A Brief History of Wikis

A Brief History of Wikis!

Titlewi·ki  /ˈwikē/NounA Web site developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content.

TitleBut “wiki” actually means “quick” or “fast” in Hawaiian.

How did this word become so ubiquitous for collaborative editing?

TitleIn 1995, Ward Cunningham created a site to facilitate quick communication between software developers.

When searching for a name, he remembered the wiki wiki shuttle at the Honolulu Airport… so the site was named WikiWikiWeb and the story of Wikis began!

TitleBefore the Internet was available, there were those who envisioned similar collaborative systems, such as:

• Vannevar Bush’s “Memex” - 1945• The collaborative hypertext database ZOG -1972• Apple hypertext system HyperCard - 1987

TitleThe WikiWikiWeb was an instant hit, quickly growing into a dynamic community of programmers embracing the “wiki culture”, contributing ideas and suggesting software improvements.

From 1995 to 2000, Wikis across a variety of fields (WikiWiki Clones) began to emerge.

In 2001, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger decided to create Nupedia, a web-based collaborative encyclopedia with a seven-step approval process by experts and PhDs to control the content of articles before being posted.

With 21 articles approved the first year, the project failed.

TitleWikipedia was a side-project of Nupedia. But, being a wiki, it had 18,000 articles the first year compared to Nupedia’s meager 21.

The Internet allows for massive collaboration, to a degree never imaginable before, wikis are just one aspect of it. The potential to change the world collectively is at our reach.

Knowledge wants to be free, not controlled.

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