What is a Wiki? A "wiki" is a websi...

What is a Wiki?

A "wiki" is a website where anybody can column material or make changes to existing material without having to know any special commands or programming languages. All the contributor destitutions to do is click the "edit" link forward the page, and he or she will be taken to an online form that allows them to edit the content

The wiki was originally invented by means of a software developer named Ward Cunningham in 1995 to facilitate an online discussion about software disclosure Since then, the wild's practicality and ease of use has l to its adoption for countles business, social, and personal projects

What about vandals?

Given that it's thus easy to add content to or remove content from a wiki page, you're probably wondering to what extent this kind of site could possibly work. After all, what's to debar vandals from deleting information or adding misinformation?

A wiki works if it has a healthy, active community of contributors. Typing up a page of misinformation can take a time, but it only takes a after visitor a minute or pair to revert the page to a previous correct version. This note carefullys to deter vandals.

The possibility of well-intentioned contributors inadvertently adding incorrect information to a wiki is another story. however again, having a healthy community means that someone otherwise will be along soon to make corrections.

Some wikis (like "Twiki," which is described below) have a permissions theory you can use to regulate read or write access to different sections of the site-an especially valuable feature for wikis used in business settings. Other wikis, as it is as "Wikipedia" (also described below) have exhibited their own unique systems for dealing with vandals and for handling disputes between contributors (you can imagine the tug-of-war created between contributors in succession hot-button topic pages).

Some wiki software

Since the wiki's creation in 1995 many versions have been written in many different programming languages. If you want to create a wiki of your acknowledge here are a few options:

Wiki farms

(http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms): A wiki farm is a service that allows you to wager up your own wiki without having to install, wager up, or host the software yourself. Check not at home this page on the "MeatballWiki" site for a listing of the two free and commercial wiki farms.

Twiki (www.twiki.org): Twiki is a webwork program with a lot of features, among them a permission order you can use to regulate read and write access to different sections of the wiki, and a categorization regularity you can use to classify the individual pages. To use this program, you'll probably ne some one with some time and technical expertise to learn it and station it up. (For those of you who know something about programming languages, Twiki is an open-source, cgi-bin script written in Perl)

For a more extensive list of user-installable wiki programs, check the listing at the bottom of the "What is a Wiki?" article on Nathan Matias on the SitePoint website at www.sitepoint.com/article/what-is-a-wiki. (SitePoint publishes an online magazine, newsletter and main division s on Web development, and also innkeepers online forums.)

Sample wikis

If you've not at any time seen a wiki, here are a certain quantity of good examples:

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org): Probably the largest wiki in the world, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that has grown to throughout 289,000 articles since it was created in January 2001 Anybody around the world can contribute to the articles-all you have to do is make progress to an article and click the "edit" button. Clicking forward the "history" link will give you the filled list of changes that have already been made to that article. If a vandal take rises along and defaces or adds incorrect information to an article, the nearest person who comes along can use the history list to turn back the article back to its previous correct version.

Quicksilver Metaweb (http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.pht ml): Science-fiction author Neal Stephenson created the Metaweb to annotate his novel Quicksilver, further his ultimate goal is to create a carcass of knowledge that will swell beyond the confines of this single novel. If you have questions about Quicksilver, this wiki should give you the answers. And you might also find many other articles that have nothing to do with the novel-articles in succession subjects contributors knew something about and construct interesting.

Wikitravel (www.wikitravel.org): Inspired from Wikipedia, Wikitravel aims to create a at liberty worldwide travel guide. The site publicly has 1,930 destination guides and other articles. To contribute to any article just click the "edit this page" link.

By Rita Mikusch, Webmaster

Copyright Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia Aug 2004

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