Wiki: Pedia

<p>Wikis are websites built for collaborative authoring, allowing numerous contributors to add, edit, and structure content online. 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. Key features - **Collaborative editing:** Multiple people can edit the same pages, occasionally concurrently. - **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:** Pages are typically formatted with lightweight markup like WikiText or Markdown. - **Permission settings:** Access controls vary — from fully open editing to permissions for certain users or groups. - **Discussion pages:** Talk or discussion pages let contributors debate edits and organization. Frequent uses - Community knowledge bases such as Wikipedia - Internal documentation and company knowledge bases - Collaborative writing and shared note-taking - School and instructional projects Advantages - **Fast collaboration:** Multiple people can add and refine content quickly. - **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 editing may allow intentional or accidental inaccuracies. - **Inconsistent quality:** Articles can differ greatly in depth, tone, and reliability. - **Organizational issues:** Without clear governance, content may become fragmented or disputed. Example - **Wikipedia** — the largest example, maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation and contributed to by volunteers worldwide.</p>