Wiki is hawaiian and means fast. It looks weird at first, but after you get used to it, it makes things considerably easier.
Here is an introductory link to a page on a different wiki website that explains what a wiki is: Meatball:WhatIsaWiki.
Here is an even quicker introduction (specific to the software on this website):
- Anyone can edit any page and is encouraged to do so. On the page you wish to change, use the "Edit text of this page" link at the bottom.
- Each page keeps a version history for the last two weeks, so don't worry about screwing stuff up; other community members will back out your changes if they don't like them (this is done with the "View other revisions" link).
- RecentChanges lets you see how others are changing or adding to the wiki.
- Words with lots of capitals like UsingWiki are automatically linked to the page named after that word. If there is no such page, a question mark link is created as an invitation to create one.
- Links with a colon in them or surrounded by square brackets (Like:This, or [like this]) go to other, different websites.
If you are wondering why a wiki can work socially, one answer is at WhyWikiWorks.
More advanced usage
- For your name to appear on RecentChanges next to your edits (rather than just your Hostname), just provide a username when you edit the text.
- See TextFormattingRules for a detailed specification of the markup used to make bold text, etc. (you don't need to read through that page, though, since the edit page provides a short help below the editing window).
- Click on the title of any page to see a list of BackLinks; that is, other wiki pages that link to that page.
- We use the BackLinks system to implement categories. To place a page in category X, just put the word "CategoryX" at the bottom of the page. Now, when someone clicks on that, they will be taken to the CategoryX page. Once on that page, they can click on the title to see a list of all pages in CategoryX. For example, this page is in CategoryIntroductionToWiki.
- Many pages here have DocumentMode at the top, mostly without names of contributors, and then ThreadMode at the bottom, with signed comments and perhaps photos. If you see a way for the DocumentMode portion to be re-written to show the new understanding resulting from the ThreadMode at the bottom, please do it and then delete the ThreadMode comments that are made redundant. Contributor names are removed during this process.
CategoryIntroductionToThisWiki
Comments
What does this mean in the first paragraph? It looks weird at first, but after you get used to it, it makes things considerably easier.
Sorry about that. So my question about the first sentence still remains. Wiki the word looks weird or wiki the concept or wiki websites?
No need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong, I was just explaining why I made a copy of this page and changed the category.
I tihnk the first sentence refers to wiki websites. I agree it is awkward and please replace it with something better if you want to.