FrontPage

Welcome

This is an example wiki site. I'd like to use it to help people get with wiki and what they can do with it. The key aim of wiki is to make it as easy as possible for anyone to contribute to the development of a web site. I'd like to exploit that, so that people learning to use wiki here can help shape the explanation and fill gaps, improving it for subsequent learners.

The most important difference between wiki sites and conventional web sites is that it's easy for anyone, not just the site managers, to edit existing pages and create new ones.

• See HowDoIEdit for some details on changing and adding to the wiki. Try it out!

Another wiki feature is some navigational aids. There is the WikiName, backlinks which say which pages point to this one, RecentChanges by which you can track activity in a wiki, an automatic table of contents, based on which pages are created from which other ones, and more.

• See HowDoINavigate for info about finding your way around the Wiki.

Wiki page text formatting is simple and uncluttered - you don't use obscure terms in angle brackets, like with html. Instead, you write much like you would in email and memos - simple layout with textual cues like * asterisks around words to signify emphasis. This simple formatting makes it easy for people to create their own pages and, most importantly, for people to read and edit one anothers raw pages.

• See TextFormattingRules for details.

Probably the most important thing is that wiki sites can enable any visitor to edit and create new pages. To create new pages, you use a WikiName - two or more capitalized words smooshed together. When the system renders wiki pages, it links wiki names to the corresponding pages, if they exist, or offers a ? link to create a corresponding page, if it doesn't already exist. So to create a new wiki page, you include a wiki name for the new page in the text of an existing one, and follow the ? create link when review the existing page.

The fundamental thing is that wiki makes it easy for all community members to participate in the development of the community's web presence, not just be passive observers. As with any group effort, it can take discretion on the part of the members, and sometimes central coordination by motivated parties, but wiki makes wide participation possible.

And that is why you can help me help everyone to understand and use wikis - you can use this site to put your questions, suggestions, insights, etc, into the process of developing guidance for everyone. I'll try to track such contributions, and respond as time allows, one way or another. Maybe my involvement will become superfluous, as more people come up to speed.

(Wiki is not new here, by the way. WikiWikiWeb is connected with the start of wiki, and there are many different breeds and mutations running around the web.)

KenManheimer, Feb 17, 2001

(One last tip - keep the HelpPage in mind, and turn to it if you lose your way.)