[WSIS CS-Plenary] wats a wiki :-)

[Robert Guerra]

--On Friday, February 27, 2004 9:43 AM +0800 "Alan G. Alegre" 
<alalegre at fma.ph> wrote:

> Hi Robert
>
> For the benefit of others on the list not so technically adept (such
> as me): pls explain the nature and advantages of a "WIKI"
>
> Thanks
> Al

Al:


the best way i can put it, is that a wiki site allows for web pages - 
content - to be edited by anyone with version control.

that way, anyone can enter content, make changes - but one can see what 
changes were made and my whom.

Given the amount of text CS tends to generate - i thought a tool of this 
sort would be useful. But before it can be recommended - well, though 
i'd setup a page for my own content to see if it is as easy as 
supporters say it is.

Colleagues at IBM and other tech companies are using wikis for 
collaborative documentation. perhaps it might be useful for us? perhaps 
not, let' see.

regards

Robert




Here's a reference:

<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiGettingStartedFaq>

Q: So what is this Wiki thing?

 A: A collection of Web pages which can be edited by anyone, at any 
time, from anywhere.

 Q: Let me get this straight: Absolutely anyone can just come along and 
put whatever they like on any page?

 A: Yes they can! It's essential to how this wiki runs. However, we 
prefer that people exercise some self-restraint and put comments & edits 
only on the pages where they belong. If you're just in the mood to test 
out the Wiki software, you are encouraged to play in the 
WikiWikiSandbox; keep your TextFormattingRules handy.

 If you just want to dive into contributing to the discussion on the 
rest of this wiki, well you're welcome to do that, too.

 Q: But what is a Wiki good for?

 A:
	? 	 Most webpages are less than perfect. If it is a Wiki-page and you 
are annoyed by something, you can just hit the edit-button and change it 
for the better! Over time, the site gets a lot better!

	? 	 Many people can contribute to documentation about something very 
easily.

	? 	 If we discuss something in a web forum, we can collect all the 
important arguments on a wiki-page very easily. On this page, you will 
probably get an overview about all the arguments much better than by 
reading a long thread in a forum.


 Q: Doesn't allowing multiple people to edit the same page at the same 
time often cause one person's changes to cancel out the changes someone 
else may have just made? For instance, if two people save edits to a 
page at about the same time, which ever one saves last would overwrite 
the changes that the person who saved first had just made.

 A: Some wikis, including this one, detect and prevent that occurring.
 Q: Is it okay to add text to a page, in order to learn how to do it and 
nothing more?

 A: That's what the WikiWikiSandbox is for. Try it!

 Q: How can I reduce the risk of losing my contribution?

 A1: Don't overload a WikiPage with contributions. Insert a link to your 
contribution on a separate page. Select and copy the text before saving 
so it's stashed on your clipboard. Or, even better, write small and 
concise contributions so that you are encouraged to rewrite them more 
concisely when you lose them.


 Q: What is the advantages of Wiki over newsgroups, specially when used 
among a small number of people? How is Wiki different from a newsgroup?

 A: The big difference is that newsgroups only allow you to append. 
Wikis allow you to edit anything, even previous posts. Newsgroups are 
strictly ThreadMode; wikis allow you to use DocumentMode.

 Q: How do I start a new Wiki page?

 A: Edit an existing page (like the WikiWikiSandbox) and include two or 
more words capitalized and run together (e.g. "WikiWikiSandbox"). Save 
the page and view it. You'll find the words followed by a question mark. 
That's a link. Follow that link, add some text, and save the new page.

 See AddingNewPages and WhenToCreatePages.

 Q: I'm interested in wikis, and think one might be useful to my group. 
I want to use WikiWikiWeb to test how it works, but don't want my test 
pages deleted. What can I do?

 A1: You can set up a test wiki at one of the public WikiFarms.

 A2: The WikiWikiWeb community is generally tolerant of test pages if 
they explain their purpose, and give a "delete after" date. (Something 
like "I created this test page for my ____ group to see if a wiki would 
be useful. We'll delete it after month day.") Creating OffTopic pages 
without explanation may be considered WikiSquatting, which is considered 
impolite.

 Q: How do I make a hyperlink without displaying the URL? So I just want 
to see (for example) LINK and be able to click on LINK and go to 
http://www.something.com/.

