Wiki

⸺ by Charles Iliya Krempeaux

A wiki is a type of digital writing that makes it quick and easy for people to create formatted hyper‐text — i.e., text that is both formatted‐text and hyper‐text.

So there are 3 main properties of a wiki:

it is formatted‐text,
• it is hyper‐text, and
• it is quick and easy for people to create.

(And note that, what we mean by “people” is left ambiguous in this description. Which means that, what is considered quick and easy will depend on who the people are. For example, what is in general considered quick and easy to most random regular people could be different than is considered quick and easy if the people were just software engineers.)

Earlier on (when the word wiki was first being used) a 4th property was also considered a requirement:

the writing and editing experience can be collaborative with people (in a turn-based manner).

But, over time this property seems to have been dropped as a requirement, as there are things that aren't collaborative in this way that are still called wikis.

But once can also talk about a personal-wiki versus a collaborative-wiki.

Formatted‐Text

Formatted‐Text is writing that supports:

bolding text,
• italicizing text,
• coloring text,
• under‐lining text,
• over‐lining text,
• creating sub‐scripts,
• creating super‐scripts,
• sizing text (i.e,. making the font‐size larger or smaller),
• using different fonts with text (include monospaced fonts and proportional fonts),
• creating horizontal rules,
• creating paragraphs,
• creating lists (including nested lists),
• creating block quotations,
• etc.

Hyper‐Text

Hyper‐Text is writing that supports hyper‐links.

Data‐Format versus Software‐Platform

There are 2 main ways of thinking about what is a wiki —

a wiki is a type of data-format, and
• a wiki is a type of software-platform.

To make it so the word wiki isn't ambiguous, we can instead talk about:

a wiki-format, and
• a wiki-platform.

Wiki-Format

There are a number of different wiki formats:

(which is the original wiki-format!),
• ,
• ,
• ,
• ,
• ,
• ,
• etc.

Wiki Etymology

The (English) word wiki is a shortening of the phrase wiki wiki web (which is sometimes written as WikiWikiWeb). The phrase wiki wiki web is derived from the Hawaiian word “wikiwiki” — which means fast, speedy, and quick.

As the story goes — Howard G. Cunningham (who usually goes by “Ward”) was at the Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii. At one point while Ward Cunningham was there, an employee at the Honolulu International Airport told Ward Cunningham to take the wiki wiki shuttle — which is the name of a free shuttle bus available at the Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii. Later when Ward Cunningham was trying to think up a name for software he was creating. He first thought about naming the software quick web, but later decided to call it wiki wiki web — effectively naming it after the wiki wiki shuttle.

(Ward Cunningham created what is considered the first wiki — which he (eventually) called wiki wiki web (or WikiWikiWeb) and was hosted on the Internet‐domain wiki.c2.com. Ward Cunningham is also usually (mainly) credited for the word wiki (also) becoming an English word meaning — a form of quick and easy digital writing that supports formatted‐text and hyper‐text — rather than just meaning quick, fast, switft.)

Interestingly, the Hawaiian word “wikiwiki” is reduplication of the Hawaiian word “wiki

— which means to hurry, to hasten, quick, fast, swift.

Thus, the English word “wiki” is derived from the Hawaiian word “wikiwiki” which itself is derived from the Hawaiian word “wiki”. So, we have come full circle 🙂

The Hawaiian reduplication “wikiwiki” is similar to the English reduplications “go go”, “hurry hurry” and “quickly quickly”.

The English reduplications “quickly quickly” can be see in (some of) the lyrics to the song (meant for babies and very young children) called slowly, slowly creeps the garden snail:

Quickly, quickly, very quickly runs the little mouse.
Quickly, quickly, very quickly round about the house.

For completeness, one should also note another Hawaiian word: “alawiki” — which means hurry, quick, fast.