Today I'm celebrating the birthday of the world's first wiki. On this date in 1995, WikiWikiWeb (created by Ward Cunningham) was made public. A wiki is a user-editable website. The software and website were developed in 1994 in order to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier. The name derives from the Wiki Wiki Shuttle at the Honolulu International Airport. Wiki is a Hawaiian word for fast. Cunningham's idea was to make the pages quickly editable by users. After an initial thought of "QuickWeb" -- the name was settled as WikiWikiWeb.
If you've thought about hanging a shingle on the WWW, a wiki may be the solution for you.
Easy to create web-based content -- no technical expertise needed for many wiki farms or wiki services
Real-time updates of web-based content -- no waiting for technical support to update your web server files
Access current information in real-time -- no wondering if you have the latest version of a document or file
Don't worry -- you can create a wiki. Even my Mom (a senior adult) manages a wiki. Just think of the possibilities:
a travel scrapbook
a website about your hobby
a log of your favorite recipes (to reference while on vacation at the ski cabin next winter)
a home inventory (on a private wiki, of course, only accessible by your family)
a site to plan your next party
a site to plan the next trip with your friends
a site to plan the next class or family reunion
a site for your carpool
a site for your child's sport team
I could go on and on....endless possibilities!
To learn everything about wikis, visit Everything Wiki -- it's a wiki about wikis.
Post a comment to tell us what you like best about wikis. Post a comment on Wiki'd Places to share your favorite wiki with the world.
Managing content is a big job for any site owner. At one time, web content was fairly static with basic text and images. However, keeping content fresh, imaginative, interesting, and interactive are key challenges now.
Widgets are neat little blocks of code that can usually be easily embed in a site. Widgets are often known as gadgets, modules, snippets, or plug-ins. Widgets add content to a page that is not static. Some widgets provide information, like clocks, calendar, daily weather, stock market tickers, event countdowns, or someone's Twitter status. Some widgets allow you to easily add photos and slideshows to a page. Some allow wiki members to connect with each other, by signing an online guestbook or chatting online. Some wikis entertain visitors, by showing video or playing music. Others collect data through online polls. I'm starting a new series on this blog - exploring widgets and how they're used on wikis.
Here's a short video from Wetpaint to kick off our investigation of the wonderful world of widgets for our wikis:
It's really been a really busy season and I've let many things slip-through-the-cracks recently. Maybe you also have felt the time crunch. If you're thinking about something nice, but cheap, that you can give to your favorite wiki creator or wiki administrator, I've got a great idea. You can give your information, your feedback, your opinions, --- your time. Wikis are designed for communities -- they are ideal for collaboration. For 2009, pledge to join a wiki of interest to you and to pitch- in to help. Find a wiki where you can add your expertise or offer a helping hand. Most wiki administrators would love the assistance.
Wikis are great tools for collaboration that allow basically any website visitor to add or to update site content. However, there is a challenge that is common among wiki administrators: the wiki vandal. Wiki vandals visit open wiki sites and maliciously delete or change content (e.g., adding obscene content, falsifying facts) on wiki pages. Here's a little note to the wanna-be wiki vandals: most wikis offer tools to wiki administrators that can easily control the vandalism on the site. A key feature of wikis is the ability to view the history of a page and to revert content. It is generally very easy to restore the deleted content of a wiki page or to remove the vandalism. Such bad behavior is not generally successful in active wikis. Through page watch features, writers and wiki administrators are notified as updates are made on the site. When problems are experienced, a wiki administrator can restrict who can actually update the content of a wiki site on some wiki hosting services. I feel that it's really sad when a wiki administrator must take this step --- because it limits the collaborative features available on the site. Some wiki administrators restrict content additions and updates to community members only. If a community member misbehaves, that community member can be warned (by the wiki administrator or site moderator team through the wiki messaging features) and banned from the site, if necessary.
I have dealt with wiki vandalism several times during the last few months. Today a wiki was added to one of the directories on Everything Wiki, but it lacked content related to the topic and it had some questionable content. I suspected (and confirmed with the community member) that the site had been recently vandalized --- the wiki's admin team is currently working to correct the problem and to implement measures to prevent future vandalism. Earlier in the summer, one individual on a wiki of mine tried to delete a single page -- every day for almost a week-- and posted a comment on the site about his frustration in being unable to successfully delete the content, noting that it seemed to just magically re-appear. That individual finally gave up and went away...probably to vandalize another wiki site. In the last two weeks, a wiki site of mine was attacked by a wiki vandal. The vandal joined as a community member and then decided to attack the site. The vandal added a fictitious page about a virus being on the site and its deletion of the site content. Then the vandal starting editing every page and deleting all the content. Through page watch features, I was notified about the changes to the pages and started my investigation while the vandalism was in progress. I banned the individual from the site and then restored all the content. It was a very frustrating experience. So, unfortunately, restricting edits to community members does not always solve the problems experienced with wiki vandals.
