[Mediawiki-l] [OT] Terminology: Wikis vs. WikiWikiWebs

[Frederik Dohr]

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 at 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.