What is Wiki?

Wiki on Wiki Main Page

Wiki is a blank digital page--an undefinable space that is always about to transform. Visitors to Wiki can add, remove, and edit content. Working with a pallete of text, image and sound, wiki composers also work with connectivity: They create links among different pages. Such links help quickly establish connections to other information, and allow for mass collaboration. According to Wikipedia's definition of wiki, the word wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning "quick." By analogy, visitors to Wiki-based websites can quickly form links to other information and quickly access information. Hence wikis help grow well maintained web pages - improving the wiki is now the responsibility of all who use it.

The following diagram visually depicts how people form links between ideas, specifically the link between the Hawaiian word for "quick" and Wiki.

HAWAII

Source  Source

QUICK

Source

Wiki

Source

The following screenshot shows a Wiki editing screen. The visitor can modify Dr. Mobius's page and even delete information with the Microsoft-word style editing tool. Students can also choose to change the editing format to html-style editing. For an explanation of Wiki, listen to Wiki Interview (Raw Audio).wav with Dr. Mobius.

This Wiki gang sign serves as an analogy for Wiki. The students who created this sign used their prior knowledge of gang/ hip hop culture and hand gestures to develop a new concept. Similarly, those who use Wiki use their prior knowledge of writing on paper and typing a Word document to create a new, more interactive medium known as Wiki. They also use their knowledge of how information is linked to form connections to new information through this form.

Contributed by:

~Young Jessie

I wonder if Wiki can technically be defined? How do you define a space, that may or may not really exist, is constantly changing, has no definable borders, and isn't just one entity? There's not just Wiki - if anything, perhaps it's a concept that about an ever-changing concept. Technically a wiki is nothing - just space. Is space then nothing? If space is nothing, then a wiki is therefore almost undefinable. However, if empty or blank space (the two terms differ slightly) does mean something, then perhaps it can be defined. Does a wiki mean anything unless someone creates something with it? Another question that must be addressed is if nothing exists is that "area" then called "space"?

What then is wiki when that "space" becomes more definable - that is, when links, writings, and ideas, appear on the wiki? Is a wiki that has been written on different from an empty or blank wiki?

-BookWorm

In response to BookWorm's question, I think a wiki still stays true to its definition even after a good amount of content has been applied to it. The constant possibility for editing and revision is what makes the "blank page" metaphor continuously appropriate. I definitely think your ideas about defining a space are really cool and interesting. Space is always difficult to define, but the term seems oddly appropriate for the wiki.

-Tbotbotbot

Reminds me of a question I came across meditating on the nature of the void or (in?) the void:

And what is wiki, Phaedrus,

And what is not wiki--

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

(actually if you are interested in the quest to define the undefineable I highly recommend this)