A wiki like Wikipedia is a type of website that allows easy and contributive content edit. A wiki is made of two things : people collaboration and computer stuff. Both are described in detail here.
History edit
Wiki editing uses a free language. The tools allowing editing and formatting are a part of the wiki experience that started there [1]. The goals were simple contribution methods, discusssion-based progress, formatting syntax and search tools.
People edit
A wiki is a community, open only to members or to the public. Most wikis are one-subject oriented, e.g. oo programming or Football (soccer). An encyclopedia may need to have users identified, even categorized, by their subjects of interests or their technical or language capacities.
The scope of the wiki is clearly stated. People contribute freely, according to the goals of the community : sharing information about selected topics. When the wiki is not private, the public is able to view every page. Everyone, or only a logged user, is allowed to create or update (complete, refactor) a page ; administrators may reverse an edit, move, block or delete pages according to the policy, e.g. to repair vandalism.
The process of updating a huge wiki implies frequent discussions about contributions, process improving and technical or money needs. The choice of administrators may also be a subject for discussion.
Hardware edit
Many pages need substancial hardware power for two needs : storage and access. The english Wikipedia uses hundreds of servers.
One page made of 1,000 words may weight 5 kB. Images are also stored. Popular pages are cached. A serious encyclopedia contains 100,000 pages.
The number of pages accessed at the same second may amount to 1,000 and the server must manage peaks occurring on special events, e.g. political or meteorological ones for a news wiki like Wikinews.
Network edit
A wiki is published on the Internet (the net). The net provides universal access to search, read or contribute to the pages. It is used because of its relative widespread use for enough learned, rich or assisted people and easiness of use. The logic, methods and data about this medium are found here.
The basic layers of Internet allow data to be carried between the user’s computer and the server via protocols that are also software : HTTP and FTP.
Software edit
MySQL (or other databases) servers are updated and administered via SQL. A requested page is found and generated on the net via PHP scripts, e.g. mediawiki, Wikipedia's wiki engine. A variety of tools allow the administrators to manipulate great volumes of data for collating or statistical needs.
As most pages seen on the net, wiki pages are data files using a special formatting :
- When seen on a browser, it is a variety of html – a page description language, the Internet standard. Standardized formatting and page links are an important html feature that contributed to its success.
- When stored on the servers, the format is a kind of Wikitext.
- When edited, the format is also wiki markup (wikitext).See details in the Formatting and Updates chapters.
Data edit
The basic wiki page contains a title, sections and subsections, text, images, and special elements like logos, margin links and categories. Categorization is almost systematically used. A page is marked as pertaining to a category by writing its name between markups like : [[category : foo]] and the category page references it also.
Almost every wiki page shows the same aspect with the use of these elements. The pages can be categorized thus :
- Standard pages created for the goals of the wiki. Historically it has been designed like a contributive forum ; it can be an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a library, a news wiki, &c.
- User pages where people who created an account, once logged in, have a personal space for their work.
- Special pages like a search results page, help, general discussion and tools pages (software, lists of edits, statistics).
- Discussion pages may exist, linked to every standard, user or special ones.
In Wikipedia, each page offers edit, move, discussion and history tabs, plus a watch tab for logged users who want to know when edits occur.
Formatting edit
Wikitext, the format used by wiki websites to edit a page, is a simplified html, sometimes using special features.
- Like in html, formatting includes headers, bullets, lists, character attributes such as bold or italic, and links to other objects (pages, images, &c.)
- Contrary to html, the language is very simple. Most of the formatting uses only typographical conventions, e.g. : * for a list and == for a section. There are no declaratives like
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC ... ...><meta http-equiv="content-type">
and no sections like <head> or <body> are needed. The syntax for a link is simplified or absent. The See also [2] chapter links to examples of syntax. - Some wikis allow the use of html, CSS and TeX to manage formatting and styles and edit formulas.
Updates edit
| User computer
|
-> <- |
Wiki server Current version |
| User computer
|
-> <- -> <- |
Wiki server
|
A wiki is updated by creating a new page or by editing an existing one.
One special wiki feature is that a link may be created without a page being linked to it. Then a click upon that – seeming defectuous - link opens a blank pages for editing. This is the recommended way to create a page : in relation with another one that invokes it.
When a click upon such a link occurs, the server sends a special page showing a blank form with its title derived from the link. The user writes wikitext - and reads again his text (or pastes a text verified with a spelling tool). A preview button is offered for visual control before submission.
When an edited page is submitted, the server stores it and sends the new version of the html page, which is immediately available on the Internet.
Impact edit
Alexa and Google give good ranks to rich wikis. Maybe for the fact that those wikis are well done and well read ; but also because they are mercilessly duplicated with the great number of inter links that they already contain.
An article from the English Wikipedia is frequently first in a search (if not, it is a good idea to improve it and the better indication that one has to).
See also edit
References edit
WWW's Front Page says : "'Wiki' is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool for collaboration. Really, we don't know quite what it is ...".