 "Doctor? No other title? A scholar? And he rates above the civil authority?"

"Why, certainly," replied Hardin, amiably. "We're all scholars more or less. After all, we're not so much a world as a scientific foundation — under the direct control of the Emperor."

(Quotation above from Foundation by Isaac Asimov)

Although limiting access to HTML and Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) of wikis, limits user ability to alter the structure and formatting of wiki content there are some benefits. Inability to acces CSS promotes consistency in the look and feel and inability to use JavaScript prevents a user implementing code, which may limit access of other users.

Increasingly wikis are making "WYSIWYG" ("What You See Is What You Get") editing available to users, usually by means of JavaScript or an ActiveX control that translates graphically entered formatting instructions, such as "bold" and "italics", into the corresponding HTML tags or wikitext. In those implementations, the markup of a newly-edited marked up version of the page is generated and submitted to the server transparently, and the user is shielded from this technical detail. WYSIWYG editors of wikis have no where near the capabilies of the average word processor and usually do not produce good code.

Many implementations (for example MediaWiki) allow users to supply an "edit summary" when they edit a page. This is a short piece of text (usually one line) summarizing the changes. It is not inserted into the article, but is stored along with that revision of the page, allowing users to explain what has been done and why; this is similar to a log message when committing changes to a revision control system.

Most wikis keep a record of changes made to wiki pages, often every version of the page is stored. This means that authors can revert to an older version of the page, should it be necessary because a mistake has been made or the page has been vandalised.

[edit] Controlling changes

History comparison reports highlight the changes between two revisions of a page.
History comparison reports highlight the changes between two revisions of a page.

Wikis are generally designed with the philosophy of making it easy to correct mistakes, rather than making it difficult to make them. Thus, while wikis are very open, they provide a means to verify the validity of recent additions to the body of pages. The most prominent, on almost every wiki, is the "Recent Changes" page—a specific list numbering recent edits, or a list of all the edits made within a given time frame.[11] Some wikis can filter the list to remove minor edits and edits made by automatic importing scripts ("bots").[11]

From the change log, other functions are accessible in most wikis: the Revision History showing previous page versions; and the diff feature, highlighting the changes between two revisions. Using the Revision History, an editor can view and restore a previous version of the article. The diff feature can be used to decide whether or not this is necessary. A regular wiki user can view the diff of an edit listed on the "Recent Changes" page and, if it is an unacceptable edit, consult the history, restoring a previous revision; this process is more or less streamlined, depending on the wiki software used.[11]

In case unacceptable edits are missed on the "Recent Changes" page, some wiki engines provide additional content control. It can be monitored to ensure that a page, or a set of pages, keeps its quality. A person willing to maintain pages will be warned of modifications to the pages, allowing him or her to verify the validity of new editions quickly.[11]

[edit] Vandalism

The open philosophy of most wikis, allowing anyone to edit content, does not ensure that all editors are well-meaning. Vandalism can be a major problem. n larger wiki sites, such as those run by the Wikimedia Foundation, vandalism can go unnoticed for a period of time. Wikis by their very nature are susceptible to intentional disruption, known as "trolling" Wikis tend to take a soft security.[12] approach to the problem of vandalism; making damage easy to undo rather than attempting to prevent damage. Larger wikis often employ sophisticated methods, such as bots that automatically identify and revert vandalism and JavaScript enhancements that show how many characters have been added in each edit. In this way vandalism can be limited to just "minor vandalism" or "sneaky vandalism", where the characters added/eliminated are so few that bots don´t identify them and users don´t pay much attention to them.

The amount of vandalism a wiki receives depends on how open the wiki is. For instance, some wikis allow unregistered users known as "IP addresses" to edit content, whilst others limit this function to just registered users. What most wikis do is allow IP editing, but privilege registered users with some extra functions to lend them a hand in editing; on most wikis, becoming a registered user is very simple and can be done in seconds, but detains the user from using the new editing functions until either some time passes, as in the English Wikipedia, where registered users must wait for three days after creating an account in order to gain access to the new tool, or until several constructive edits have been made in order to prove the user´s trustworthiness and usefulness on the system, as in the Portuguese Wikipedia, where users require at least 15 constructive edits before authorization to use the added tools. Basically, "closed up" wikis are more secure and reliable but grow slowly, whilst more open wikis grow at a steady rate but result in being an easy target for vandalism.

[edit] Linking and creating pages

Hierarchical navigation menus are often not useful in wikis as multiple authors create and delete pages in an ad hoc manner. Non-linear navigational methods are more appropriate. Typically each page contains a large number of [hypertext]] links to other pages. Links are created using a specific syntax, the so-called "link pattern".

Originally, most wikis used CamelCase when naming program identifiers. These are produced by capitalizing words in a phrase and removing the spaces between them (the word "CamelCase" is itself an example). While CamelCase makes linking very easy, it also leads to links which are written in a form that deviates from the standard spelling. CamelCase-based wikis are instantly recognizable because they have many links with names such as "TableOfContents" and "BeginnerQuestions". Note that it is possible for a wiki to render the visible anchor for such links "pretty" by reinserting spaces, and possibly also reverting to lower case. However, this reprocessing of the link to improve the readability of the anchor is limited by the loss of capitalization information caused by CamelCase reversal. For example, "RichardWagner" should be rendered as "Richard Wagner", whereas "PopularMusic" should be rendered as "popular music". There is no easy way to determine which capital letters should remain capitalized. As a result, many wikis now have "free linking" using brackets, and some disable CamelCase by default.

