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):

1. browser-based WebApp, so anyone can author from anywhere

2. 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).

3. 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.

4. 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)

• Team Wiki/Wiki For Collaboration Ware

• 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.

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

• [Pot Latch] http://potlatch.net/MoinMoin/moin.cgi/FrontPage

• [Chicago Humanist] http://www.globalchicago.net/humanist/wiki/wiki.cgi?TourBusStop

Things I want to work on next (Jun2004)

• Issue Tracker

• Touch Graph applet view

• Mind Mapping of individual pages

• maybe [OutLine] view (collapsable)

• Sister Sites

• meta: stick with ZWiki, or switch to something Zope-free?

Are wikis ugly? need CSS?

• z2003-04-28- Wiki Ugly, z2003-05-18- Shirky Ugly Media

• 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....

  • http://otrademocraciaesposible.net/wiki/bin/view/Main/ComoParticipar

  • http://www.develnet.org/196.html

  • http://autrans.crao.net/index.php/PositionnementAutrans

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