 A: That's called a FreeLink, and you can't make them on Wiki. There 
used to be a facility for numbering external links (like [1], [2], 
etc.), but this was disabled for security reasons. If you want to avoid 
retyping the hyperlink each time you use it, give the link its own page 
and refer to that page instead. This keeps down the clutter of naked 
hyperlinks.

 Q: How do you add a picture, or sound file to Wiki?

 A: You can't store these sorts of files on the Wiki server. But you can 
find that file somewhere else on the Web, and then include a link to it 
on a Wiki page.

 If you include the URL to an image on a Wiki page, Wiki will recognize 
it as an image reference and format the HTML accordingly. For example, 
including the URL "http://google.com/images/logo.gif" will result in 
this:


 If you include the URL to a sound file on a Wiki page, Wiki will show 
it as a link, and readers/listeners will have to click on it to hear it. 
Like so: http://www.soundamerica.com/sounds/sound_fx/S-Z/wolf.wav. 
[Hopefully now corrected]

 All these files stay over on the other server, so ideally you should 
find a way to ensure that the file won't be taken down there.

 See TextFormattingRules for more.

 Q: How do I add an applet/plugin/etc to a page?

 A: You can't. The best you can do is to link to an offsite Web page 
with the applet, though it won't be inlined like a picture or sound file.

 Q: If you want to add a question to a page, should you add it at the 
bottom or the top?

 A1: It's up to you and the page itself. Play nice.

 A2: Put it where it makes the most sense.

 Q: How do I delete a page?

 A: Short answer: edit the page, erasing all the text except the word 
DeleteTestAndWelcome. See HowToDeletePages for more.

 Q: How do I rename a page without deleting it and losing its content?

 A: Create a page with the new name, copy the old page's content to it, 
fix the old page's BackLinks, then delete the old page.

 Q: How can I make it easier for someone to figure out which parts of a 
page I changed?

 A: See RecentChangesOnaWikiPage.

 Q: Maybe I am missing something obvious, but how can you be sure that I 
don't erase everything?

 A: Well, there is always the diff, which you can see if you click on 
the EditCopy link at the bottom of any Wiki page. And there is a backup 
in case of massive vandalism.

 See WikiErase for more.

 Q: How do I report a problem with the operation of Wiki, e.g. editor 
not loading all of a page?

 A: See WhenaWikiPageisTooBig. For other bugs, see WikiWikiBugs.

 Q: Is any HTML markup supported? Can you just use HTML and have it 
rendered?

 A1: No. See TextFormattingRules for details about how to do formatting 
in WikiWiki.

 A2: See WhyDoesntWikiDoHtml or 
http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?RawHtmlWiki for the rationale.

 Q: I was looking at WantedPages. A lot of these seemed to be the names 
of Java classes, which happen to have the same format as Wiki links. Is 
there any way to escape something with 
CapitalizedFirstLettersRunTogether so that it isn't a link?

 A: Yes. See SixSingleQuotes. Other useful tips are in 
TextFormattingRules.

 Q: I used accented characters and I got complaints that they weren't 
showing up. Why is this happening and how can I fix it?

 A: They are showing up, except not to everyone. ASCII is the standard 
of the Internet, not UNICODE, which means accented characters won't 
display for all users. Indeed, while you could put Japanese on WikiWiki 
without much difficulty, most people just see random garbage.

 Q: The previous question about the incapability of showing accented 
characters stated "ASCII is the standard of the Internet, not UNICODE." 
This sounds arrogant as ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for 
Information Interchange." Don't you think it would be better to write 
with a more positive tone toward UNICODE to broaden the wiki community? 
Is there a UNICODE-based WikiClone?

 A: I don't know of any, but I'm writing one right now: SennikiWiki.

 Q: Are you sure that "ASCII is the standard of the Internet, not 
UNICODE"?

 At one time (HTML 2.0) "The base character set (the SGML BASESET) for 
HTML is ISO Latin-1."

 Later this changed; HTML 4.01 says "The ASCII character set is not 
sufficient for a global information system such as the Web, so HTML uses 
the much more complete character set called the Universal Character Set 
(UCS) ... equivalent to Unicode" -- 
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/charset.html

Q: Is there some way to remember which pages you read while in Wiki? Or 
some way to easily send page links to another page for editing? W.g. 
create bookmarks on your own user page?

