Creating a wiki

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Wikis, today's most popular type of website, began with Wikipedia

Wikis, today’s most popular type of website, began with Wikipedia

Creating a wiki on Wikipedia is easy to do once you have some basic background information about the formwish can be publicly created and collaboratively edited through a web browser.

Today, wiki?s have become some of the most popular types of websites and a wide variety of wiki software is available. Wiki websites began with the birth of Wikipedia, the most contemporary, free, not for profit, multilingual encyclopedia written collaboratively and remotely, online by public contributors worldwide. Anyone creating a wiki for Wikipedia is actually creating a page, or site within the encyclopedia that anybody else can edit or add to.

Wikipedia was founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, while they were working on a project for Nupedia. The name ?Wiki-pedia? is actually a combination of two words; the Hawaiian word ?WikiWiki? which means quick, and the English word Encyclopedia, defined as any comprehensive reference source with article about many topics.

Since Wikipedia is web-based, it serves as the most quickly and easily accessed encyclopedic reference source.

Wikipedia is the best place to start for anyone wishing to create their first wiki. Prior to creating a wiki for Wikipedia, it is helpful to explore the Wikipedia website, and spend some time reading articles written by other contributors, in order to get a better feel for the style and required format of wiki journalism. Wikipedia also encourages anyone interested in creating a wiki to first practice by editing preexisting articles.

Here is a simple list of three important steps for creating a wiki on Wikipedia:

1) Before you can begin the task of creating a wiki, you must become a registered user with Wikipedia. If you are not a registered user, visit Wikipedia?s and register now.

2) Wikipedia offers a helpful guide and instructional source to new users learning the process of developing a wiki. Consult this source, known as the Wikipedia Article Wizard as it will help you to write a superior article.

3) Wikipedia already contains hundreds of thousands of articles. Prior to starting your own article, thoroughly search Wikipedia to ensure that an article on your selected topic is not already in existence. If an article on your subject matter already does exist, consider contributing to the pre-existing article as opposed to starting a new one.