Basic Intro to Wikis

 

Wikis are simple systems for collaboratively editing text. If you wanted, you could click on the "Edit" button at the top right of this page, and add something to the very page you're reading now. And its not just the content in the middle of the page - you can edit every menu, sidebar, header and footer.

 

That freedom, that ability to edit everything, is one of the fundamental differences between a wiki and a blog. Some others:

 

• There is no individual ownership. Its not like in a blog where there are many individual entries, each attributed to a specific person. In a wiki, its like you're all editing one single blog entry together.

 

• There is no time. In a blog, the basic structure is centered around individual entries sorted by the time they are posted. In a wiki, that just doesn't exist. If you want things to be in a certain order, you put them in that order.

 

• There are no entries. When you want to add content to a blog, you usually hit a button that says "Add New Entry," fill out some sort of form, and hit enter. The blog creates an entry page, and adds links to the page throughout the blog. On a wiki, you create the links first. Clicking on the link makes the page.

 

These three basic differences create a completely different system of working collaboratively than might otherwise be the case in a blog. They are inherently less structured, which can be a good thing if your group is looking for a lot of freedom. Successful wikis compensate for this lack of software-imposed structure with strong organizational structure - otherwise content gets bloated and disorganized very, very quickly.