Hi all,
The term /wiki/ is a shortened form of /wiki wiki/ which is
from the native language of Hawaii (Hawaiian), where it is commonly used
as an adjective to denote something "quick" or "fast" (Hawaiian
dictionary).A wiki is a type of website that allows anyone visiting the
site to add, to remove, or otherwise to edit all content, very quickly
and easily, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of
interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for
collaborative writing. It's a kind of knowledge-base built on the
knowledge pool of people. Infosys has a good internal
wiki/knowledge-base for the domain they operate in or open-source ideas
like Wikipedia or Star Trek wikipedia or Planet Math .
The term wiki isn't restricted to the methodology alone but also the
collaborative software that runs on the site. Although the nature &
scope of wiki software is outside the scope of this article but would
mention some Tikiwiki , MoinMoinWiki , MediaWiki ) popular ones or ones I've come across.
[break=Comparisions & alternatives]
Most of the wiki software is free software but a pretty competitive one at that. A brief comparative study of the various wiki software should suffice to
see the kind of competition that is there. Perhaps one of the things to
look at while choosing a wiki software is the WYSIWYG page editing which
needs to be more evolved. Another way of looking at the software is that
it's nothing but a CMS (Content Mgmt. System) + some features. As always
the good thing about all of them being free software makes it reliable
as well as free from 'submarine patents'. Case in point Forgent
Networks & the JPEG patent ( Slashdot 1 & Slashdot 2 ) .
A similar yet dissimilar project would be the Digital Library projects.
The main idea here being to scan all the content using OCR &
proof-reading. Some of the Digital Library efforts are
Project Gutenberg & Digital Library of India . The difference between
the two is plain & simple. The former tries to add new news, knowledge,
concepts to an existing set of knowledge, while the digital library tries
to go back & see what we've done. A crude analogy perhaps
would be an invention & anthropology.
[break=Wikipedia controversies & more comparisions]
Coming to wikipedia, it's an implementation of the wiki using
the mediawiki software.The name itself can be broken into 2 parts 'wiki'
(refer above) & 'pedia' which is short for an 'encyclopedia'. The person
behind the concept is a certain Jimmy Wales. More often than not the
media has been reporting a 'Wikipedia vs Britannica' with wikipedia
winning most of the time. There have been controversies through time
& again as can be seen in the from some of the links above but more
often than not it's been accused for preference of consensus or popularity
over credentials or vandalism or systematic bias. In the Indian context
there is the Hindi Encyclopedia as well as some regional ones.
To bring into context there are over 200 language editions of Wikipedia,
around 130 of which are active. Fourteen editions have more than 50,000
articles each (We need to be there) : English (the original), German,
French, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish,
Russian, Chinese, Norwegian and Finnish.We're at lowly position 92
Its German-language edition has been distributed on DVD-ROM,
and there are also proposals for an English DVD or paper edition.
In fact one can ask/download the CD-ROM version for children
while one can pay for DVD. If one is technically inclined one can also
download the whole DVD just need to be aware of some stuff. Many of its
other editions are mirrored or have been forked by other websites.
[break= Some more Alternatives & Conclusions]
There's also the Uncyclopedia (a parody) . Oscar Wilde makes his presence felt there strongly
There are sister projects like wikimedia, wikibooks & wikinews.
Last but not the least Wikipedia aims to push to 1.0 version.
Now if all the above has whetted u'r appetite to contribute to wikipedia,
create an account, read the policies & start editing the page.
One can contribute a line, a paragraph or whatever, for e.g. yours TRULY.
Lastly there is the wikinfo which forked from wikipedia rather than adopting a neutral point of view, Wikinfo's policy on a contributor's point of view is to edit for a sympathetic point of view.Hopefully any disambiguations about wikipedia have been clarified. If people have any issues feel free to comment, en flames welcome
The term /wiki/ is a shortened form of /wiki wiki/ which is
from the native language of Hawaii (Hawaiian), where it is commonly used
as an adjective to denote something "quick" or "fast" (Hawaiian
dictionary).A wiki is a type of website that allows anyone visiting the
site to add, to remove, or otherwise to edit all content, very quickly
and easily, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of
interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for
collaborative writing. It's a kind of knowledge-base built on the
knowledge pool of people. Infosys has a good internal
wiki/knowledge-base for the domain they operate in or open-source ideas
like Wikipedia or Star Trek wikipedia or Planet Math .
The term wiki isn't restricted to the methodology alone but also the
collaborative software that runs on the site. Although the nature &
scope of wiki software is outside the scope of this article but would
mention some Tikiwiki , MoinMoinWiki , MediaWiki ) popular ones or ones I've come across.
[break=Comparisions & alternatives]
Most of the wiki software is free software but a pretty competitive one at that. A brief comparative study of the various wiki software should suffice to
see the kind of competition that is there. Perhaps one of the things to
look at while choosing a wiki software is the WYSIWYG page editing which
needs to be more evolved. Another way of looking at the software is that
it's nothing but a CMS (Content Mgmt. System) + some features. As always
the good thing about all of them being free software makes it reliable
as well as free from 'submarine patents'. Case in point Forgent
Networks & the JPEG patent ( Slashdot 1 & Slashdot 2 ) .
A similar yet dissimilar project would be the Digital Library projects.
The main idea here being to scan all the content using OCR &
proof-reading. Some of the Digital Library efforts are
Project Gutenberg & Digital Library of India . The difference between
the two is plain & simple. The former tries to add new news, knowledge,
concepts to an existing set of knowledge, while the digital library tries
to go back & see what we've done. A crude analogy perhaps
would be an invention & anthropology.
[break=Wikipedia controversies & more comparisions]
Coming to wikipedia, it's an implementation of the wiki using
the mediawiki software.The name itself can be broken into 2 parts 'wiki'
(refer above) & 'pedia' which is short for an 'encyclopedia'. The person
behind the concept is a certain Jimmy Wales. More often than not the
media has been reporting a 'Wikipedia vs Britannica' with wikipedia
winning most of the time. There have been controversies through time
& again as can be seen in the from some of the links above but more
often than not it's been accused for preference of consensus or popularity
over credentials or vandalism or systematic bias. In the Indian context
there is the Hindi Encyclopedia as well as some regional ones.
To bring into context there are over 200 language editions of Wikipedia,
around 130 of which are active. Fourteen editions have more than 50,000
articles each (We need to be there) : English (the original), German,
French, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish,
Russian, Chinese, Norwegian and Finnish.We're at lowly position 92
Its German-language edition has been distributed on DVD-ROM,
and there are also proposals for an English DVD or paper edition.
In fact one can ask/download the CD-ROM version for children
while one can pay for DVD. If one is technically inclined one can also
download the whole DVD just need to be aware of some stuff. Many of its
other editions are mirrored or have been forked by other websites.
[break= Some more Alternatives & Conclusions]
There's also the Uncyclopedia (a parody) . Oscar Wilde makes his presence felt there strongly
There are sister projects like wikimedia, wikibooks & wikinews.
Last but not the least Wikipedia aims to push to 1.0 version.
Now if all the above has whetted u'r appetite to contribute to wikipedia,
create an account, read the policies & start editing the page.
One can contribute a line, a paragraph or whatever, for e.g. yours TRULY.
Lastly there is the wikinfo which forked from wikipedia rather than adopting a neutral point of view, Wikinfo's policy on a contributor's point of view is to edit for a sympathetic point of view.Hopefully any disambiguations about wikipedia have been clarified. If people have any issues feel free to comment, en flames welcome
