Talk:Wiki

I often explain a wiki to ppl as the web equivalent of a grafitti wall. Would this analogy be worth putting here?

We would like to know more about wiki. Where can We find info? We don't think this has been settled, so I'm not daring to modify the text, but I think Wiki the proper noun should refer to a page on the World Wide Web, while wiki the common noun refers to wikis not accessible from the Internet. That's how I explained the difference between Web and web in that article, anyway. <>< tbc

Could be, but it would be news to me. --LMS

Somebody rewrote the text of this article pretty radically, on the premise that "WikiWiki" straightforwardly means Ward's Wiki, which, in my idiolect anyway, it doesn't always and indeed rarely does. But I'm not surprised that some people think it does mean that or should mean that. If someone with more experience on wikis insists that "Wiki" capitalized is usually understood to mean "Ward's Wiki," that should be in the article (it already is, I guess).

More generally, I think this article needs another huge rewrite. The changes I made were made very quickly. Wiki the software, wiki the culture, the history of wiki, etc., there are many topics that need to be covered here. --LMS

etst

Moved from the "comment" section by Tim Starling:

I added a link to what seems to be the real WhyClublet. The one under the Wiki Communites is just an edittable page. Hopefully I picked the right thing to add....

Hey, "Edit this page" is a nice feature to modify the page... -Raghu Tallam

In what way are e2 and h2g2 "wiki-like"? In neither can you modify any content but your own, which would seem to be the key feature of a wiki, so I don't see that they're any more wiki-like than, say, nupedia... -Martin

i suppose in the sense that anyone can start new pages. but the main feature of a wiki is that anything can be edited. should probably be changed to reflect that -- Tarquin

I was wondering which if any aspects of wikidom have been implemented in ways that do not require internet access, as have things like usenet, mail, and their substrate uucp.

What are the "Wiki bus tours" mentioned in the article ? It'll be good if someone familiar with the buses adds a para to the section. For someone who's not heard of these tours, the section currently doesn't provide much info. Jay 21:38, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

List of references added circa this edit is not really appropriate here, since many of them are about wikipedia in particular, as opposed to wiki in general. I would remove most of them. 156.56.122.50 17:48, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That makes no sense. Wikipedia is by far the largest wiki, so it is a good (and popular) example for studying wikis.—Eloquence 18:26, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm curious as to what the larger wikis referred to in the controlling users section are all about. As far as I know, the largest wikis are wikipedia, which is somewhat idiosyncratic, and the original C2 wiki, which does not fit the description given.

Simple installation, and it works! Thank you for this Wiki BozMo (talk) deleted German spam link here

For those who are wondering, I believe the text in the comparison table is from Isaac Asimov's Foundation. Tualha 15:33, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Some pronounce it weekee, some (many perhaps) say wickee. I want to add wickee as an alternate usage but if weekee is the Hawai'ian pronunciation, it should be noted that that is the more "correct" pronunciation. I don't speak Hawai'ian, so hesitate. -Nurg

Maori

Regarding:

Wiki (pronounced "wickee") is also a common forename among female Maori in New Zealand.

This is completely irrelevant to this article as wikis are not named after the Maori first name. So at best it is a disambiguation -- but we do not disambiguate terms which we do not write articles about, and we generally don't write articles about first names, Maori or otherwise. So I removed it.—Eloquence 04:34, Jan 19, 2004 (UTC)

I snipped the following paragraph from the article for the reasons given above:

In Maori Wiki means "weekend" and, as the diminutive form of Wikitoria, the Maori version of Victoria, is a popular Christian name.

chocolateboy 16:37, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Controlling users

I contest the factual accuracy of this statement:

virtually all large wiki engines provide some way to restrict users

AFAICT, most wiki engines don't have any user ban features whatsoever, but depend on SoftSecurity to keep sites intact. MediaWiki is the only one I've been able to find that does. It's probably worth documenting, but I think it's misleading to attribute this feature to all wiki engines. --ESP 21:17, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

UseModWiki can ban users by IP address, including wildcards, and it can lock the entire wiki or individual pages. Meatball, the paragon of soft security, runs UseMod. [1]

TWiki has more servere security restrictions than even MediaWiki. It requires users to log in by default.

MoinMoin has a security policy API to set permissions on a per user basis if desired.

PhpWiki supports various authentication methods, including LDAP, HTTP Auth and external databases. A detailed permission system was in the works the last time I checked.

It's probably true that more wikis support restricting users by requiring authentication than by banning. It's probably also true that MediaWiki has the most sophisticated blocking system (though last time I checked, we didn't support wildcard blocking).

Perhaps a featuer comparison table for major wiki engines would be in order.—Eloquence 09:36, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)

Excised text regarding Wiki culture:

Since this culture is not overly accessible to Wikipedia culture, and since the two cultures are discontinuous, this article is heavily biased towards Wikipedia and its own internal mythology. For example, a prior version of this article claimed that Wikipedia spurred the creation of free links. What's possibly more troubling is apathy of Wikipedia to acknowledge its historical roots, which led it in that case to forget how it even came to have free links, and in particular who designed the syntax for them, and which sources were drawn upon. In the end, what Wikipedia has to say about matters related to itself are, like all encyclopedias, blindsided by its own self-image.

