al editing

While wiki engines have traditionally offered source editing to users, in recent
years some implementations have added a rich text editing mode. This is usually
implemented, using JavaScript, as an interface which translates formatting
instructions chosen from a toolbar into the corresponding wiki markup or HTML. This
is generated and submitted to the server transparently, shielding users from the
technical detail of markup editing and making it easier for them to change the
content of pages. An example of such an interface is the VisualEditor in MediaWiki,
the wiki engine used by Wikipedia. WYSIWYG editors may not provide all the features
available in wiki markup, and some users prefer not to use them, so a source editor
will often be available simultaneously.

Version history
Some wiki implementations keep a record of changes made to wiki pages, and may
store every version of the page permanently. This allows authors to revert a page
to an older version to rectify a mistake, or counteract a malicious or
inappropriate edit to its content.[13]

These stores are typically presented for each page in a list, called a "log" or
"edit history", available from the page via a link in the interface. The list
displays metadata for each revision to the page, such as the time and date of when
it was stored, and the name of the person who created it, alongside a link to view
that specific revision. A diff (short for "difference") feature may be available,
which highlights the changes between any two revisions.

Edit summaries
"Edit summary" redirects here. For the Wikipedia help page, see Help:Edit summary.
The edit history view in many wiki implementations will include edit summaries
written by users when submitting changes to a page. Similar to the function of a
log message in a revision control system, an edit summary is a short piece of text
which summarizes and perhaps explains the change, for example "Corrected grammar"
or "Fixed table formatting to not extend past page width". It is not inserted into
the article's main text.

Navigation
Traditionally, wikis offer free navigation between their pages via hypertext links
in page text, rather than requiring users to follow a formal or structured
navigation scheme. Users may also create indexes or table of contents pages,
hierarchical categorization via a taxonomy, or other forms of ad hoc content
organization. Wiki implementations can provide one or more ways to categorize or
tag pages to support the maintenance of such index pages, such as a backlink
feature which displays all pages that link to a given page. Adding categories or
tags to a page makes it easier for other users to find it.

Most wikis allow the titles of pages to be searched amongst, and some offer full
text search of all stored content.

Navigation between wikis

Visualization of the collaborative work in the German wiki project Mathe f�r Nicht-
Freaks
"WikiNode" redirects here. For the app for the Apple iPad, see WikiNodes.
Some wiki communities have established navigational networks between each other
using a system called WikiNodes. A WikiNode is a page on a wiki which describes and
links to other, related wikis. Some wikis operate a structure of neighbors and
delegates, wherein a neighbor wiki is one which discusses similar content or is
otherwise of interest, and a delegate wiki is one which has agreed to have certain
content delegated to it.[14] WikiNode networks act as webrings which may be
navigated from one node to another to find a wiki which addresses a specific
subject.
Linking to and naming pages
The syntax used to create internal hyperlinks varies between wiki implementations.
Beginning with the WikiWikiWeb in 1995, most wikis used camel case to name pages,
[15] which is when words in a phrase are capitalized and the spaces between them
removed. In this system, the phrase "camel case" would be rendered as "CamelCase".
In early wiki engines, when a page was displayed, any instance of a camel case
phrase would be transformed into a link to another page named with the same phrase.

While this system made it easy to link to pages, it had the downside of requiring
pages to be named in a form deviating from standard spelling, and titles of a
single word required abnormally capitalizing one of the letters (e.g. "WiKi"
instead of "Wiki"). Some wiki implementations attempt to improve the display of
camel case page titles and links by reinserting spaces and possibly also reverting
to lower case, but this simplistic method is not able to correctly present titles
of mixed capitalization. For example, "Kingdom of France" as a page title would be
written as "KingdomOfFrance", and displayed as "Kingdom Of France".

To avoid this problem, the syntax of wiki markup gained free links, wherein a term
in natural language could be wrapped in special characters to turn it into a link
without modifying it. The concept was given the name in its first implementation,
in UseModWiki in February 2001.[16] In that implementation, link terms were wrapped
in a double set of square brackets, for example [[Kingdom of France]]. This syntax
was adopted by a number of later wiki engines.

It is typically possible for users of a wiki to create links to pages that do not
yet exist, as a way to invite the creation of those pages. Such links are usually
differentiated visually in some fashion, such as being colored red instead of the
default blue, which was the case in the original WikiWikiWeb, or by appearing as a
question mark next to the linked words.

History
Main article: History of wikis

Wiki Wiki Shuttle at Honolulu International Airport

WikiWikiWeb was the first wiki.[17] Ward Cunningham started developing it in 1994,
and installed it on the Internet domain c2.com on March 25, 1995. Cunningham gave
it the name after remembering a Honolulu International Airport counter employee
telling him to take the "Wiki Wiki Shuttle" bus that runs between the airport's
terminals, later observing that "I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute
for 'quick' and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web."[18][19]

Cunningham's system was inspired by his having used Apple's hypertext software
HyperCard, which allowed users to create interlinked "stacks" of virtual cards.[20]
HyperCard, however, was single-user, and Cunningham was inspired to build upon the
ideas of Vannevar Bush, the inventor of hypertext, by allowing users to "comment on
and change one another's text."[2][21] Cunningham says his goals were to link
together people's experiences to create a new literature to document programming
patterns, and to harness people's natural desire to talk and tell stories with a
technology that would feel comfortable to those not used to "authoring".[20]

Wikipedia became the most famous wiki site[clarification needed], launched in

January 2001 and entering the top ten most popular websites in 2007. In the early
2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in enterprise as collaborative software.
Common uses included project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially
for technical users. Some companies use wikis as their collaborative software and
as a replacement for static intranets, and some schools and universities use wikis
to enhance group learning. On March 15, 2007, the word wiki was listed in the
online Oxford English Dictionary.[22]
Alternative definitions
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the word "wiki" was used to refer to both user-
editable websites and the software that powers them, and the latter definition is
still occasionally in use.[1]

By 2014, Ward Cunningham's thinking on the nature of wikis had evolved, leading him
to write[23] that the word "wiki" should not be used to refer to a single website,
but rather to a mass of user-editable pages or sites so that a single website is
not "a wiki" but "an instance of wiki". In this concept of wiki federation, in
which the same content can be hosted and edited in more than one location in a
manner similar to distributed version control, the idea of a single discrete "wiki"
no longer made sense.[24]

Implementations
See also: List of wiki software
The software which powers a wiki may be implemented as a series of scripts which
operate an existing web server, a standalone application server that runs on one or
more web servers, or in the case of personal wikis, run as a standalone application
on a single computer. Some wikis use flat file databases to store page content,
while others use a relational database,[25] as indexed database access is faster on
large wikis, particularly for searching.

Hosting
See also: Comparison of wiki hosting services
Wikis can also be created on wiki hosting services (also known as wiki farms),
where the server-side software is implemented by the wiki farm owner, and may do so
at no charge in exchange for advertisements being displayed on the wiki's pages.
Some hosting services offer private, password-protected wikis requiring
authentication to access. Free wiki farms generally contain advertising on every
page.