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Wikis have been made famous by our friends at Wikipedia — the free, collaborative encyclopedia.
Wiki software was invented by a generous and unassuming man named Ward Cunningham in 1994. He named it after the Hawaiian word for quick (wiki wiki).
Wiki webpages are designed to be quickly and easily edited by their users. With a few clicks of your mouse you can be contributing to a page.
Biographies and descriptions on profile pages are wiki. They can quickly and easily be written, expanded upon, and corrected by anyone on the Trusted List.
More generally, all the information on profiles — names, dates, family relationships, information about photographs — is collaborative. Everything is contributed by family & friends, tracked through the Activity Feeds, and can be corrected and expanded upon at any time.
A key element of wikis is what's called "version history". All changes are carefully recorded so that you can see who changed what and when the changes were made.
On WikiTree you're alerted to changes in your family pages through your Activity Feed.
Vandals can do temporary damage but their vandalism can easily be fixed. Repeat offenders can be blocked.
No. WikiTree is not a completely open wiki. It's a uniquely balanced system.
First, almost all information about living people or people with living nuclear relatives is protected. It can't even be seen by anyone other than those on the Trusted List.
Information about your unprotected ancestors and profiles of places and things that you don't choose to protect are visible to the public (for the sake of world history) but they're still not open for anyone to edit. Only those on the Trusted List can edit a profile.
This page was last modified 10:44, 24 August 2010. This page has been accessed 4,212 times.