A wiki is a database-driven web application that provides a project, community, or other organization with a collaborative environment in which many contributors can author, edit, and organize content.
The most prominent example of a wiki would be Wikipedia.org, which is a project sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization responsible for the managing of various wiki projects and developing the MediaWiki software that powers them. Wikipedia is an OpenWeb Encyclopedia that you probably already use at least once a week if not once a day – and if you've never visited Wikipedia in your lifetime, I'd be so surprised that I wouldn't know where to begin. Wikipedia is quite a solid and perhaps overwhelming demonstration of a collaborative environment. However, Wikipedia primarily showcases the function of wikis as encyclopedic works. In practice, wikis can serve a variety of purposes. You can document designs, product/project information, policies, and much more.
In particular, I've used wikis for documenting information for open source software projects, game designing, and existing game documentation. That's hardly scratching the surface, however. Wikis can be useful to commercial and noncommercial organizations alike, and can be internal or external. I've consulted with a few LinkedIn connections of mine on designing, developing, adopting, and implementing internal wikis for government organizations, such as the US Census Bureau.
If you're in search of a medium with which you can quickly and easily produce and store content while maintaining a well-formatted presentation of such content, then a wiki may very well be right for you. You should note however, that if you wish to embark on the journey of getting a wiki adopted and implemented then you must prepare yourself to properly design and maintain a wiki over the course of its short term and long term development. It is my hope that the advice I offer on this blog will assist you in this endeavor.
