About Wikis

A wiki is a Web technology that allows anybody to change the content of a Web page without the use of special web writing software.  Wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning “fast,” and was adopted to name the technology because of the fast nature that web content could be collaborated on and updated without the more time consuming process of creating separate web pages and uploading those pages to a server.  One of the more popular Wiki applications is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.  Wikis are designed to allow collaborative writing and presentation rather than individual commentary and response.  A wiki entry or node, is updated and presented immediately as the content of a website.  Whatever was written at a particular node before it was edited is deleted and the new content replaces it.  In some ways, a wiki is more temporary than any other type of multimodal writing because everybody has access to changing it.

How to CREATE a Wiki page

1.  You can create a wiki page by selecting "Create Content" on the main menu under your logon.  Next, select Wiki.

2.  You will be presented with a Title box and an Input box.  Enter a title that is descriptive of your content and then enter any information you want.  When it is ready to post to the web, select Save at the bottom of the page (or you can preview first if you want to see what it will look like).

3.  IMPORTANT.  Once you have saved your wikipage, you need to remember the URL (the web address in the top bar of your browser) so others can see your content.  Copy your URL.  Next, return to the Wiki Main Page (using the Primary Links menu).  Next, follow the directions for EDITING a Wiki.

How to EDIT a Wiki page

1.  You can edit any wiki page, including the main page, and your edits will immediately replace what was there before.  If you would like to make a change to any wiki page, go to that page and select EDIT from the menu system that appears in the middle column of the page.  

2.  In EDIT mode, you will see the title and the text entry box with the previous wiki's contents in it.  Make whatever changes you want just as you did before.  The only rule is to NOT change the Main Page title.

3.  If adding a new page and then adding a link to that page on the Main Page, do the following.  Under the Wiki Pages Menu, write out the Title of your new page, highlight it, then select the icon of the world with the chain-link on it from the text-entry-mini-menu.  A box will come up, so enter the link you want (it will probably look something like: writ1133.richardcolby.net/node/32). 

Responsible wiki use

Be kind to work that others have posted and only revise it when you have the person's permission or you are changing information that is about you.