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Does Your Website Need a Wiki ?
What is a "wiki" (pronounced wee-kee)?
A wiki is content management system that can allow for community
input. This is in the spirit of the "wiki way" where the
community members can add to or even edit existing web pages. In
this sense, a wiki houses documents that may be the result of
collaboration between different authors.
One source claims that the term "Wiki" is also an acronym for
"What I Know Is..."[1] whilst others support the derivation of
the name from the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki" which means
"informal" or "quick" [2].
The original Wiki Wiki Web has been online since March, 1995.
Here is the link:
http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WikiWikiWeb
Uses for a Wiki:
A wiki can be used in a variety of ways including:
- collaborative authorship of documents - comment on existing
documents - community development - online manuals
A wiki with existing content, for example a user's manual, could
be distributed with software application. A wiki could be part
of a private members' area either as a community building tool
or as a user manual. in which case some or all of the community
members can have author privileges or as a user manual, in which
case the community members could be excluded from making further
comment (unless the focus on the community was on community
based documentation for the manual itself.)
If using access control, access to different levels of content
based on the membership level could be employed. There could be
parts of the wiki (such as a static user's guide) that is not
open to further contribution and other parts representing
various topics where community contribution is both invited and
welcome.
Access Control:
The true spirit of the Wiki Way is to allow for the online
collaboration of documents for visitors to be able to create
their own pages or to edit existing pages. However there are
also needs as noted above where the website owner may not want
documents changed by just anyone visiting the site. The owner
may wish to retain full control over page content or may want to
grant authoring privileges to only select people. This can only
be done if the wiki software has a built in capability to grant
authoring access and even viewing access to selected groups as
defined by the website owner.
"Groups" are created with different access rights. For example
the "public" group may have "read only" access; the "authors"
group may have both "read and write" access; and the
administrator may have read, write and upload access (required
for images and other files) as well as the ability to create
groups. The ability to read certain content may also be
restricted to specific groups.
Software:
There are numerous software applications[3][4] that can run a
wiki in a variety of programming languages including Perl (CGI),
ASP [check] and PHP. Applications may or may not be integrated
with a database. The database used can also vary. Commonly a PHP
wiki is integrated with a MySQL database.
Some wikis don't use a database instead using a "flat file"
system based on text files, either straight ".txt" files or
perhaps a proprietary system where the file extension is based
on the file name category.
Some examples of popular wiki software are:
Media Wiki - http://www.mediawiki.org/
ErfurtWiki (a.k.a. Ewiki) - http://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net/ -
http://ewiki.berlios.de/installer/
Dokuwiki - http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki/ (flat file
.txt system and access control)
PmWiki - http://www.pmwiki.org/ (flat file system that uses
category names as file name extensions instead of the more
conventional .txt extension)
PHPwiki - phpwiki.sourceforge.net/ (WikiWikiWeb clone written in
the server-side scripting language PHP)
Wiki Wiki Web - http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki
Notable Wiki on the Web (Wiki in the Wild):
- The Original Wiki Wiki Web http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki
- Wikipedia is the online free encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org
- The Word Press Codex is a documentation manual for the very
popular Word Press blog software http://codex.wordpress.org
- Nucleus CMS documentation http://wiki.nucleuscms.org/
- BlogCMS manual http://blogcms.com/wiki/start
- The Resume Wiki, a community edited resume centre
http://www.resumewiki.com/
- Another resource is OpenSourceCMS [5]
http://www.opensourcecms.com
This site has installations of not only several popular wiki but
also many Content Management Systems and blog software. Open
Source CMS uses full installations and provides access as both
an administrator and a user.
GNU General Public License [4]:
It is the open nature of document contribution editing that
differentiates a wiki from a blog; that and the usual inclusion
of a wiki "markup language" or wiki syntax which is a simplified
way to add formatting to text that is converted to valid HTML by
the wiki software. Many wiki software systems are 'open source"
licensed under the General Public License of the Free Software
Foundation.
Try before you "buy":
Perhaps the best way to get a feel for the wiki software is to
try it out. In many wiki you will find a link to the "wiki
sandbox" or "wiki playground". Content entered here is
considered to be temporary and you can try out the different
formatting syntax to see how it all works.
So consider the nature of your site, the need for online
documentation and the level of desired access for visitors and
contributors and you will be able to decide if your website
needs a wiki.
References:
[1] wiki.java.net/bin/view/Javapedia/Glossary
[2] Wiki, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
[3] A long list of wiki software in different programming
languages
http://c2.com/w4/wikibase/wiki.cgi?LongListOfWikiClones
[4] GNU General Public License
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
[5] Open Source CMS is a site with installations of many types
of Content Management Systems, Wiki and blogs that you can use
to try out the software from both an administrator's and user's
perspective. http://www.opensourcecms.com
About the author:
Jay is the web owner of http://www.dsl-in.com DSL, a website that provides
information and resources on DSL, DSL Service, and DSL Service
Providers. You can visit his website at: DSL Service
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