Hey everyone,
When talking to other people about wikis, it is often necessary to point out that Wikipedia is only one implementation, and not THE wiki. In that context, I've noticed that the terminology in terms of naming the basic concept seems to be confusing or inconsistent:
In my understanding, the term "wiki" is just a shortening of (and thus a synonym for) "WikiWikiWebs" - meaning that, strictly speaking, "WikiWikiWeb" would be the generic term (or hypernym) for the whole slew of wikis and wiki projects/communities out there. However, many resources (including Wikipedia) seem to limit the term "WikiWikiWeb" to Ward Cunningham's original implementation (WardsWiki or the Portland Pattern Repository) - whereas I'd see that as one of many WikiWikiWebs (or wikis), even if it was the orginal one.
Am I wrong in my understanding of this - or is there simply no clear consensus on that yet?
Thanks,
Frederik
On 09/01/07, Frederik Dohr fdg001@gmx.net wrote:
Am I wrong in my understanding of this - or is there simply no clear consensus on that yet?
I treat "wiki" as the generic and "Wikipedia" as Wikipedia. I'm a volunteer press contact for the Wikimedia Foundation, so get a reasonable number of opportunities to use soundbites implying this usage.
The term "A wikipedia" being applied to anything that isn't a Wikimedia Foundation wiki (or a test Wikipedia expressly working toward being WMF-hosted) is a bad idea and tends to get a polite but slightly aggrieved email from the Foundation pointing out it's a trademark and asking for a rephrase, so that should work with time.
I'm not so sure how to recover the term "wiki" - it's definitely being used as a casual English language conversational term for the English Wikipedia. But hopefully with workplace wikis coming into fashion, the term will become generic. (Even if a lot of them will be MediaWiki installations, whether or not it's gross overkill for ten users. But MoinMoin, UseMod, Trac and the Microsoft thing are all used on intranets quite a bit; MediaWiki hardly has a monopoly.)
- d.
On 09/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I treat "wiki" as the generic and "Wikipedia" as Wikipedia. I'm a volunteer press contact for the Wikimedia Foundation, so get a reasonable number of opportunities to use soundbites implying this usage.
Oh, and I do try to point out we didn't invent it, or even close, and give due credit to Ward Cunningham!
- d.
Thanks, David. So you basically only use "wiki(s)" and never use "WikiWikiWeb(s)" at all?
Oh, by the way: Your response reminded me that even my professor - who is supposed to know better, and otherwise quite competent - uses the term "a wikipedia" sometimes, which I think is quite odd...
-- F.
----- Original Message ----- From: David Gerard Date: 2007-01-09 13:02
On 09/01/07, Frederik Dohr fdg001@gmx.net wrote:
Am I wrong in my understanding of this - or is there simply no clear consensus on that yet?
I treat "wiki" as the generic and "Wikipedia" as Wikipedia. I'm a volunteer press contact for the Wikimedia Foundation, so get a reasonable number of opportunities to use soundbites implying this usage.
The term "A wikipedia" being applied to anything that isn't a Wikimedia Foundation wiki (or a test Wikipedia expressly working toward being WMF-hosted) is a bad idea and tends to get a polite but slightly aggrieved email from the Foundation pointing out it's a trademark and asking for a rephrase, so that should work with time.
I'm not so sure how to recover the term "wiki" - it's definitely being used as a casual English language conversational term for the English Wikipedia. But hopefully with workplace wikis coming into fashion, the term will become generic. (Even if a lot of them will be MediaWiki installations, whether or not it's gross overkill for ten users. But MoinMoin, UseMod, Trac and the Microsoft thing are all used on intranets quite a bit; MediaWiki hardly has a monopoly.)
- d.
Oh, and I do try to point out we didn't invent it, or even close, and give due credit to Ward Cunningham!
- d.
On 09/01/07, Frederik Dohr fdg001@gmx.net wrote:
So you basically only use "wiki(s)" and never use "WikiWikiWeb(s)" at all?
