Wikis

Posted by The Bridge

 

A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser. Wikis are often used to power community websites, for personal note taking, incorporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems. The most popular wiki website is “wikipedia”.

Ward Cunningham created the first wiki software, the wiki wiki web. Wiki originally means “What I Know Is”.

History

WikiWikiWeb was the first wiki. It was constructed 1994 by Ward Cunningham. His inspiration was Apple’s HyperCard. He completed the software, because he allowed every user to edit the written text from other users and write comments to the edited site. In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly used for project communication, intranets and documentation. Today some schools and universities use wikis to upgrade group learning.

Characteristics

In general a wiki allows every user to edit or create any page within the wiki web site, using only a going web Browser. The sites from a wiki are interlinked and everyone could get to another site in the wiki just by clicking on the word. A wiki is a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information.

Editing

Generally the editing of an wiki is very easy, because everyone could edit a site. The person only needs a web Browser. The wiki uses its own software which is more easy than HTML.

MediaWiki syntax  Equivalent HTML  Rendered output
“Take some more [[tea]],” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.”I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take ”less”,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take ”more” than nothing.”

 <p>”Take some more <a href=”/wiki/Tea” title=”Tea”>tea</a> ,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.</p><p>”I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”</p>

<p>”You mean you can’t take <i>less</i>,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take <i>more</i> than nothing.”</p>

 “Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.”I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

 

(Quotation above from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

 Wikis are using “WYSIWYG” (“What You See Is What You Get”).The wiki software translates formatting instructions like “bold” and “italics” automatically in the normal wiki text ,much more easy than HTML (look at the table above). If the editor recognises that he has done many mistakes, it could reset the site to its origin.

 Advantages of wikis

  • Everyone could correct and complete a site
  • Easy to operate
  • Many persons could work at one text, although they are in different places
  • No text could be lost

Disadvantages of wikis

  • Every user could destroy the text of the user before (for a short time)
  • Wikis do not work automatically.

Resources:

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

http://okapi.uni-frankfurt.de/index.php?title=Lehrende:Was_sind_Wikis%3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Back to

http://digitalspace.blog.com

http://english-for-runaways.blog.com

Permalink | May 25th, 2010

2 Responses

  1. world of warcraft make gold codes Says:
    May 30th, 2010 6:48 am

    I can’t but agree.I always wanted to write in my site something like that but I guess you’r faster.

  2. Carlie Traweek Says:
    June 7th, 2010 1:32 am

    crafted a wonderful. discover stuff like this content speech to make next week, and basically.

Leave a Reply