A wiki is a website designed for collaborative editing, letting many people create, update, and organize content directly in a web browser. They emphasize simplicity and openness — pages can be created or modified without special technical skills, and most maintain an edit history so revisions can be reviewed or reverted. Common features - **Collaborative editing:** Numerous contributors can work on pages, sometimes simultaneously. - **Edit history:** Each change is logged with a time and the editor’s name or IP. - **Interlinking:** Links between pages are simple to create, helping build connected content. - **Lightweight markup:** Formatting is usually handled by lightweight markup languages (e.g., WikiText or Markdown). - **Permission settings:** Wikis may allow public editing or restrict changes to registered or authorized users. - **Discussion pages:** Dedicated discussion pages enable contributors to coordinate and discuss content. Typical uses - Community-driven knowledge bases (for example, Wikipedia) - Internal documentation and company knowledge bases - Group writing and collaborative note-taking - School and instructional projects Advantages - **Fast collaboration:** Many people can collaborate and iterate quickly on content. - **Openness:** Edit histories and talk pages reveal how content decisions were made. - **Expandable:** They scale organically as users add more pages and topics. Drawbacks - **Vandalism and false information:** Open contribution can result in deliberate or accidental misinformation. - **Inconsistent quality:** Articles can differ greatly in depth, tone, and reliability. - **Organizational issues:** Without clear governance, content may become fragmented or disputed. Notable example - **Wikipedia** — the largest example, maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation and contributed to by volunteers worldwide.