[edit] Searching

Most wikis offer at least a title search, and sometimes a full-text search. The scalability of the search depends on whether the wiki engine uses a database. Indexed database access is necessary for high speed searches on large wikis. Alternatively, external search engines such as Google can sometimes be used on wikis with limited searching functions in order to obtain more precise results. However, a search engine's indexes can be very out of date (days, weeks or months) for many websites.

[edit] Server-side versus client-side wiki

By far, the most common wiki systems are server-side. In essence, the edit, display and control functions are provided on the server through the wikiengine that renders the content into an HTML-based page for display in a web browser.

A client-side wiki system requires only that the server "serve" wiki files in much the same way that a web server allows HTML files to be retrieved using HTTP. In this type of wiki system, all the execution required to convert the underlying wiki text into an onscreen formatted display page resides in the client browser. Likewise, the editing tools and functionality reside in the browser.

The client-side wiki system parallels HTML in that the page becomes a rendering instruction for the browser to interpret. Client-side wiki systems may be little more than a code plugin to a more traditional web browser.

[edit] Web-based versus peer-to-peer

Most wikis are based on a web server. The server can be open to everybody on the Internet, or part of a private LAN, with limited access. There is also a version of wiki that can be shared between peers, with no need for a web server. Such Peer-to-peer wiki system is integrated with a P2P version-control system that takes care of versioning and distribution of pages.

[edit] Wiki communities

Many wiki communities are private, particularly within enterprises as collaborative software. They are often used as internal documentation for in-house systems and applications. The democratic, all-encompassing nature of Wikipedia is a significant factor in its growth, while many other wikis are highly specialized.

There also exist WikiNodes which are pages on wikis that describe related wikis. They are usually organized as neighbors and delegates. A neighbor wiki is simply a wiki that may discuss similar content or may otherwise be of interest. A delegate wiki is a wiki that agrees to have certain content delegated to that wiki.

One way of finding a wiki on a specific subject is to follow the wiki-node network from wiki to wiki; another is to take a Wiki "bus tour," for example: Wikipedia's Tour Bus Stop. Domain names containing "wiki" are growing in popularity to support specific niches.

For those interested in creating their own wiki, there are many publicly available "wiki farms", some of which can also make private, password-protected wikis. PeanutButterWiki, Socialtext, Wetpaint, and Wikia are popular examples of such services. For more information, see List of wiki farms. Note that free wiki farms generally contain advertising on every page. For those interested in how to build a successful wiki community, and encourage wiki use, Wikipatterns is a guide to the stages of wiki adoption and a collection of community-building and content-building strategies.

The English-language Wikipedia has the largest user base among all wikis[13] and ranks in the top twenty among all websites in terms of traffic.[14] Other large wikis include the WikiWikiWeb, Memory Alpha, Wikitravel, World66 and Susning.nu, a Swedish-language knowledge base. The largest wikis are listed and updated on Wikimedia's "meta" wiki.

[edit] Wikis and content management systems

Wikis have shared and encouraged several features with generalized content management systems (CMS), which are used by enterprises and communities-of-practice. Those looking to compare a CMS with an enterprise wiki should consider these basic features:

  1. The name of an article is embedded in the hyperlink.
  2. Articles can be created or edited at anytime by anyone (with certain limitations for protected articles).
  3. Articles are editable through the web browser.
  4. Each article provides one-click access to the history/versioning page, which also supports version differencing ("diff") and retrieving prior versions.
  5. Each article provides one-click access to a discussion page particular to that article.
  6. The most recent additions/modifications of articles can be monitored actively or passively.

None of these are particular to a wiki, and some have developed independently. Still the concept of a wiki unequivocally refers to this core set of features. Taken together, they fit the generative nature of the Internet, in encouraging each user to help build it.[15] It is yet to be studied whether an enterprise wiki encourages more usage, or leads to more knowledgeable community members, than other content management systems.

[edit] See also

Find more about wiki on Wikipedia's sister projects:
Dictionary definitions
Textbooks
Quotations
Source texts
Images and media
News stories
Learning resources

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, On Term: "Wiki".
  2. ^ Ward Cunningham's original description of Wiki.
  3. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Britannica
  4. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named cunningham
  5. ^ Cunningham, Ward. Wiki History. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
  6. ^ Cunningham, Ward. Wiki Wiki Hyper Card. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
  7. ^ March 2007 new words, OED. Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  8. ^ "Wiki" wins place in dictionary. Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  9. ^ WIKI - What does WIKI stand for?. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
  10. ^ Richard Heigl, Markus Glaser, Anja Ebersbach(2006), p.10.
  11. ^ a b c d Richard Heigl, Markus Glaser, Anja Ebersbach(2006), p.51-54.
  12. ^ Soft Security. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
  13. ^ WikiStats by S23. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
  14. ^ Alexa Web Search - Top 500. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
  15. ^ Zittrain, Jonathan. The Generative Internet. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.

[edit] References

[edit] External links