Wiki software (also known as a wiki engine or a wiki application) is collaborative software that runs a wiki, which allows the users to create and collaboratively edit pages or entries via a web browser. A wiki system is usually a web application that runs on one or more web servers. The content, including previous revisions, is usually stored in either a file system or a database. Wikis are a type of web content management system, and the most commonly supported off-the-shelf software that web hosting facilities offer. There are dozens of actively maintained wiki engines. They vary in the platforms they run on, the programming language they were developed in, whether they are open-source or proprietary, their support for natural language characters and conventions, and their assumptions about technical versus social control of editing.
History
The first generally recognized "wiki" application, WikiWikiWeb, was created by American computer programmer Ward Cunningham, and launched on c2.com in 1995. "WikiWikiWeb" was also the name of the wiki that ran on the software, and in the first years of wikis' existence there was no great distinction made between the contents of wikis and the software they ran on, possibly because almost every wiki ran on its own customized software. Wiki software originated from older version control systems used for documentation and software in the 1980s. By the mid-1990s these generally had web browser interfaces. However, they lacked the ability to easily create links between internal pages without writing HTML code. For WikiWikiWeb, the CamelCase naming convention was used to indicate internal links (internal hyperlinks to other pages), without requiring HTML code. By the time MediaWiki appeared, this convention had been largely abandoned in favor of explicitly marking links in edited source code with double square brackets. Page names thus did not interrupt the flow of English and could follow the standard English capitalization convention. Case insensitivity on the first letter but not subsequent letters supported standard English capitalization conventions and let writers author their pages in ordinary English, with the linking of particular words and phrases afterward. This proved to be the critical change that allowed ordinary authors of English to write wiki pages, and non-technical users to read them. This policy was extended to other natural languages, avoiding the use of unusual-looking text or awkward capitalization that violates the language's own rules. Over the next 10 years, many more wiki applications were written, in a variety of programming languages. After 2005, there began to be a move toward increasing consolidation and standardization: many less-popular wiki applications were gradually abandoned, and fewer new applications were created. Relatively few of the wiki engines currently in use were created after 2006. Some content management systems, such as Microsoft SharePoint, have also adopted wiki-like functionality.
Data compatibility In general new wiki engines have not followed the data formats (wiki markup languages) of the existing engines, making them of limited use for those who have already invested in large knowledge bases in existing software. As a rule newer wiki projects have not succeeded in attracting large numbers of users from the existing wiki software base. The most well-known data format arguably is MediaWiki's, and correspondingly has been reimplemented in other wikis:
WordPress has extensions to display and edit MediaWiki-format pages, and to frame MediaWiki. Jamwiki is a MediaWiki clone in Java, that supports MediaWiki-format pages but not extensions. Other commercial projects or clones often (or have in the past) follow the MediaWiki format. BlueSpice MediaWiki is the only such software with a free version available. None of these alternatives support the extensions available under standard MediaWiki, some of which extend or alter its data format. In 2007 a project named (Wiki)Creole to create a standardized markup language for wikis was completed. As of 2022, the effort has had significant technical success, gaining support through implementation in many engines, but limited social success as it is still relatively unused and unknown, has few cross-markup conversion tools for migrating existing knowledge bases to it and no major engines use it as their native markup syntax.
Types of usage There are essentially three types of usage for wiki software: public-facing wikis with a potentially large community of readers and editors, private enterprise wikis for data management by corporations and other organizations, and personal wikis, meant to be used by a single person to manage notes, and usually run on a desktop. Some types of wiki software are specifically designed for one of the usage types, while other types can be used for all three, but contain functionality, either in their core or through plugins, that help with one or more of the usage types.
Public wikis Public wikis are usually open to the public to read, edit and comment on some or all of the article space of each wiki. Many offer registration to offer further access and controls to each user and a few have, in-part commercialised aspects or further access, such as the popular wiki farm, Fandom. MediaWiki is by far the most dominant software as it powers Wikipedia, consistently and by a large margin, the most visited public wiki, it also powers many other public wikis as well. Other wiki engines used regularly for public wikis include MoinMoin and PmWiki, along with many others. Other Internet websites, based on wiki software, include encyclopedias such as Sensei's Library, Parlia, and WikiTree.
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