I heard that wikis are a characteristic of our new way of handling information. What is a wiki ? I often read "I will write down a wiki", or "is there a wiki for..." So, I'm curious to know hat is really a wiki. Is this part of wikipedia ? Or is wikipedia a set of wikis ? It's probably a very obvious question, but I really would like to have the answer.

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The Wiki concept had been around since 1995..only became popular in the last couple of years..
I see it basically as a users manual for anything that the users themselves can edit and maintian.
We could put a wiki about AstaHost and how it works..how to use the logins..how to activate your account..how to stay on the good side of the admins ...how to use cpanel etc etc
But most of the info for this is already in the forum..

A lot of sites duplicate the 'sticky" info from the forum and stick it into the wiki so users can goto one page and pick up the info from there instead of searching the forum.

The Wiki software itself can be written in many different languages..Ive seen them in Java, Php, Python, Perl etc etc

Heres an example of a well done Wiki..
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/

This is one all about hacking and repairing smartphones..I use this one a lot for latest mods and software releases on my phone..

I really like the idea of Wikis...but I must comment that some bad thigns happen when you put the users in control..

Heres a link to a famous Wiki story...Brandt V Wikipedias 16 yr old admins ;(

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Daniel_Brandt

This guy had a fasle page posted about his life..

Also theres been some changes to US politions pages to make them look foolish that went unnoticed for a long time...
Just like the newspapers...DONT BELIEVE ALL YOU READ....

Mark420;)

 

 

 

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Wikis are (in theory) editable by anyone, or many people.

There are all kinds.

PB Wiki is one that has recently become more popular. When I started using it about 2 years ago, it was relatively small. Now lots of people have their own little PBWiki.

Then, of course, there's Wikipedia.

There's also a Homestar Runner wiki called HR Wiki.

Wikipedia has an article about wikis here.

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I guess Wikipedia was what made the concept of Wikis popular (or at least I first learned about wikis from Wikipedia) Like everyone mentioned above, a wiki is just a site that's editable by anyone. Of course, whoever owns the wiki can limit you from editing if you're not a member or if you decide to vandalize their wiki.

On the whole, I like the wiki idea, after all, many brains put together is often much better than one, especially when it's on a controversial topic. However, there are times when it could be problematic. Not all articles get checked in time for accuracy before publishing (though this obviously depends on the size of the site and the number of regular editors), so there often ends up being some bogus article floating around (and this article tends to be about an obscure topic hard to find elsewhere...though not always, as I once saw an article about fat that said it's chemical makeup was made of "carbon". I was thinking, "What?! That's just stating the obvious...>_<").

A source like Wikipedia can be good if you're just doing a casual report or finding out more info, but it's always good to check out more professional sources if you're really keen on getting accurate information. Either that or read the "discussion" tab to see exactly what is controversial about the article.

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One major problem with wikis is the potential for vandalism. Just as Arbitrary mentioned, a wiki can be edited by anyone, and this would include the less scrupulous individuals as well. Moreover, the more popular a wiki is, the more exposed it is to vandalism. On the other hand, the larger its user base, the more "fact checking" (term not technically accurate) or "monitoring" occurs among the users. So when Stephen Colbert blatantly placed misinformation into Wikipedia while on air, it did not take long for the errors to be removed.

I would be interested in setting up a wiki, but would prefer to limit the entries to a few trusted editors. But does that essentially contradict the concept of wikis? Will the project no longer be a wiki, but something else?

Anyway, I would be interested to know whether anybody on Astahost has been able to install a wiki other than tikiwiki and phpwiki. I am particuarly interested in MediaWiki, the engine used by Wikipedia.

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