"Wikis" are open-author websites that allow a community to enter into a piece of writing, make changes and have them published immediately. WikiWikiWeb, the first site of this nature, was formed in 1995; since that time, wikis have grown immensely popular, the most popular of them all being Wikipedia.org, an open-source online encyclopedia maintained by the non-profit Wikipedia Foundation and contributed to by thousands upon thousands of online authors daily.

Perhaps the greatest reason why wikis have found the popularity they have is their ability to allow a single author to become a part of something much larger than himself or herself, while still having the ability to contribute in meaningful and tangible ways. In their initial stages, wikis can often appear to be aesthetically crude, grammatically flawed, and lacking organization; from my experience, this is often the case when it comes to 'rough draft' work. As time progresses, a community of wiki authors refines the material, offers suggestions to other authors, and eventually produces a single work that is normally well beyond the scope of each of its individual authors. For example, most people wouldn't be able to produce a product like the present-day Wikipedia.org (perhaps the most popular wiki to date), regardless of how much time and how many resources they were given. However, in a few short years, Wikipedia.org has grown to become one of the most comprehensive and widely-used internet resources, with each author in the community knowing that they contributed to this project as a whole, gaining satisfaction in the fact that they were a part of this massive project.

Another important reason for the popularity of a wiki is its anonymity. While the thought of remaining anonymous does next to nothing for some people - myself included - it can be a great reassurance for others. In a wiki environment, you are able to contribute to a larger project without the stigma of opening yourself up to criticism; while your work will still meet with its share of critical review from the wiki community, this is often done in a productive and instructive way. The general public, on the other hand, can be quite a bit harsher; as such, a wiki allows an author to perfect his or her skills at writing without having to open himself or herself up too much on a personal level.

Intellectual integrity and the ability to play redactor to information that you feel is incomplete, inaccurate, or downright intolerable is yet another intense appeal that the wiki presents to its community. The internet has often been criticized as an unreliable resource filled with half-baked opinion and inconsistent thought (most of it suffering from poor spelling to boot). In a wiki environment, especially a large-scale and popular one, a writer can view an article, take note of inappropriate and poorly-written content, and make direct changes. He or she can also contact the person behind the initial entry to make suggestions and open up a dialogue. For those writers whose primary motivation is to educate their public, wikis have proved to be a popular means to not only do that, but to educate their fellow writers as well.

Beyond this, each contributer to a wiki has his or her own reasons for being there. Many of them are different from one another: some simply want a chance to write, others have information they feel should be given to the public, and still others believe passionately in the inherent goodness of open-source technology and the ability for a community to come together and produce an excellent product.

Learn more about this author, Daniel Booy.
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