What Is A Wiki

[edit] What is wiki?

A wiki is a special type of website that allows visitors to edit and expand the wealth of its content in a way that is transparent to the community. But it is much more than that, it is a way to work together to build knowledge, things and connections. A fundamental value of wiki is People, People, Technology, People. Did we say, People?

Wikis are structured from the start for participation. Editing a wiki is far simpler than modifying a typical website because doing so does not require HTML skills. Typically, editing a wiki page is just a matter of clicking the edit button on any page top or section header. You can write, or contribute whatever you want, so long as it's constructive and adds to the next reader's experience.

[edit] Background

Ward Cunningham, the inventor of wiki, wanted to be able to quickly and easily share his ideas with colleagues over the internet. He decided to use the term wiki, which is Hawaiian for quick. Ward knew that there would be thousands, maybe millions, of other pages to link to, not just a few dozen. Today, hundreds of thousands of people create wiki pages, whether it be to share information within one's own organization, share information with an organization's clients or to contribute and build content as a consensus, in a matter that is transparent to the given community. The most well known and successful use of wiki technology is Wikipedia.

ICANNWiki was formed to allow people to build and create content and policy that:

1. Fosters communication among those within the ICANN "Community".
2. Allows members of the "Community" to have a say in the content/policy that is created.
3. Allows content/policy to be created in a way that is demanded by those in the ICANN "Community" -- that being TRANSPARENT!