Characteristics
Ward Cunningham and co-author
Bo Leuf, in their book
The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web, described the essence of the Wiki concept as follows:
[7]
- A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web site, using only a plain-vanilla Web browser without any extra add-ons.
- Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages
by making page link creation almost intuitively easy and showing whether
an intended target page exists or not.
- A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead,
it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and
collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.
A wiki enables communities to write documents collaboratively, using a
simple markup language and a web browser. 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, argument and interaction.
[8]
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 alteration by the
general public without requiring registration of
user accounts. Many edits can be made in
real-time and appear almost instantly online. However, 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.
"'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. While such
openness may invite 'vandalism' and the posting of untrue information,
this same openness also makes it possible to rapidly correct or restore a
'quality' wiki page."
[9]
Editing wiki pages
Some wikis have an "edit" button or link directly on the page being
viewed, if the user has permission to edit the page. This leads to an
editing page which allows participants to structure and format wiki
pages with a simplified markup language, sometimes known as
wikitext (for example, starting a line of text with an
asterisk often sets up a
bulleted list). The style and syntax of wikitexts can vary greatly among wiki implementations,
[example needed] some of which also allow
HTML
tags. Wikis favour plain-text editing, with fewer and simpler
conventions than HTML, for indicating style and structure. 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. Limited access to
CSS promotes consistency in the look and feel, and having
JavaScript disabled prevents a user from implementing code that may limit other users' access.
This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.
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