wiki

(WEE.kee; WIK.ee)

n.

A collaborative web site that allows users to add, edit, and delete the site's content; the software that enables such collaboration. — v.

— wiki- prefix

— -wiki suffix

— wikiing pp.

— wikify v.

Example Citations:

Another Internet site that served as an information clearinghouse, with at least five million page views, was the KatrinaHelp wiki (katrinahelp.info). This effort (a ''wiki'' is a site that anyone can add to and edit) was started by 20 volunteers around the world who had worked on a similar site after the tsunami in South Asia, according to a co-founder, Rob Kline of Seattle.

The wiki first focused on its PeopleFinder database (a technology eventually adopted by Google) and then on ShelterFinder, one of the few comprehensive lists of shelter information available. More than 4,000 ''editors'' worked on data entry. The wiki also acted as host for Help Needed and Help Offered forums similar to Craigslist's.

— Pamela Licalzi O'Connell, "Internet Matchmaking: Those Offering Help And Those Needing It," The New York Times, November 14, 2005

Google also offers an answer site, but it differs significantly. On Google, queries cost money, but are answered by a restricted group of experts. Yahoo relies more on a Wiki-type model in which the community polices itself by correcting errors it finds in others' answers.

— Susan B. Shor, "Yahoo Brings Questioners Together With Answers," Technology News, December 9, 2005

First Use:

Welcome to the WikiWikiWeb: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WikiWikiWeb front page.

This site is a wiki whose focus is PeopleProjectsAndPatterns: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?PeopleProjectsAndPatterns in SoftwareDevelopment: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?SoftwareDevelopment.

The ideas of 'Wiki' may seem strange at first, but dive in and explore its links. 'Wiki' is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool for collaboration. Really, we don't know quite what it is, but it's a fun way of communicating asynchronously across the network.

The name 'Wiki' may seem strange too - what does it mean? The WikiWikiWebFaq: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WikiWikiWebFaq answers this and other questions, but the short answer is that WikiWiki: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WikiWiki is Hawaiian for 'quick'.

— Ward Cunningham, WikiWikiWeb Front Page: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki, May 1, 1995

Notes:

The word wiki is Hawaiian, and it means quick. For a more complete description of the origins of this now-common word, see Correspondence on the Etymology of Wiki: http://c2.com/doc/etymology.html.

Related Words:

born-digital

collaborative consumption

collaboratory

collabulary

crowdsourcing

data hygiene

folksonomy

social media

socially produced

Web 2.0

wikiality

wikification

Wikigroaning

Categories:

Blogging

Data

Writing