 A: Just bookmark in your browser (e.g., Ctrl D in Netscape) each page 
you might wish to revisit. Alternatively, you can just edit your user 
page and type the links in there. Use a bulleted list to make it look 
nice.

 Q: How can I set up a button in my browser to edit the page you are 
currently looking at?

 A: See EditPageBookmarklet.

 Q: What did I do to get banned? Can I get unbanned if I promise never 
to do it again?

 (Q back at you: How, if banned, did you add your question?)

A: The best way to get banned is to run a program against Wiki that 
denies service to other sites. Email WardCunningham to get unbanned. 
Include both your domain name and IP address as the Wiki self-protection 
logic might record either.

 Q: Is this project open source?

 A: Yes/no. There are umpteen versions of this particular software. 
While the exact software running this site is not open, some versions 
are OpenSource (but not FreeSoftware). See WikiInHyperPerl for one, or 
TheWikiWay for another. For FreeSoftware versions, see WikiWikiClones.

 Q: There are images at the bottom of some WikiPage's but not others. 
(TextFormattingRules has several.) What do they mean?

 A: Each image links to a page on another wiki. Those wikis (called 
SisterSites) happen to have a page with the same name as the page you're 
reading. For example, Both the WikiWikiWeb and MeatballWiki have pages 
named TextFormattingRules. If you're on the WikiWikiWeb's 
TextFormattingRules page, clicking on the MeatballWiki image takes you 
to the TextFormattingRules page on Meatball.

 Q: I'm totally new to Wiki. I can't find the right way to start, though 
I have been to almost every Wiki page... I have this assignment to 
create a Wiki page. The 'Startpage' has to contain a few links. One link 
is to add a new Wiki page where you can fill in information about some 
project. Then when you create this new Wiki page, a link to it should 
appear on Startpage. Is this possible?

 A: Yes, it is possible. Since you're totally new to Wiki, I suggest 
going to our NewUserPages page and then read the pages that it links to. 
Specific information on how to start new pages is in AddingNewPages (and 
also OneMinuteWiki). By the way, there are over 20,000 Wiki pages, so 
you'll probably have to spend a long time reading before you've visited 
them all!

 Q: How do I create an edit textbox?

 A: You don't really 'create' the edit textbox. You click on the 
'EditText' link at the bottom of a page, and that will bring you to an 
editing page with an edit textbox on it. But then, you already know that 
since you added this question to this page. Every page automatically has 
the 'EditText' link on the bottom. Is that what you meant?

 Q: After I ZIP-Dumped my pages, how can I restore them from the dump if 
it is needed?

 A: With another script or by hand. What did you expect? And are you 
sure what you did was legal?

 Q: Can I run a wiki on a private intranet? Where can I find information 
about setting up such a wiki (written for the average, non-technogeek)?

 A: Yes - see WikiEngines and RunningYourOwnWikiFaq.

 Q: I still have no idea what Wiki is for!

 A: Neither does anyone else. But check out WikiMission and 
WikiPhilosophyFaq for some theories.

 Q: How did WikiWikiWeb get started?

 A: See WikiHistory.

 Q: I heard there is more than one WikiWikiWeb.

 A: There is only one WikiWikiWeb: this one. There are hundreds of 
wikis; one way being developed to start to know about them is 
TourBusStop. Also check out the developing WorldWideWiki:OneBigWiki at 
http://www.worldwidewiki.net/wiki/OneBigWiki.

 Q: Why are these things so text-centric? Way to kill a potential 
audience before it even gets started.

 A1: Wiki isn't for everyone. This wiki attracts programmers and 
tech-types, who are used to reading a lot. It's also a lot easier to 
create and edit text than images.

 A2: It's a LessIsMore / WabiSabi / 
DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork thing.

 Q: Can Wiki damage your health?

 A: Becoming a RecentChangesJunkie can certainly damage your chances of 
having any free time. (And hurt your wrists if you spend too much time 
at the keyboard!)

 Q: Can I edit other kinds of documents online? E.g., MicrosoftWord or 
MicrosoftExcel files?

