The masses are moving to Wiki. Wikipedia is the default encyclopedia of the internet. Software companies are moving their documentation to Wiki. And, if current trends continue, Wiki could become the “Alexandria Library” of our day, the repository of all knowledge, science, philosophy, religion, and chocolate chip cookie recipes. But what is Wiki?
According to about.com: “Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser”.
OK, but what is it: “Wiki is in Ward Cunningham’s original description (the guy that first invented Wiki): The simplest online database that could possibly work. Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.
Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by non-technical users.”
I think I got it but not quite: “Wiki is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and any content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (an original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.”
Now it’s starting to sink in. It is a place (somewhere on the web! No no no – lots of places on the web) where ANYONE can start ANY articles, change ANY articles, add to ANY articles, and delete ANY articles. Totally open, wild, and random.
According to wiki.org “The ideas of "Wiki" may seem strange at first, but dive in and explore its links. "Wiki" is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool for collaboration. Really, we don't know quite what it is, but it's a fun way of communicating asynchronously across the network.”
The name "Wiki" is strange too - what does it mean? The WikiWikiWebFaq answers this and other questions, but the short answer is that WikiWiki is Hawaiian for "quick".
But how can you trust what you read if written by just anybody? By what standard does it abhear? By what authority was it written? WHO DO I SUE IF THE INFORMATION IS WRONG?
Here are the wiki guiding principles:
Ward Cunningham says “Wiki has turned out to be much more than I'd imagined! That is not to say that I didn't imagine a lot. These are the design principles I sought to satisfy with the first release of Wiki.
Open - Should a page be found to be incomplete or poorly organized, any reader can edit it as they see fit.
Incremental - Pages can cite other pages, including pages that have not been written yet.
Organic - The structure and text content of the site are open to editing and evolution.
Mundane - A small number of (irregular) text conventions will provide access to the most useful page markup.
Universal - The mechanisms of editing and organizing are the same as those of writing so that any writer is automatically an editor and organizer.
Overt - The formatted (and printed) output will suggest the input required to reproduce it.
Unified - Page names will be drawn from a flat space so that no additional context is required to interpret them.
Precise - Pages will be titled with sufficient precision to avoid most name clashes, typically by forming noun phrases.
Tolerant - Interpretable (even if undesirable) behavior is preferred to error messages.
Observable - Activity within the site can be watched and reviewed by any other visitor to the site.
Convergent - Duplication can be discouraged or removed by finding and citing similar or related content.
There are many Wiki authors and implementers. Here are some additional principles that guide them, but were not of primary concern to me.
Trust - This is the most important thing in a Wiki. Trust the people, trust the process, enable trust-building. Everyone controls and checks the content. Wiki relies on the assumption that most readers have good intentions. But see: AssumeGoodFaithLimitations
Fun - Everybody can contribute; nobody has to.
Sharing - of information, knowledge, experience, ideas...
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Comments:
Interaction - Enables guest interaction.
Collaboration - We believe that this could make a good collaboration tool, both synchronously and asynchronously.
Platforms - We like the cross-platform implications.
So it sounds pretty kool. But lately there has been problems in paradise. Vandals have crept in and decimated many of the pages, adding obscenities, off color jokes, or changing and blanking articles, rendering them useless. Because of recent vandalism or other disruption, editing of these article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. Such users may discuss changes, request unprotect ion, or create an account. So now Wiki is enforcing controls and with a review process for certain content. But how and by whom?
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