Yeah, that's the usage in English I seem to have taken on and see from others. See also the introduction of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki .
Oh, by the way: Your response reminded me that even my professor - who is supposed to know better, and otherwise quite competent - uses the term "a wikipedia" sometimes, which I think is quite odd...
Heh. See if you can change their usage :-)
- d.
On 1/9/07, Frederik Dohr fdg001@gmx.net wrote:
So you basically only use "wiki(s)" and never use "WikiWikiWeb(s)" at all?
In years and years, I've only ever heard "WikiWikiWeb" used when discussing the roots of the wiki phenomenon.
In years and years, I've only ever heard "WikiWikiWeb" used when discussing the roots of the wiki phenomenon.
That seems to be correct:
Q: Why is Wiki always written with a capital W? A: "Wiki" (with a W) is shorthand for the WikiWikiWeb (aka WardsWiki), i.e. this site. "wiki" (with a w) means "a site that operates along the same principles as Wiki", probably running one of the WikiWikiClones. See WikiHasManyMeanings for more on when to capitalize "wiki".
(taken from http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWebFaq)
Problem solved.
On 09/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
term will become generic. (Even if a lot of them will be MediaWiki installations, whether or not it's gross overkill for ten users. But MoinMoin, UseMod, Trac and the Microsoft thing are all used on intranets quite a bit; MediaWiki hardly has a monopoly.)
Yet.
Rob Church
On 09/01/07, Rob Church robchur@gmail.com wrote:
On 09/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
term will become generic. (Even if a lot of them will be MediaWiki installations, whether or not it's gross overkill for ten users. But MoinMoin, UseMod, Trac and the Microsoft thing are all used on intranets quite a bit; MediaWiki hardly has a monopoly.)
Yet.
I was thinking that, then I saw how wikis were actually being used. MediaWiki is a lardarse - power of a tank and durability of a tank, with handling of a tank and mileage of a tank - with silly requirements compared to e.g. my home work intranet wiki, which has ten users and is MoinMoin because that uses flat files rather than MySQL. I wouldn't object to MediaWiki, but I can see a lot to say for the viewpoint that it would be overkill.
- d.
On 10/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I was thinking that, then I saw how wikis were actually being used. MediaWiki is a lardarse - power of a tank and durability of a tank, with handling of a tank and mileage of a tank - with silly requirements compared to e.g. my home work intranet wiki, which has ten users and is MoinMoin because that uses flat files rather than MySQL. I wouldn't object to MediaWiki, but I can see a lot to say for the viewpoint that it would be overkill.
Oh, absolutely; MediaWiki is completely inappropriate for a personal use wiki, or a wiki for a very small group where it's *known* that scaling to meet the needs of several thousand/million users will never be needed.
Where it is *extremely* powerful, is when there *are* two or three million users reading, editing, moving, watching pages.
Rob Church
My first impression of MediaWiki was that it was too complex for the needs of a medium-sized corporation. I selected MoinMoin because it is also very good and has less infrastructure requirements.
Now in other job I'm using MediaWiki and I found out that it is not too complex after all, that it is very mature and, above all, that its extensibility is very good.
I'd settle for MediaWiki, even for a 1-person wiki... :-)
On Wednesday 10 January 2007 05:42, Fernando Correia wrote:
My first impression of MediaWiki was that it was too complex for the needs of a medium-sized corporation. I selected MoinMoin because it is also very good and has less infrastructure requirements.
Now in other job I'm using MediaWiki and I found out that it is not too complex after all, that it is very mature and, above all, that its extensibility is very good.
I'd settle for MediaWiki, even for a 1-person wiki... :-)
I second you there. I saw MediaWiki, it looked nice and all but seemed too complex and inflexible... but it had a couple of features I wanted, so I dug on the code... Surprise, I found out that it is actually extremely simple and flexible (even if I don't know a lot of php) :D. I like it, I felt great adapting it, and now I just wish I could get one of my changes commited (or help of some dev to see if I did something wrong), but I won't be bothering anyone with that 'till 1.9 is out.
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