How do wikis differ from mailing lists?

There are many tools available to collaborate with others. A wiki is one form of a collaboration tool. One collaboration tool that preceded wikis is the mailing list. Mailing lists have been used for distributing announcments or information about events. Individuals may subscribe to a mailing list in order to be informed immediately of an announcement. Subscribers receive an e-mail about the announcement and can then reply to the e-mail item.

Why would a wiki be better than a mailing list for your group? A wiki can include an "Announcements" or "News" page on the site. In addition to viewing the announcement, community members can also even refine the announcement content. When you visit the wiki, you can see the date of the last update to the page and can also view the recent changes to the page. Community members can post comments or entries to discussion threads about the content on the announcement page. For example, you could post a question on the announcements page and view answers or comments posted by other community members without sending e-mail to the entire group. Others may have a similar question and can see the responses from your community. If you want to eliminate the e-mail trail about community announcements, wikis may be a great alternative. If you don't have access to your e-mail account, but have access to the Internet where the wiki is hosted, then you would be able to view recent announcements. If you don't plan to visit the site to look for updates, members of the wiki community can generally automatically or virtually "watch" that page for updates. As the content changes, a wiki member watching the page will receive a notice by e-mail which generally provides a link to the page that changed. Updates to a wiki site are often managed through RSS feeds too. Many wikis also provide a means to communicate with its members, often to individuals or the entire group. So, a wiki often has many capabilities of a mailing list, but so many additional features that are not available in a mailing list alone.