Wiki

A wiki (sometimes wikiwiki) is a website that allows anyone (with permission required or not, according to wikis) to edit any page and to add new pages. Wikis are unusually collaborative because all participants can, in the typical case, edit all, or nearly all, pages on a wiki. This is true of the best-known wiki, Wikipedia.

"Wiki" is the Hawaiian word meaning "quick," and as Hawaiians double words for emphasis, thus "wiki wiki" means "very quick." Ward Cunningham coined the term during his first visit to the islands, when he was directed to a "Wiki Wiki" shuttle between airport terminals. Cunningham says, "Using the word doubling convention, I named the technology WikiWikiWeb." [1]

Wiki software is available in several variants, including MediaWiki and TWiki. It is now being widely used in business and educational institutions for both intranet and Internet applications, where it is recognized as a significant productivity tool.

History

Ward Cunningham invented the wiki concept and created the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, on March 25, 1995. [2] WikiWikiWeb, also called "Ward's Wiki," began life as a supplement to the Portland Pattern Repository.

Until 2001 or 2002, perhaps most wikis were general-purpose communities, with only very vague missions and an idiosyncratic set of rules and processes, in which they tended to emulate WikiWikiWeb.

Thus, shortly after Wikipedia got its start in 2001, when Cunningham was asked whether he thought wiki software could be used to create an encyclopedia, he replied, "Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki." [3] Whether Cunningham was correct is a matter of opinion. But regardless, Wikipedia did develop a different set of rules and processes, which spawned another set of wiki clones.