Wiki: Glossolalia
I have installed a wiki on my server, wrecking.org. Until one of you proposes a better name, we’ll call it “Glossolalia”.
To use the wiki, dive in: create an account, read some of the online help, then play in the sandbox.
We will be using a wiki because of its simplicity—from a web browser, we can quickly create writing assigments without having to fuss with web page uploading and stuff. But we’ll also rely on the powerful collaboration features of the wiki.
What is a wiki?
Wiki is a web-based software application which merges the creating and editing of web pages into a single interface: the web browser. Unlike the more traditional web editing we’ll learn in class, where we create code with one program (a text editor) and view it with another (a browser), wiki uses web forms so that users can quickly move between viewing and editing. The first wikis allowed anyone to edit pages. However, many wikis, including ours, require that users create accounts and log in to use the wiki. This is in part a defense against vandalism—reducing the likelihood that anonymous internet browsers will alter pages out of contempt or for fun.
Wiki uses several very simple text formatting languages, including HTML, so users can access powerful functions like linking and tabular formatting without learning complex markup systems.
There are quite a few variants of Wiki software. We’ll be using MediaWiki, the same codebase used by Wikipedia. Generally speaking, all Wikis require connection to a database and some sort of hypertext processing language like PHP.
Learn more at the Wikipedia entry for “wiki”.