Building and understanding a wiki

Building a Wiki

A wiki is an editable set of web pages that enables users to collaborate to create a site that organizes information. The word wiki is a Hawaiian word for “fast”. The idea is that anyone can change a wiki page fast. The first wiki was created by Ward Cunningham in 1994, but the wiki really began to take off when Wikipedia was created in 2001. The subject matter for a wiki can be anything - and I do mean anything. There are wikis about camping trips, television shows, online games, and car racing, to name a few. Any time people need to collaborate on creating an information source, a wiki is an excellent choice. This article covers how to use a website called PBWiki and open - source software called MediaWiki to build your own wiki. PBWiki is a website that enables you to create wikis, and MediaWiki software installs on your own web host and enables you to run and manage your own wiki. There are distinct differences between PBWiki and MediaWiki, so to help you decide which is best for you, I’ve created lists of reasons to use each. These lists will help you determine your priorities and decide which part of this article you should read.

Five Reasons to Use PBwiki to Host Your Wiki

■ You are brand new to wikis - PBwiki makes it easy to get up and running quickly while connecting you to a larger community of more experienced wiki creators.

■ You have low technical ability - PBwiki is a nice and easy way to access some very complicated technology that you never have to worry about.

■ You don’t want to spend any money for a wiki - A basic PBwiki wiki is free for 3 or fewer users. You can’t save more money than that.

■ You don’t care about bells and whistles - If you want a simple, wellrun, robust wiki and don’t care about the latest gadgets or add-ins, PBwiki is for you.

■ You don’t need your own domain - PBwiki’s wikis are all hosted under the pbwiki.com domain. If not having your own domain isn’t an issue for you, then PBwiki is a good choice for you.

Five Reasons to Use MediaWiki for Your Wiki

■ You have your own domain - If you want a specific domain name, using the MediaWiki software has no domain name restrictions.

■ You want a lot of people to edit your wiki - MediaWiki has no restrictions on how many people can edit your wiki.

■ You care about bells and whistles - If you want to control every little detail of your wiki, you might want to download the MediaWiki software.

■ You have technical knowledge - Installing, configuring, and using MediaWiki software requires knowledge of some technical things.

■ Your hosting service offers MediaWiki installs - Your hosting services let you automatically install Mediawiki. This gives you control and easy installation.

What Is PBwiki?

PBWiki is a website that offers hosting of education and business wikis. The name is meant to imply that creating a wiki on their site is as easy as creating a peanut butter sandwich. They have over half a million wikis on their site. The site allows quick wiki creation and use without requiring you to run the wiki software on your own host. You can also browse their lists of blogs and find out who else is using their site.

Building a Wiki Using PBwiki.com

If you want to use a very basic version of a wiki and want someone else to take care of all your hosting needs, PBwiki.com is a good solution. This part of the article covers getting a wiki up and running on PBwiki.com. Before you begin at PBwiki.com you need the following:

■ An idea for your wiki

■ A name for your wiki

■ An email address

Signing Up for PBwiki

To begin using PBwiki.com, you need to sign up for their service. It is 100% free (but only if you have fewer than three users) and gives you access to their software and a whole community of people using PBwiki.com.

1. Open your web browser and navigate to http://www.pbwiki.com. This opens the home page for PBwiki, where you sign up for the wiki hosting service.

2. Click the Create a Wiki button. The Signup for Your PBwiki page appears. On this page, you enter all the information you need to set up your wiki on the PBwiki.com servers.

3. In the Your Name field, enter your name.

4. In the Email Address field, enter your email address. PBwiki.com uses your email address to communicate information and administrative notes. Make sure it is correct.

5. Next, in the Password field, enter a word or phrase. When choosing a password, make it unique and easy to remember. Try to have a mixture of letters and numbers. The case of the letters matters also, so use a mixture of upper- and lowercase.

6. In the Confirm Password field, enter your password again. Choose a wiki name and enter it in the Wiki Name field. This also becomes the URL to your wiki, so it can’t have any spaces and should be letters and numbers only.

7. Select what you are using this wiki for. The options are For Individuals, For Education, and For Business. Each of these options affect the default settings for your wiki.

8. If you want to use PBwiki 2.0, (and you do because it has a new interface and some new features) click the Yes, Please Make This a PBwiki 2.0 Wiki box.

9. Next, click the Create My Wiki button.

10. Finally, check your email for a confirmation email and follow the instructions carefully.

Activating Your Account After you have signed up for PBwiki.com, you need to activate your account. PBwiki.com will have sent you an email, to the address you provided when you were signing up. When you receive the email message, read it and follow the instructions in the email. This includes clicking on a link to activate your wiki. After you have done this, PBwiki.com asks you to establish your security settings before you can use your wiki. Follow these instructions:

1. Select who can view your wiki (either anyone or only people you invite or approve).

2. Select who can edit your wiki (either anyone or only people you invite or approve).

3. Take the time to read a stunningly exciting set of Terms of Service.

4. Click the box saying you agree to the PBwiki terms of service.

5. Click the Take Me to My Wiki button. Your new wiki is displayed.

To begin, the front page of your wiki is displayed. This page, like any page on your wiki, is editable by you. Because you are a registered user and owner of this wiki you have options along the right side - things such as adding a new page and uploading files.

Edit a Page

The power of wikis is apparent in the ability you have to edit the pages to share information with all visitors. Editing PBwiki pages is easy. After you turn on edit mode for your wiki page you have a WYSIWYG editor for that page. Follow these instructions to turn on edit mode:

1. Click the tab at the top of the page that says edit. This opens the page in edit mode. Edit mode enables you to edit your PBwiki page.

2. Now you can edit all the text on the page. Across the top of the edit area is a formatting toolbar that enables you to format your text.

3. When finished, click the Save button. The edits you made have now taken effect. Add a Page PBWiki also enables you to add pages easily. These pages help you organize information and enable you to expand your PBwiki.

Follow these instructions to add a page:

1. Click the Create Page button on the top-right corner of the page. This opens the page where you name your new wiki page.

2. Enter the name of the page and click Create Page. You are then presented with a blank page with your title on it. Edit and save the new page as instructed in the preceding part.

Linking Pages

After you have more than one page, you’ll want to create links to multiple pages. You do this in the edit mode. Follow these steps to add a link:

1. Open a page in edit mode.

2. Enter some text for the hyperlink.

3. Click the Link button in the formatting toolbar. This opens the Create Link Window.

4. From the Link Type list, select PBwiki page.

5. In the Page Name box, select the page to which you want to link. If it is a new page, you can enter the name in the Name field.

6. Click OK. Your new link is created. View Page History One of the most powerful features of a wiki is page history.

This means a copy of every version of a wiki page is kept and can be compared to every other version of that page. For example, if you make a change to a wiki page and then come back in a few hours and see it has changed again, a wiki page history can tell you the exact changes that were made, who made them, and when. You also can then revert to any one of those previous versions of the page. If you have a moment, look at the history of a Wikipedia page and you will see how much work actually goes into creating it. To view a page’s history, click the View History button at the top of the page. This then shows you the page’s History.