Most wikis allow the titles of pages to be searched amongst, and some offer full text search of all stored content. This allows authors to revert a page to an older version to rectify a mistake, or counteract a malicious or inappropriate edit to its content. This is generated and submitted to the server transparently, shielding users from the technical detail of markup editing and making it easier for them to change the content of pages. While wiki engines have traditionally offered source editing to users, as early as 2013, some implementations have added a rich text editing mode. There are hundreds of thousands of wikis in use, both public and private, including wikis functioning as knowledge management resources, note-taking tools, community websites, and intranets. A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.
WikiNode networks act as webrings which may be navigated from one node to another to find a wiki which addresses a specific subject. Adding categories or tags to a page makes it easier for other users to find it. Wiki implementations can provide one or more ways to categorize or tag pages to support the maintenance of such index pages, such as a backlink feature which displays all pages that link to a given page. Users may also create indexes or table of contents pages, hierarchical categorization via a taxonomy, or other forms of ad hoc content organization.
Wikis may allow any person on the web to edit their content without having to register an account on the site first (anonymous editing), or require registration as a condition of participation. Some wikis also implement patrolled revisions, in which editors with the requisite credentials can mark edits as being legitimate. A person willing to maintain pages will be alerted of modifications to them, allowing them to verify the validity of new editions quickly. System administrators are responsible for the installation and maintenance of the wiki engine and the container web server. Wikis can also be created on wiki hosting services (also known as wiki farms), where the server-side software is implemented by the wiki farm owner, and may do so at no charge in exchange for advertisements being displayed on the wiki’s pages. On March 15, 2007, the word wiki was listed in the online Oxford English Dictionary.
Some wiki engines offer a blacklist feature which prevents users from adding hyperlinks to specific sites that have been placed on the list by the wiki’s administrators. Wiki implementations retaining and allowing access to specific versions of articles has been useful to the scientific community, by allowing expert peer reviewers to provide links to trusted version of articles which they have analyzed. For example, in 2006 a German Wikipedia article about the Blaster Worm was edited to include a hyperlink to a malicious website, and users of vulnerable Microsoft Windows systems who followed the link had their systems infected with the worm. Some wiki engines provide additional content control, allowing remote monitoring and management of a page or set of pages to maintain quality. Wiki administrators maintain content and, through having elevated privileges, are granted additional functions (including, for example, preventing edits to pages, deleting pages, changing users’ access rights, or blocking them from editing). In this concept of wiki federation, in which the same content can be hosted and edited in more than one location in a manner similar to distributed version control, the idea of a single discrete “wiki” no longer made sense.
Example of syntax
For the version of Wikipedia written in Basic English, see Simple English Wikipedia. Wikipedi be a free-content online encyclopedia wey community of volunteers, dem know as Wikipedians dey wrep den dey maintain am, thru open collaboration den de wiki software MediaWiki. When no license is specified, an implied license to read and add content to a wiki may be deemed to exist on the grounds of business necessity and the inherent nature of a wiki. Some copyright issues can be alleviated through the use of an open content license.
Navigation between wikis
In that implementation, link terms were wrapped in a double set of square brackets, for example Kingdom of France. To avoid this problem, the syntax of wiki markup gained free links (called wikilinks), wherein a term in natural language could be wrapped in special characters to turn it into a link without modifying it. For example, “Kingdom of France” as a page title would be written as “KingdomOfFrance”, and displayed as “Kingdom Of France”. Beginning with WikiWikiWeb in 1995, most wikis used camel case to name pages, which is when words in a phrase are capitalized and the spaces between them removed. The syntax used to create internal hyperlinks varies between wiki implementations.
- In the mid-2000s, the increasing trend among industries toward collaboration placed a heavier impetus upon educators to make students proficient in collaborative work, inspiring even greater interest in wikis being used in the classroom.
- Some companies use wikis as their collaborative software and as a replacement for static intranets, and some schools and universities use wikis to enhance group learning.
- Wiki implementations can provide one or more ways to categorize or tag pages to support the maintenance of such index pages, such as a backlink feature which displays all pages that link to a given page.
- A wiki (/ˈwɪki/ ⓘ WIK-ee) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser.
- Common uses included project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially for technical users.
The version history feature allows harmful changes to be reverted quickly and easily. Most wikis offer a recent changes page which shows recent edits, or a list of edits made within a given time frame. Some hosting services offer private, password-protected wikis requiring authentication to access. The software which powers a wiki may be implemented as a series of scripts which operate an existing web server, a standalone application server that runs on one or more web servers, or in the case of personal wikis, run as a standalone application on a single computer.
External links
It has been criticized for exhibiting systemic bias, particularly gender bias against women and ideological bias. English Wikipedia, often as a stand-in for Wikipedia overall, has been praised for its enablement of the democratization of knowledge, extent of coverage, unique structure, culture, and reduced degree of commercial bias. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia’s first edition.
- Most wikis allow the titles of pages to be searched amongst, and some offer full text search of all stored content.
- The list displays metadata for each revision to the page, such as the time and date of when it was stored, and the name of the person who created it, alongside a link to view that specific revision.
- In academic contexts, wikis have also been used as project collaboration and research support systems.
- It was created by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of the site.
- Concerns have also been raised about systemic bias along gender, racial, political, corporate, institutional, and national lines.
- In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles.
- Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.
As most wikis allow the creation of hyperlinks to other sites and services, the addition of malicious hyperlinks, such as sites infected with malware, can also be a problem. Some wikis may be subject to external structures of governance which address the behavior of persons with access to the system, for example in academic contexts. Some wiki software allows administrators to prevent pages from being editable until a decision has been made on what version of the page would be most appropriate. Trolling and cybervandalism on wikis, where content is changed to something deliberately incorrect or a hoax, offensive material or nonsense is added, or content is maliciously removed, can be a major problem. High editorial royaldogs casino standards in medicine and health sciences articles, in which users typically use peer-reviewed journals or university textbooks as sources, have led to the idea of expert-moderated wikis. Proponents maintain that these issues will be caught and rectified by a wiki’s community of users.
The four basic types of users who participate in wikis are readers, authors, wiki administrators and system administrators. Some wikis use flat file databases to store page content, while others use a relational database, as indexed database access is faster on large wikis, particularly for searching. HyperCard, however, was single-user, and Cunningham was inspired to build upon the ideas of Vannevar Bush, the inventor of hypertext, by allowing users to “comment on and change one another’s text”.
Such a wiki contains information about specific instances of things, ideas, people and places. The term city wiki is sometimes also used for wikis that cover not just a city, but a small town or an entire region. A city wiki or local wiki is a wiki used as a knowledge base and social network for a specific geographical locale. In academic contexts, wikis have also been used as project collaboration and research support systems.