Wikipedia is not Wiki

Sometimes newcomers to the wiki world become a little confused about the word "wiki", especially when their only wiki experience is through Wikipedia. This is understandable, given the various differing-but-related meanings of the word. To end the confusion once and for all (hah!), here is a quick guide.

"wiki" is a generic term with several meanings:

software that allows people to create editable websites (e.g. MediaWiki, UseModWiki)
a website created with such software (e.g. MeatballWiki)
the virtual community which maintains and uses such a website (ditto)
the ideas and philosophy behind such websites

"Wiki" (or "Ward's Wiki") as a proper name refers only to the original wiki created by Ward Cunningham: [1]

"Wikipedia" is the particular project to create a wiki-based encyclopedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/

To further confuse things, some people spell the first term with a capital W: "When starting a Wiki, you first have to choose some Wiki software". While some folks object to this on grammatical grounds, it is fairly common.

Even more confusion: Sometimes you see the term Wiki Wiki or even Wiki Wiki Web

To sum up: each individual language Wikipedia is a wiki, and the Wikipedia project as a whole is a collection of wikis, but you shouldn't say, "I added an article to Wiki today" if you were working on Wikipedia. Ward's Wiki is here.

-- Stephen Gilbert, MyRedDice

See also