Wiki: Pedia

<p>A wiki is a website designed for collaborative editing, letting many people create, update, and organize content directly in a web browser.

They emphasize simplicity and openness — pages can be created or modified without special technical skills, and most maintain an edit history so revisions can be reviewed or reverted.

Common features
- **Collaborative editing:** Numerous contributors can work on pages, sometimes simultaneously.
- **Edit history:** Every modification is recorded with a timestamp and the editor’s identity or IP address.
- **Interlinking:** It’s easy to create links between pages, forming an interconnected knowledge base.
- **Lightweight markup:** Pages are typically formatted with lightweight markup like WikiText or Markdown.
- **Permission settings:** Wikis may allow public editing or restrict changes to registered or authorized users.
- **Discussion pages:** Talk or discussion pages let contributors debate edits and organization.

Frequent uses
- Community knowledge bases such as Wikipedia
- Project documentation and internal company knowledge repositories
- Cooperative writing and shared notes
- Classroom and educational projects

Pros
- **Fast collaboration:** Multiple people can add and refine content quickly.
- **Openness:** Visibility into edits and discussions shows how decisions were reached.
- **Expandable:** Wikis can grow naturally as contributors add new topics.

Drawbacks
- **Vandalism and false information:** Open editing may allow intentional or accidental inaccuracies.
- **Inconsistent quality:** Articles can differ greatly in depth, tone, and reliability.
- **Organizational issues:** Lack of structure or rules can lead to disorganization and conflicts.

Illustration
- **Wikipedia** — the best-known wiki, run by the Wikimedia Foundation and built by volunteer contributors worldwide.</p>