What's a wiki?

We're not the first to ask that question! Check out this short video:

As posted on YouTube by bobobluemonkey1

I hope that you picked "none of the above" from the above video. Here's another video that better describes what a wiki is!

As posted on YouTube by ramitsethi

Simply put, a wiki is a type of website where its webpages can be viewed and modified by anybody with a Web browser and access to the Internet. A wiki allows people to quickly and easily develop content without any knowledge of any Web programming language.

Here's a great video "Wikis in Plain English" by the Common Craft Show that explains the wiki concept:

As posted by Lee Lefever on YouTube on the Common Craft Show


A wiki typically has the following characteristics:

• allows anyone to add or edit pages
• is designed to be built by members of a community working together
• has a simple markup language for formatting text on the page or a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) text editor which does not require you to use any markup language
• saves previous versions of a page for easy recovery from errors
• supports hyperlinks, where information from other pages, or even other sites, may be viewed

Typically when you see an edit button on a web page, that web page is part of a wiki (even if it does not call itself a wiki). However, because of spammers and vandals, some wikis require their community members to register on the site in order to add or to edit pages.

For more information, read how others describe wiki. Also, the Bemidji State University's site includes a collection of definitions pulled from numerous wikis.