09/10/2019 Wiki - Wikipedia

Editing

Navigation
Some wikis have an Edit button or link directly on the page being viewed, if the user has permission to edit the page.
This can lead to a text-based editing page where participants can structure and format wiki pages with a simplified
markup language, sometimes known as Wikitext, Wiki markup or Wikicode (it can also lead to a WYSIWYG
editing page; see the paragraph after the table below). For example, starting lines of text with asterisks could create a
bulleted list. The style and syntax of wikitexts can vary greatly among wiki implementations, some of which also allow
HTML tags.

Consistency
Wikis have favoured 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.

Basic syntax

Visual editing
Wikis can also make WYSIWYG editing available to users, usually by means of JavaScript control that translates
graphically entered formatting instructions into the corresponding HTML tags or wikitext. In those implementations,
the markup of a newly edited, marked-up version of the page is generated and submitted to the server transparently,
shielding the user from this technical detail. An example of this is the VisualEditor on Wikipedia. WYSIWYG controls
do not, however, always provide all of the features available in wikitext, and some users prefer not to use a WYSIWYG
editor. Hence, many of these sites offer some means to edit the wikitext directly.

Version history
Some wikis keep a record of changes made to wiki pages; often, every version of the page is stored. This means that
authors can revert to an older version of the page should it be necessary because a mistake has been made, such as the
content accidentally being deleted or the page has been vandalized to include offensive or malicious text or other
inappropriate content.

Edit summary
Many wiki implementations, such as MediaWiki, the software that powers Wikipedia, allow users to supply an edit
summary when they edit a page. This is a short piece of text summarizing the changes they have made (e.g., "Corrected
grammar," or "Fixed formatting in table."). It is not inserted into the article's main text, but is stored along with that
revision of the page, allowing users to explain what has been done and why, similar to a log message when making
changes in a revision-control system. This enables other users to see which changes have been made by whom and
why, often in a list of summaries, dates and other short, relevant content, a list which is called a "log" or "history."

Navigation
Within the text of most pages, there are usually a large number of hypertext links to other pages within the wiki. This
form of non-linear navigation is more "native" to a wiki than structured/formalized navigation schemes. Users can also
create any number of index or table-of-contents pages, with hierarchical categorization or whatever form of
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organization they like. These may be challenging to maintain "by hand", as multiple authors and users may create and
delete pages in an ad hoc, unorganized manner. Wikis can provide one or more ways to categorize or tag pages to
support the maintenance of such index pages. Some wikis, including the original, have a backlink feature, which
displays all pages that link to a given page. It is also typically possible in a wiki to create links to pages that do not yet
exist, as a way to invite others to share what they know about a subject new to the wiki. Wiki users can typically "tag"
pages with categories or keywords, to make it easier for other users to find the article. For example, a user creating a
new article on cold weather cycling might "tag" this page under the categories of commuting, winter sports and
bicycling. This would make it easier for other users to find the article.

Linking and creating pages

Links are created using a specific syntax, the so-called "link pattern". Originally, most wikis used CamelCase to name
pages and create links. These are produced by capitalizing words in a phrase and removing the spaces between them
(the word "CamelCase" is itself an example). While CamelCase makes linking easy, it also leads to links in a form that
deviates from the standard spelling. To link to a page with a single-word title, one must abnormally capitalize one of
the letters in the word (e.g. "WiKi" instead of "Wiki"). CamelCase-based wikis are instantly recognizable because they
have many links with names such as "TableOfContents" and "BeginnerQuestions." It is possible for a wiki to render the
visible anchor of such links "pretty" by reinserting spaces, and possibly also reverting to lower case. This reprocessing
of the link to improve the readability of the anchor is, however, limited by the loss of capitalization information caused
by CamelCase reversal. For example, "RichardWagner" should be rendered as "Richard Wagner", whereas
"PopularMusic" should be rendered as "popular music". There is no easy way to determine which capital letters should
remain capitalized. As a result, many wikis now have "free linking" using brackets, and some disable CamelCase by
default.

