ElementsOfWikiEssence

Last edit November 27, 2009
Elements of WikiEssence:
  • Simple markups for formatting instead of HTML (see TipsForBeginners and TextFormattingRules)
  • No markups for links (pages, external links, images, ...)
  • content is basically ego-less and time-less (it's not considered important who wrote it and when it was written)
  • Hyperlinks appear when referred to (no need to create them).
  • Encourages creation of hyperlinks, and always shows which ones are valid. (Showing dead links with '?' really encourages creative WordPlay.)
  • RecentChanges (see also ForgetfulnessAsFilter)
  • Loss of history (some wikis add a page history)
  • Flat namespace (some wikis allow subpages or hierarchies)

Accidents of Wiki implementation:
  • Wiki links being resolved by a CGI script.
  • Wiki pages being stored

See WikiEssence for discussion
CategoryWiki