Wiki: Pedia

<p>A wiki is a website designed for collaborative editing, letting many people create, update, and organize content directly in a web browser. They emphasize simplicity and openness — pages can be created or modified without special technical skills, and most maintain an edit history so revisions can be reviewed or reverted. Common features - **Collaborative editing:** Several contributors can edit pages, sometimes at the same time. - **Edit history:** Each change is logged with a time and the editor’s name or IP. - **Interlinking:** Creating links among pages is straightforward, which helps interconnect content. - **Lightweight markup:** Simple markup languages (such as WikiText or Markdown) are used to format pages. - **Permission settings:** Wikis may allow public editing or restrict changes to registered or authorized users. - **Discussion pages:** Separate talk pages allow contributors to discuss edits and structure. Typical uses - Community knowledge bases such as Wikipedia - Project documentation and internal company knowledge repositories - Group writing and collaborative note-taking - School and instructional projects Advantages - **Fast collaboration:** Contributors can rapidly create and improve content. - **Openness:** Visibility into edits and discussions shows how decisions were reached. - **Expandable:** They scale organically as users add more pages and topics. Drawbacks - **Vandalism and false information:** Open contribution can result in deliberate or accidental misinformation. - **Inconsistent quality:** Content quality may vary widely between pages. - **Organizational issues:** Lack of structure or rules can lead to disorganization and conflicts. Notable example - **Wikipedia** — the best-known wiki, run by the Wikimedia Foundation and built by volunteer contributors worldwide.</p>