Wiki - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Technical operation

One calls “Moteur wiki” the Logiciel which implements management by wiki.

A characteristic of the wikis compared to the others management systems of contents is that all the people authorized to modify the contents have the same rights of modification and enjoy a liberty of action which is limited only by the need for not compromising the technical integrity of the site: each one can as well move a simple comma as to erase all the contents of a page. Only general information of navigation being used of model (or Template ) with the structure of the page is not modifiable.

Identification of the visitors

A wiki is not inevitably modifiable by everyone; one can require that the visitors be registered before being authorized to modify the pages. In the case of the wikis which are completely opened with the public, various technical and social procedures are implemented to limit and cancel the modifications considered to be undesirable.

When a wiki authorizes anonymous visitors to modify the pages, it is the Adresse IP of the latter which identifies them; the registered users can as for them connect themselves under their name of user.

Edition

One reaches a wiki, in reading as in writing, with a Navigateur traditional Web. One can visualize the pages in two different modes: the reading mode, which are the mode by defect, and mode of edition, which presents the page in a form which makes it possible to modify it. In mode of edition, the text of the page, posted in a form Web, grows rich by a certain number of additional natures, according to the rules of a particular Syntaxe data-processing: the Wikitexte, which makes it possible to indicate working of the text, to create bonds, to have the images, etc the wikitexte was conceived so that the most current functionalities are easy to assimilate and type.

Some wikis proposes, instead of the wikitexte, an interface of edition WYSIWYG.

Bonds and creation of pages

The wikis support the creation of Hyperlien S by simplifying the writing and by not imposing any organisational constraint. Thus, each Web page contains many bonds which connect it to other pages, without apparent hierarchical structure. There exist functionalities to classify, or more precisely to find the pages, but they are not essential. The wiki thus becomes an expansion of pages put at the same level and connected the ones to the others according to logic specific to the contents of each one.

Originally, the wikis used MotsWiki (like “CompteUtilisateur”) automatically to generate bonds towards other pages. Today, some wikis have syntactic rules distinct for creation from bonds, with the example of MediaWiki where the hooks are employed. The appearance of the bonds (for example their color) varies according to whether they lead to an existing page or a still non-existent page that the user has, however, the possibility of creating.

Follow-up of the modifications

A wiki continuously files each modification that one brings there, with its date and its author, and generally stores all these information in a Database. It is thus possible to re-examine the evolution of any page, just as the contributions of any visitor, and very simple to return to an old version. It is also possible to follow in real-time all the modifications carried out in the site.

The pages of follow-up are obviously not freely modifiable. It is the case also of other administrative pages, as the pages of analysis of the bonds and the pages of interface with the system (connection to the account, preferences, renaming, loading of file).

Human operation

A wiki opened with the general public must be maintained in good state of operation 24 hours over 24,7 days out of 7 by a community of experienced users working towards the same end. As soon as information is modified, the regular contributors who are interested in the corresponding page can go to check and, if need be, to correct or supplement information. Thus, the acts of Vandalism, the various Junk email and the Détournement S most of the time quickly are detected and cancelled. Certain contributors have moreover administrative capacities which enable them to remove or solidify pages, or to exclude the visitors considered to be undesirable. The functionalities offered by the wikis often make it possible to cancel the misdeeds in less time than one should not any to make them.

The success of Wikipédia shows that a sufficiently many community can manage to maintain the quality of a very great site wiki, even very attended. On the other hand, when the sites open to the general public are supervised little, the junk email and vandalism deteriorate them quickly.

Difficulties encountered by the wiki

If Wikipédia remains an example of wiki which “succeeded” (still that it is called here and there in question (1) (2)), the concept of “wiki” in general can pose problem. The tool indeed would not be neutral and would express of its clean funds the practical application of a certain ideology which, moreover, would not be given for such. This aspect of the things was discussed in a lampoon published on the French-speaking Wiki Earth and which made run electronic ink in its time (3). So certain aspects of this criticism are incontestably dated, others remain completely current.

This criticism analyzes ten points on which the claims of the “software” wiki, as a tool, and of its Praxis (sociological), would be pernicious. These ten points are, successively:

that the wiki promotes a certain mediatization of the texts at the expense of the set of themes
that everyone cannot be writer in a levelling and nonhierarchical way
that the tool could not treat the noise
effectively that the groupware is not a profit for the individual
that the correction of the errors cannot be the fact of a group or a qualified individual
that the limits of the traditional media are by no means exceeded
that the wikis do not produce a “thought”, but its antipode, the “decision”
that the wikis are of nothing the communities transcending the traditional obstacles daily life
that the speed of use of the tool is not in anything a profit with final the
and especially, that the bureaucracy suitable for all wiki so much is developed little takes part of an ideological praxis not stating itself like such.

These critics were not formulated against Wikipédia, but against the “wiki lambda” where one experienced with average scale the principles of the wiki, and, much more specifically, against the “prescriptive” wikis studying the others wikis and endeavouring to release which were to be the standards to be applied as regards wiki use (Crao Wiki, Community Wiki, Meatball Wiki). These criticisms generated strong reactions on Crao Wiki at the time where the participants of this site hoped to impel a new breath in French-speaking WikiSphère. The potential relevance of these theses was not re-examined since, perhaps partly because one did not think that they did not apply only exclusively against Wikipédia.

See too

External bonds

the wikis are ten years old! , retrospective of the wikis by AgoraVox
the Wiki page in Framasoft, notes
“Of trickery wiki”, critical of the principle wiki in ten points
WikiMatrix, comparator of wikis
wikipatterns.com models of behaviors on a wiki

Random links:

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