Searching
Most wikis offer at least a title search, and sometimes a full-text search. The scalability of the search depends on
whether the wiki engine uses a database. Some wikis, such as PmWiki, use flat files.[11] MediaWiki's first versions used
flat files, but it was rewritten by Lee Daniel Crocker in the early 2000s (decade) to be a database application. Indexed
database access is necessary for high speed searches on large wikis. Alternatively, external search engines such as
Google Search can sometimes be used on wikis with limited searching functions in order to obtain more precise results.

History
WikiWikiWeb was the first wiki.[12] Ward Cunningham started developing
WikiWikiWeb in Portland, Oregon, in 1994, and installed it on the Internet
domain c2.com on March 25, 1995. It was named by Cunningham, who
remembered a Honolulu International Airport counter employee telling
him to take the "Wiki Wiki Shuttle" bus that runs between the airport's
terminals. According to Cunningham, "I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative
substitute for 'quick' and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-
web."[13][14]

Cunningham was, in part, inspired by Apple Inc.'s HyperCard, which he Wiki Wiki Shuttle at Honolulu
had used. HyperCard, however, was single-user.[15] Apple had designed a International Airport
system allowing users to create virtual "card stacks" supporting links
among the various cards. Cunningham developed Vannevar Bush's ideas by
allowing users to "comment on and change one another's text."[1][16] Cunningham says his goals were to link together
people's experiences to create a new literature to document programming patterns, and to harness people's natural
desire to talk and tell stories with a technology that would feel comfortable to those not used to "authoring".[15]

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Wikipedia became the most famous wiki site, launched in January 2001 and entering the top ten most popular
websites in 2007. In the early 2000s (decade), wikis were increasingly adopted in enterprise as collaborative software.
Common uses included project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially for technical users. Some
companies use wikis as their only collaborative software and as a replacement for static intranets, and some schools
and universities use wikis to enhance group learning. There may be greater use of wikis behind firewalls than on the
public Internet. On March 15, 2007, the word wiki was listed in the online Oxford English Dictionary.[17]

Alternative definitions
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the word "wiki" was used to refer to both user-editable websites and the software
that powers them; the latter definition is still occasionally in use.[2] Wiki inventor Ward Cunningham wrote in 2014[18]
that the word "wiki" should not be used to refer to a single website, but rather to a mass of user-editable pages and or
sites, so that a single website is not "a wiki" but "an instance of wiki". He wrote that the 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, meant that the concept of a single discrete "wiki" no longer made sense.[19]

Implementations
Wiki software is a type of collaborative software that runs a wiki system, allowing web pages to be created and edited
using a common web browser. It may be implemented as a series of scripts behind an existing web server, or as a
standalone application server that runs on one or more web servers. The content is stored in a file system, and changes
to the content are stored in a relational database management system. A commonly implemented software package is
MediaWiki, which runs Wikipedia. Alternatively, personal wikis run as a standalone application on a single computer.
WikidPad is an example. One application, TiddlyWiki, simply makes use of an even single local HTML file with
JavaScript inside.

Wikis can also be created on a "wiki farm", where the server-side software is implemented by the wiki farm owner.
PBwiki, Socialtext, and Wikia are popular examples of such services. Some wiki farms can also make private,
password-protected wikis. Free wiki farms generally contain advertising on every page. For more information, see
Comparison of wiki farms.

Trust and security

Controlling changes
Wikis are generally designed with the philosophy of making it easy to
correct mistakes, rather than making it difficult to make them. Thus, while
wikis are very open, they provide a means to verify the validity of recent
additions to the body of pages. The most prominent, on almost every wiki,
is the "Recent Changes" page—a specific list numbering recent edits, or a
list of edits made within a given time frame.[20] Some wikis can filter the
list to remove minor edits and edits made by automatic importing scripts
("bots").[21] From the change log, other functions are accessible in most History comparison reports highlight
wikis: the revision history shows previous page versions and the diff feature the changes between two revisions
highlights the changes between two revisions. Using the revision history, an of a page.

editor can view and restore a previous version of the article. This gives great
power to the author to eliminate edits. The diff feature can be used to
decide whether or not this is necessary. A regular wiki user can view the diff of an edit listed on the "Recent Changes"
page and, if it is an unacceptable edit, consult the history, restoring a previous revision; this process is more or less
streamlined, depending on the wiki software used.[22]
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