Common uses included project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially for technical users. Cunningham’s system was inspired by his having used Apple’s hypertext software HyperCard, which allowed users to create interlinked “stacks” of virtual cards. It is typically possible for users of a wiki to create links to pages that do not yet exist, as a way to invite the creation of those pages. Some wiki implementations attempt to improve the display of camel case page titles and links by reinserting spaces and possibly also reverting to lower case, but this simplistic method is not able to correctly present titles of mixed capitalization. While this system made it easy to link to pages, it had the downside of requiring pages to be named in a form deviating from standard spelling, and titles of a single word required abnormally capitalizing one of the letters (e.g. “WiKi” instead of “Wiki”).
In that implementation, link terms were wrapped in a double set of square brackets, for example Kingdom of France. To avoid this problem, the syntax of wiki markup gained free links (called wikilinks), wherein a term in natural language could be wrapped in special characters to turn it into a link without modifying it. For example, “Kingdom of France” as a page title would be written as “KingdomOfFrance”, and displayed as “Kingdom Of France”. Beginning with WikiWikiWeb in 1995, most wikis used camel case to name pages, which is when words in a phrase are capitalized and the spaces between them removed. The syntax used to create internal hyperlinks varies between wiki implementations.
Traditionally, wikis offer free navigation between their pages via hypertext links in page text, rather than requiring users to follow a formal or structured navigation scheme. These stores are typically presented for each page in a list, called a “log” or “edit history”, available from the page via a link in the interface. Some wikis present users with an edit button or link on the page being viewed. Wikipedia is not a single wiki but rather a collection of hundreds of wikis, with each one pertaining to a specific language, making it the largest reference work of all time.

Internal news publications

Other community news publications include the “WikiWorld” web comic, the Wikipedia Weekly podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like The Bugle from WikiProject Military History and the monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors. These groups may focus on a specific topic area (for example, women’s history), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community of established volunteer users, process, royaldogs casino and rules. Version 2 of the GNU Free Documentation License includes a specific provision for wiki relicensing, and Creative Commons licenses are also popular.

Further reading

• In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in enterprise as collaborative software.
• System administrators are responsible for the installation and maintenance of the wiki engine and the container web server.
• This is generated and submitted to the server transparently, shielding users from the technical detail of markup editing and making it easier for them to change the content of pages.
• As most wikis allow the creation of hyperlinks to other sites and services, the addition of malicious hyperlinks, such as sites infected with malware, can also be a problem.
• Wikis can also be created on wiki hosting services (also known as wiki farms), where the server-side software is implemented by the wiki farm owner, and may do so at no charge in exchange for advertisements being displayed on the wiki’s pages.

As most wikis allow the creation of hyperlinks to other sites and services, the addition of malicious hyperlinks, such as sites infected with malware, can also be a problem. Some wikis may be subject to external structures of governance which address the behavior of persons with access to the system, for example in academic contexts. Some wiki software allows administrators to prevent pages from being editable until a decision has been made on what version of the page would be most appropriate. Trolling and cybervandalism on wikis, where content is changed to something deliberately incorrect or a hoax, offensive material or nonsense is added, or content is maliciously removed, can be a major problem. High editorial standards in medicine and health sciences articles, in which users typically use peer-reviewed journals or university textbooks as sources, have led to the idea of expert-moderated wikis. Proponents maintain that these issues will be caught and rectified by a wiki’s community of users.

• Some wikis may be subject to external structures of governance which address the behavior of persons with access to the system, for example in academic contexts.
• A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or any organization.
• These stores are typically presented for each page in a list, called a “log” or “edit history”, available from the page via a link in the interface.
• A person willing to maintain pages will be alerted of modifications to them, allowing them to verify the validity of new editions quickly.
• WikiNode networks act as webrings which may be navigated from one node to another to find a wiki which addresses a specific subject.
• The syntax used to create internal hyperlinks varies between wiki implementations.
• It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia’s first edition.

The trend analysis published in The Economist presents Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia) as successful in retaining their active editors on a renewable and sustained basis, with their numbers remaining relatively constant at approximately 42,000. The Economist reported that the number of contributors with an average of five or more edits per month was relatively constant since 2008 for Wikipedia in other languages at approximately 42,000 editors within narrow seasonal variances of about 2,000 editors up or down. These ideas include “featured articles”, the neutral-point-of-view policy, navigation templates, the sorting of short “stub” articles into sub-categories, dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration, and weekly collaborations. Editors of the English Wikipedia have pioneered some ideas as conventions, policies or features which were later adopted by Wikipedia editions in some of the other languages. The English Wikipedia currently has 54,334,804 registered accounts of which 811 are administrators. English Wikipedia has been characterized as having less cultural bias than other language editions due to its broader editor base.
In early wiki engines, when a page was displayed, any instance of a camel case phrase would be transformed into a link to another page named with the same phrase. Some wikis operate a structure of neighbors and delegates, where a neighbor wiki is one which discusses similar content or is otherwise of interest, and a delegate wiki is one which has agreed to have certain content delegated to it. A WikiNode is a page on a wiki which describes and links to other, related wikis.

Navigation between wikis

Such a wiki contains information about specific instances of things, ideas, people and places. The term city wiki is sometimes also used for wikis that cover not just a city, but a small town or an entire region. A city wiki or local wiki is a wiki used as a knowledge base and social network for a specific geographical locale. In academic contexts, wikis have also been used as project collaboration and research support systems.
It has been criticized for exhibiting systemic bias, particularly gender bias against women and ideological bias. English Wikipedia, often as a stand-in for Wikipedia overall, has been praised for its enablement of the democratization of knowledge, extent of coverage, unique structure, culture, and reduced degree of commercial bias. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia’s first edition.
In the mid-2000s, the increasing trend among industries toward collaboration placed a heavier impetus upon educators to make students proficient in collaborative work, inspiring even greater interest in wikis being used in the classroom. In addition to using the approach of soft security for protecting themselves, larger wikis may employ sophisticated methods, such as bots that automatically identify and revert vandalism. “Edit war” redirects here; not to be confused with Edit conflict.