Wiki Essay Example

Wiki Essay Example Wiki Essay Wiki Essay As the world moves towards expansion in terms of globalization and technology advancements, people are looking into the development of new technologies to serve the necessities of mankind. At present, programmers have taken it as their responsibility to make to enhance user experiences by developing a variety of software that will help them achieve their purpose. In the field of networking, a server software known as wiki has been introduced to the world. Since it has been introduced to the market, it instantly reached towering levels of popularity and management. It also became an indispensable part of the virtual society. Wiki is described as a tool utilized in websites which allows users to readily and efficiently add, edit, and delete contents of a webpage. Because of the convenience it provides, it is popularly used in online journals because writers are able to edit their works anytime they want. Wiki was also described as, â€Å"the simplest online database that could possibly work† (What Is Wiki, 2002). This description is identifiably true because wiki websites are simple and user-friendly so much so that even people who are not that familiar with computer languages will be able to easily learn how to utilize this tool. To understand the concept of a wiki website better, a comparison between traditional writing vs. writing on online journals will be narrated. One can imagine writing with the use of a pencil, a piece of paper, and an eraser for the purpose of editing. Writing on a piece of paper allows an individual to write anything he wants. This goes the same with wiki websites. The di fference however is that erasures on a piece of paper are grubby, while editing in wiki websites leaves the page spotless. There are several outstanding characteristics of wiki websites which make it prevalent in the virtual world (Matias, 2003). First, it is effortless to edit wiki pages because links to the editing page on each web page provides users the opportunity to easily edit or delete content. Users can just click on a link if they want to edit content and submit the edited version when they are through. Second, wiki websites use simple mark up. If one is not familiar with the HTML language, a wiki software will be able to assist the user in constructing web pages and links. The user is only required to understand simple tags and markup rules. Third, several other wikis are collaborative communities which allows anyone to edit pages. There are wiki websites that allow full access to users but there are some that limit the user’s access of the webpages. Last, it is easy to keep track of data because wiki pages store all activities in sequentially or chronologically. So if one wants to find and retrieve information, one can just sort the data in the database in order to find the targeted information. In conclusion, a wiki software is an efficient way of establishing online collaborative communities. With its innumerable outstanding characteristics, wiki became a popular tool commonly utilized in the virtual community. If one wishes to understand why a large population of virtual users utilize wikis, obtaining a wiki software and utilizing it in a personal website is the best way to go about it. Wiki. (2002). â€Å"What is Wiki?.† Retrieved 05 Sep 2008, from Wiki.org Web site: http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki Matias, N. (2003). â€Å"What is a Wiki?† Retrieved 06 Sep 2008, from Site Point. Website: sitepoint.com/article/what-is-a-wiki/