Censorship! Fascism! Wikipedia is useless! You can delete my namepage, you can threaten my children, but I still totally ownz at wiki history. Not to mention I'm the one who designed your free link syntax. Just to make y'all feel dirrty, I stole it from Everything2. I'm sorry I even did that. YouShouldBeWritingInCamelCaseToThisVeryDay. Erik be damned! -- User:SunirShah, after spending too much time on #wikipedia

Pronunciation

I corrected the pronounciation note from "weekee" to "wicky", because that's how it's pronounced. In doing so I had to remove the SAMPA reference because I know nothing about SAMPA and so couldn't be sure if the reference made any sense in the light of my correction. Someone who knows might want to look at that. --Earle Martin 22:13, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What is the source for this pronounciation? The first wiki says wee-kee, see http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWebFaq pstudier 08:03, 2004 May 20 (UTC)

Well, I must say I've only ever heard it pronounced "wicky" - maybe "weekee" is correct for the original Hawaiian word, but who gets to choose the "correct" way of saying it in the WikiWikiWeb sense? There are certainly some things that rely on the "newer" pronounciation - puns like "QWiki", for instance - and "Wikipedia" seems to come out as either "Wicca-pedia", "Wicky-pedia" or "Wickih-pedia" (never, AFAIK, "Weekee-pedia"). But I don't know what "the wider world" does, or even how you'd find out... - IMSoP 14:13, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've always pronounced/thought of it as "weekee-pedia" (and the general term as "weekee-weekee"). I would never have used "wicky" - that just seems wrong to me, and I never even thought that someone would pronounce it differently until I saw this. Maybe we should have a poll, and see what the prevailing pronunciation is - we'll probably find nearly everyone's calling it the "why-key-pedia", or something... -- DrBob 19:00, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, just goes to show - maybe we should just list both pronounciations as in general usage. Out of interest, one context in which this came up was when Jimbo was interviewed on Newsweek (sound file available here) - they started off saying "Wickuh-pedia" and gradually shifted toward "Whicky-pedia". And now I listen again, he did in fact say "wiki", as "wicky"; but that doesn't prove anything except how he uses it - I guess Ward Cunningham would pronounce it "Weekee", hence the FAQ linked above... IMSoP 19:19, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I added back the "weekee" pronunciation, so now it lists both. Someone who knows what they're doing with SAMPA might like to add that back. -- DrBob 21:33, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I cut this text: "But the history of every individual wiki is faithfully preserved in its collective page histories." Wikis vary considerably in their handling of page history, with many of the most influential wikis purging page history with considerable regularity. UninvitedCompany 20:05, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki communities section

Currently over forty wikis are listed in the Wiki communities section of the article. I believe this is too many and it will likely grow even bigger in the future. What I suggest is either the number is reduced to say five representative Wikis or else the list is spun off into its own article e.g. List of Wikis or List of Wiki websites. Currently I am favouring the second option. Also what is the plural of Wiki? As it comes from a polynesian language, then I would guess that Wiki is the plural. -- Popsracer 04:00, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree. It's a long list of many wiki: list of wiki. It seems redundant to keep more-or-less identical lists (here and WorldWideWiki: SwitchWiki), Biggest wikis ... but how should I choose "representative" wiki ? Won't someone be upset they were left out ? -- DavidCary 19:06, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wiki History

I removed the following paragraph because I :-

can't find any evidence to support it
have found copious evidence to refute it e.g. Wiki History, Wiki History Roadmap, History of Wikipedia &c.

Most wiki history is purposely lost (or ignored), as the wiki nature is to forget the past, and what [sic] known is often only known as lore through an oral tradition. [ original version ]

chocolateboy 19:48, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Lots of vandals visiting the page lately. Wonder why. Jay 19:25, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Updated image for history comparison

I updated the image for history comparison with this PNG to replace this JPG version. I used the exact same content as the original image, just saved it as a PNG for greater legibility. --Patik 04:08, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC) 欢迎访问以下优秀中文网址！翻译公司

Opening Sentence

Could I invite someone to try to improve the opening sentence. I've tried and cannot get something perfect but the "others" at the end is a bit vague. "editing is open to a wide group of people, often everybody"?--BozMo |talk 13:03, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Open Source Software Wiki implementation

I have particular interest in the comparison of the open source definition (http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php) and current projects, looking at theoretical ways of producing systems closer to the definition, especially in regards to section 5 and Communities of Practice. Such things that i am trying to tackle are

restrictions to access - bad user interfaces, specialist hardware/software/knowledge required restrictions to editing - hierarchical systems of admin moving back towards the 'cathedral' and away from the 'bazaar', specialist editing/compiling software required.

I feel this combination of problems is discouraging people from looking at, editing and learning from open source. What i am proposing is to design a 'more open' open source implementation, along the lines of a wiki, with all the editing and compiling done online and a greater level of transparency between code and user. There are many potential problems that such a project could bring up but i feel from studying the approach of wikipedia.org that a working software system based on a wiki is possible. I'm not talking about supporting an open source project through a wiki, but actually writig it using a wiki.

From your point of view do you feel the open source specification defined at www.opensource.org is being fulfilled in open source projects? What are your thoughts in regards to points I have made? Do you think we should try and implement a 'more open' open source? Is it necessary? what benefits or problems do you envisage?