Wiki
A collection of interlinked pages that anyone with access can edit, named for the Hawaiian word for quick.
A wiki is a body of interlinked pages editable in place. Ward Cunningham built the first in 1995 and named it after the Hawaiian wiki wiki, meaning quick — the point being that editing should be as frictionless as reading.
Two conventions define the form. Free linking: any page may link to any other by name, and a link to a page that does not exist yet is legitimate — it marks something worth writing. Incremental improvement: a page is never finished, and a partial page is better than none.
Those conventions produce a distinctive result. A wiki does not have to be planned. It grows by following links, and its structure emerges from which pages accumulate connections. That makes it the natural form for reference material whose scope is not known in advance.
The trade is the same as its virtue: without curation a wiki accumulates stubs, duplicates under near-identical names, and pages that have quietly gone out of date. The maintenance activities that matter are merging duplicates, keeping naming consistent so links resolve, and pruning what has rotted. See Naming and Documentation Rot.
Personal wikis have become common as a private reference — the same mechanics, one author, and no obligation to be encyclopedic.
See also5
Backlink
The automatically-derived list of pages linking to the current one.
Meaning & Society13 connections
Zettelkasten
A note-taking method built on small single-idea notes linked to one another.
Meaning & Society12 connections
Knowledge Graph
Information modeled as entities and the typed relationships between them.
Meaning & Society17 connections
Markdown
A plain-text formatting syntax designed to be readable as written, now the default for technical writing.
Data & Content11 connections
Collective Action
Coordinated action toward a shared goal, and the free-rider problem that makes it hard.
Meaning & Society23 connections
Related2
Nearby in the graph rather than deliberately chosen. Looser, sometimes surprising.
Linked from12
- Agent MemoryAgents & Language Models
Durable facts stored outside the context window and recalled into later sessions.
- BacklinkMeaning & Society
The automatically-derived list of pages linking to the current one.
- Collective ActionMeaning & Society
Coordinated action toward a shared goal, and the free-rider problem that makes it hard.
- Commons-Based Peer ProductionMeaning & Society
Large-scale production coordinated by modular tasks and volunteer contribution rather than price or hierarchy.
- Cunningham's LawMeaning & Society
The observation that posting a wrong answer online gets a faster correction than asking a question.
- FrontmatterData & Content
A metadata block at the top of a text document, separated from the body by delimiters.
- Knowledge GraphMeaning & Society
Information modeled as entities and the typed relationships between them.
- MarkdownData & Content
A plain-text formatting syntax designed to be readable as written, now the default for technical writing.
- Rent StrikeMeaning & Society
Tenants collectively withholding rent to force negotiation with a landlord or policymaker.
- Spoiler EtiquettePlay & Games
The informal norms communities use to manage narrative disclosure around games still being played.
- Video Game LocalizationPlay & Games
Translating a game plus adapting it for a new market, and the drift that adaptation introduces.
- ZettelkastenMeaning & Society
A note-taking method built on small single-idea notes linked to one another.