Talk:Wiki Theory

My turn

Being bored I came across this page, and thought that it was not quite right, so - after an hour's thought - I propose WikiTheory (2). I'm not sure that Axiom 2 is quite right, as Anyone is too broad. Conrad.Irwin 19:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Axioms

1. A wiki exists to agglomerate useful information.
2. Anyone who wants to should be allowed to read and edit the information in a wiki as they see fit.
3. Any editor may well make a bad edit.

Conclusions

1. It must be possible for anyone to access all content in the wiki
   • On MediaWiki this is achieved by allowing [[links]] in articles, having a search feature, and having categories and lists of pages - however it is not hard to imagine a different data layout in which the entries are sequential and a link from one to the next is all that is necessary.
2. The data format of a wiki should be readable and writable with tools that everyone can use.
   • Hence MediaWiki's plain text syntax.
3. A wiki can never be 'complete' (as it will always be editable)
4. It must always be possible to read and edit all previous versions of the wiki.
   • This is why we have the History tab, though MediaWiki concentrates a lot on the practical issue of reviewing changes as they happen instead of relying on eventuality - which is why it provides convenience functions like (undo) and RecentChanges.

Notes

• It is interesting how simple the core of "wiki" is, and how much extra is added in for fun and convenience by most available wiki software.
• I think that that establishes the difference between a wiki and a CMS, CMSs don't have a "history" function.
• Should something be said about a Community, is this a seperate concept or an integral part of a wiki? Conrad.Irwin 19:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)