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| WiKi |
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| last edited by BillSeitz on Jul 1, 2009 3:32 pm |
A Wiki is a web-based writing space based on the original Wiki Wiki Web. It is typically collaborative, but doesn't have to be.
What are its defining characteristics (to me):
browser-based WebApp, so anyone can author from anywhere
uses lite pseudo-markup (Smart Ascii), so easy to author, and easy to read in ASCII mode (I often copy stuff over into an Ms Outlook note to synch to my Pilot so I can edit offline).
Smashed Together Words method of Automatic Linking makes it easy to build up a bushy hypertext space (Intertwingular Ity).
A Wiki Word is a word with an initial cap and at least one other cap in the middle (aka Camel Case - there are various special cases here, but I'll ignore those for now). When the page is viewed, the wiki app checks every Wiki Word to see if there's a node in the Wiki Space with that name: if so, it automatically links to it (renders the HTML href); else, it generates a ? as a suffix to the Wiki Word, which if clicked on takes you to an empty form so you can create that node. This provides a Shared Language and Accidental Linking.
almost every Wiki Engine has a Back Links feature, which is a way of providing the Two Way Links that Ted Nelson and other Hyper Text gurus have always wanted to be added to the World Wide Web.
In a Collaboration Ware ConText (which is what it was originally designed for), the ability of anyone to edit any page (vs each page having a single owner) encourages involvement.
Some categories of wiki (which may overlap) (Wiki Types):
private Note Book
publicly-readable WikiLog (maybe readers can append comments, but can't edit every page)
wide-open Community Wiki: anyone can edit any page - this is the case that most people think of first, based on Wiki Wiki Web and Wiki Pedia
CommunityWiki:DegreesOfEditorialControl notes that not all users-with-edit-privileges have the same power
There's a fair amount of wiki-theory discussion at Meatball Wiki.
History
first WiKi-type app was written by Ward Cunningham in Hyper Card (so it was a single-machine writing space) at [Tek Tronix] in the 80s! WikiWikiWeb:WikiWikiHyperCard
the first web-based space was Wiki Wiki Web, launched in 1995. WikiWikiWeb:WikiHistory
There are Wiki Engines and Wiki Farms and Wikoid Spaces.
There is a Wiki Pedia project to build an encyclopedia on top of a wiki engine. It was noted in the end-2001 NyTimes "Year in Ideas" issue (the article was written by Steven Johnson).
I was thinking that [Justin Hall]'s old stuff is like a manually coded WiKi.
Some wiki sites I want to visit: (MeatballWiki:TourBus)
Knowledge Management: http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?TourBusStop
[And Stuff]: http://andstuff.org/AndStuff
[Project Galactic Guide] http://www.galactic-guide.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RecentChanges
[Chicago Humanist] http://www.globalchicago.net/humanist/wiki/wiki.cgi?TourBusStop
Things I want to work on next (Jun2004)
Touch Graph applet view
Mind Mapping of individual pages
meta: stick with ZWiki, or switch to something Zope-free?
Are wikis ugly? need CSS?
CommunityWiki:WikisAreUgly includes some links to wikis people think are not ugly. I rather like the below. But, amusingly, one thing that seems to make pages more "attractive" is having some sidebar stuff, which ironically I find rather a distraction most of the time and something that gets in the way of having lots of pages open at the same time in smaller windows....
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