In celebration of today's anniversary of the launch of MSNBC in 1996, I found a video with information and an MSNBC interview describing the Wikipedia Scanner tool. This tool is designed to trace updates to Wikipedia pages. Using publicly available information, the tool is able to identify some interesting facts about who is updating Wikipedia pages. It has identified numerous sinister updates to Wikipedia pages made among corporate competitors. Who's Hacking Wikipedia
As posted on YouTube by CSPANJUNKIEdotORG You may recall the resignation of the campaign manager for a Georgia gubernatorial candidate in April 2006 after being accused of changing an opponent’s Wikipedia biography. Wiki vandals -- a continuing challenge that must be managed in open wikis.
Today, I hope that your wiki site stays free of the wiki vandals of the Web!
Sticking information on the wiki for your community
In celebration of John T Smith patenting the cork board on this date in 1891, I began to think how announcements are posted on wikis for the community. Some wikis include an 'announcements' section on the home page to highlight news and events. Others have messaging features which allow the creators, administrators, writers, and even community members to send messages to the community members. Some wiki farms support online to-do lists --- where wiki creators, administrators, and writers can post tasks where help is needed by the community. Sometimes you have a need to post some information or requests that just do not fit easily on any page on your wiki. Lately, I've seen online cork board pages created on wikis. How can these "cork board" pages be used by community members? to share news with others, to post general announcements (e.g., new content, moderator will be away for awhile on vacation), to promote a news or journal article, to request help on a task, to announce a place where community members will be meeting face-to-face, etc. I have used an online cork board page on one wiki to post information about my availability to the other community members. I've recently created a cork board page on one of my wikis -- and wonder how it will be used by the community.
If you've created or used an online cork board page or function on your wiki, post a comment and tell us about it.
We're starting our celebration early this year. Taking a little break to enjoy the family. Maybe we'll go fishing and spend some time at the beach too. The grill is already ready! Have a great holiday. We'll be back soon, reporting wiki'd ways to build content and collaborate with your community.
Wetpaint is nearing an amazing milestone -- one million wikis! To celebrate this occasion, Wetpaint will reward the one-millionth site creator with the chance to give back to their community and the planet! For one year, Wetpaint will offset the carbon emissions of both the home and car of the creator of the millionth wiki. Wetpaint will also sponsor the carbon offset of a local school or non-profit organization selected by the lucky millionth site creator. Wetpaint is even taking it one step further by offering the package to the referrer of the millionth site, if it's created as a referral generated by an email or a website.
Could your new wiki be the millionth wiki on Wetpaint? Have you been thinking about creating a wiki on the Web? Maybe one for your family, your child's team, your hobby, your favorite TV show, your favorite team, your favorite charity, etc.? Why not create a wiki today on Wetpaint. If your site is the millionth wiki, you'll help the planet Earth plus help a selected local school or non-profit organization. I'd love to be the referrer of the millionth wiki on Wetpaint!!
If you want to know more about wikis, visit the Everything Wiki site. Then, just click on the "start a wiki" link that is displayed at the bottom right corner of any page. If you're ready now, you can create your free website from this blogpost.
Welcome to my blog.
Everyday is a gift and worthy of celebration. I enjoy blogging and hope that you visit my blogs on celebrating life, cake decorating with cut-up cake patterns (that I created), opinion research, making wikis, and wiki'd places to visit on the web. Hopefully you'll find something that interests, amuses, or informs you. Brighten my day: post a comment and share this blog!
Today I'm celebrating the birthday of the world's first wiki. On this date in 1995, WikiWikiWeb (created by Ward Cunningham) was made public. A wiki is a user-editable website. The software and website were developed in 1994 in order to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier. The name derives from the Wiki Wiki Shuttle at the Honolulu International Airport. Wiki is a Hawaiian word for fast. Cunningham's idea was to make the pages quickly editable by users. After an initial thought of "QuickWeb" -- the name was settled as WikiWikiWeb.