 A: Nope, only those that are explicitly designed for online or 
collaborative editing. Those usually require special software. See 
WikiLikeThings.

 Q: What is the difference between a wiki and a blog?

 A: Wikis are open to editing. They were created to encourage visitors 
to collaborate, to improve anything on the wiki. Blogs only allow 
visitors to comment.

 Also, a blog has one owner, who has special privileges. Everyone's 
equal on a wiki (generally; some do have administrators).

 Q: I have edited a page twice. How do I retrieve the last but one 
content?

 A: In general, you can't. However, if you did not view the latest 
rendered version, the previous rendered version might be in your 
browser's cache.

 For older versions of the page, see http://c2.com/wiki/history/. If you 
still don't find what you seek, check Google. It caches copies of pages 
it encounters when it crawls the Web.

 Q: Are there other WikiFAQs?

 A: Yes, try the following. Some answers are just copied from here, but 
there are interesting answers not found here. Click here: 
http://freemind.freezope.org/FreemindWiki/WikiFaq

Q: I've seen that Wiki is done in PHP. There are some other wikis called 
WikiWikiClones. If I create a new wiki, on cgilua, how can it be 
considered a wiki clone?

 Actually, this wiki's engine uses Perl, not PHP. Other WikiEngines use 
a wide variety of different languages.

 A CGI script would be considered a wiki clone if it provided the basic 
wiki functions: automatic linking between pages, etc.

 Q: I browsed a bit through the categories and discovered that the game 
cq2 didn't have a Wiki page yet. Because cq2 has an active community, I 
decided to make a cq2 page in the game category. They keep deleting it, 
saying it's OffTopic. How can a game be off-topic when there's a 
category for games?

 A1: This wiki is about programming. The community puts up with certain 
off-topic content if enough people find it interesting (e.g, geek stuff 
like StarTrek), but anything offtopic can be, and often is, deleted. 
Post about programming and you won't get deleted.

 A2: Games are OffTopic, but no rule is absolute. Those pages are there 
because (a) we don't want to start a delete war by killing them, and (b) 
they made it past RecentChanges a long time ago when OffTopic posts were 
less of a problem. However, many would like to get rid of them since 
they are OffTopic. Just because OffTopic material exists now doesn't 
mean we want more of it. There's far too many OffTopic posts as is and 
recently, many have begun to not allow it past RecentChanges because 
they feel OffTopic posts are polluting Wiki more so than usual.

 See PleasePleaseDontCategorizeEveryPageOnWiki. Mostly, we don't like 
categories, even though some exist because of a few peoples efforts to 
put them everywhere. WikiIsNotaDictionary, it's a programming site. Talk 
about programming games and you'll have many people jumping into the 
discussion; try to list games dictionary-style just to say they exist 
and you're likely to get deleted. Some survive from sheer popularity 
since they fit the geek culture, but most don't. You have to survive 
RecentChanges on merit alone. If you want a page to live, then make sure 
it in some way relates to or discusses programming, only then will most 
people consider it OnTopic. There are no hard and fast rule, see 
WikiSocialNorms and WhyWikiWorks to get an understanding of the culture 
here.

 Q2: Would a page with a list of great stuff that was once in a game but 
not anymore, and that should be put in a game more, would that be 
allowed? (that's about programming, why don't they program stuff like 
that into games? Why do they seems to be interested only in having more 
pixels and higher resolutions and more graphic stuff instead of 
improving the basics?) it could be turned into a discussion of what 
should be in a game and what not I am not that good in expression myself 
in English (need more practise), so here is a part of that list: RTS:
	? 	 The shooting in Total Annihilation, it is realistic, it is real, 
not just some smoke here and some unit there that gets damage, every 
shot is flying across the screen and it can hit an enemy or an ally on 
it's way to the target
	? 	 Like the round world in Populous 3 (not sure about the name, 
haven't been able to play it for a long time), not a square map or a map 
with boundaries, but a real ball shape, round, which allows you to be 
attack from every side, instead of hiding in a corner of the map

 A: That's not so much about programming, as it is about specific 
features of a narrow class of programs. Before you create the page, ask 
yourself "Does this page further Wiki's goal of offering insight into 
how to improve the activity of programming?"