What is a wiki, in the end???

Note: this entry has moved.

Is it the format? The idea of collaborative editing? Other features? From the Wikipedia, the definition is:
A wiki is a collaborative collection of interlinked web pages, all of which can be visited and edited by anyone at any time (collaborative software). Ward Cunningham invented the concept and software. You could even edit this page by clicking the "edit" link on the third tab above, or edit only a section by clicking on "[edit]" to its right! If you don't have anything to add or correct on this page and you just want to see how it works, try out the Wikipedia:Sandbox. See also Wikipedia:Editing FAQ and WikiWiki.

So you can see that there's no reference whatesoever to the format.
I know I hate the format (to make a nicely formatted table header with a bold title with a link, just type ||~*[--/?mylink?;-=+]}||... yeah, right.... even worse is that no two engines implement the same formatting rules)

I know we'll something about it.

7 Comments

  • And what's your backend store? The "wiki format" or HTML?

  • Nice picture, but where have i have seen it before ? ;-)

  • I'm just saving my content, including the historical versions, as html -- exactly what FreeTextBox generates. It would be easy to save it to a database though too.

  • I wonder why Perspective does not use FreeTextBox...

  • Good question! But I'm gonna hack it to do so (as an optional plugin) & submit to the author.



    BTW Daniel if you check out its architecture I think you'll like it - it's primarily XML/XSL driven... Its simple right now but with a lot of promise.



    I'm not sure what you guys are planning to do but there are too many Wikis already. Would be nice to see some consolidation of teams with good ideas & implementations.

  • Which one r u talking about Steve?



    Most of .NET-based wikis I've seen are terrible examples of how to create an ASP.NET application and/or look terrible bad and/or are almost impossible to customize for corporate sites neither integrate with their existing sites.

  • Sorry, I see now that my statement could be read in a negative way, but it was actually positive ...



    I didn't mean to say there are a lot of .NET wikis. You're right, there aren't. In fact it was while searching with exactly the criteria you mention (.NET, integrate with existing infrastructure - specifically NT login - customize for our corporation, etc) that I realized the sad state of affairs in the .NET wiki world.



    The problem is that there are so many Wikis /overall/, each of which contains only one truly unique feature that got it some attention, and then a wasteful re-implementation of the common, simple wiki functionality. Some (MediaWiki above all) have very solid functionality. Some have flashy UI, ease of use, etc. Almost none of them are .NET.



    Even as I contribute code to Perspective I do kind of feel that this particular "branch" in the Wiki tree is leading the way in some areas while playing catchup on hundreds of features. It's a frustrating feeling as I believe that you can not create a leading product by catching up all the time ;) [Luckily this is not such a concern for me as if I really were developing a product, because it's "good enough" for me right now and I'm just contributing code to help out and so it will work better for my purposes.]



    I think the next big .NET wiki has to be easily integrated & full-featured out of the box, but also easily extensible by a bunch of .NET hackers to add cool, unique features & therefore "buzz". Otherwise it won't see the growth the way the ugly PHP/Rails/etc. world is seeing - where unlike the NT world, ease of setup/integration is not a concern & "everyone" is a hacker.



    Based on what I've seen of your own work I'd trust you (& team) to do for a Wiki project the same great job you did with MVP XML, if you choose to go the open-source way. My hope is that it would serve to unify .NET wiki developers rather than create "yet another wiki choice". That's what I meant by "would be nice to see some consolidation"



    Anyway as an enterprise architect myself I have more thoughts about this but should probably wait until you reveal more details. Otherwise it could be all a waste of time to offer suggestions for a project you are not working on ;)

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