4 ms·

I think "visitors/users can edit" (not just the site admin) is also an essential part of the definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki https://en.wikipedi

I think "visitors/users can edit" (not just the site admin) is also an essential part of the definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wiki https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wiki

dexwiz 3y ago
A self hosted editor is the key component.
setr 3y ago
Given the number of “personal wiki” applications that exist, and the conceptual viability of it (a Wikipedia-like maintained by a single person for solely their own usage — a wiki representing their own knowledge base — is perfectly sensible), I find this definition to be excessively constrained. And from that webster’s definition, roughly any site with user comments can be called a wiki. If you change the OR to an AND, the only thing stopping HN from being a wiki is the “corrections” component — which definitely does not correctly capture the difference between the two. Wikipedia’s definition is also awkwardly constrained — hypertext and web browsers are obviously just an artifact of current implementations; if you managed it through markdown files and an app, does it seize to be a wiki? Is an offline read-only dump of Wikipedia passed around on a USB by bicycle no longer a wiki?
- cxr 3y ago
  > Given the number of “personal wiki” applications that exist [...] Wikipedia’s definition is also awkwardly constrained It's neither awkward nor overly constrained. It's just defining what a wiki actually is. I find the questions at the end of your comment strange; they have correct answers that you'd probably find surprising, given the fact that you're asking in a way that suggests you think constitutes a sound argument for your side. For example, your last one: > Is an offline read-only dump of Wikipedia passed around on a USB by bicycle no longer a wiki? Uh, yes? Wikipedia remains a wiki, certainly. Your offline dump of it is not. What you have there is an encyclopedia. And that exemplifies what's really at issue. The word "wiki" being thrown around inappropriately is the product of shallow thinking about wikis, encyclopedias, and the relationship between the two. People who are in the audience for the tools described here and that you are talking about are simply not talking about wikis. These people are not building a personal wiki—they're building a personal encyclopedia. That's what they're doing. An "encyclopedia of me". But because of a failure to grok how portmanteaus work and likely their only exposure to wikis being through Wikipedia, they have a debased understanding of what the "wiki" part of Wikipedia denotes. (Or perhaps they just think "wiki" sounds cooler than the far less hip suffix -pedia, and so they have contorted their thinking and their arguments around trying to defend saying one instead of the other at the expense of the rest of the world—the "I missed my turn, but that's okay, I'll just make everyone around me pay for it"-style of thinking.) It's like if you lived your whole life in a part of the world where iced coffee isn't consumed (and other types of coffee only rarely), then when it's introduced to your people it's to great fanfare, and for no good reason a subset of your countrymen start calling all sorts of unrelated things "ice", whether ice is involved or not. Their sole motivation? The thing they're referring to is a coffee product. So someone asks, "Have you checked out the ice?" — at a diner where the only type of coffee comes poured from a pot of the hot stuff. "We're really getting into icemaking" — after having just bought a new countertop espresso machine. "I got some ice candies from Barter Jack's" — referring to chocolate-covered coffee beans. > does it seize to be [...]? The correct word is "cease", but I suppose you'd argue that that's overly prescriptive and a constraint that needs changing, too.

dexwiz 3y ago

A self hosted editor is the key component.

setr 3y ago

Given the number of “personal wiki” applications that exist, and the conceptual viability of it (a Wikipedia-like maintained by a single person for solely their own usage — a wiki representing their own knowledge base — is perfectly sensible), I find this definition to be excessively constrained. And from that webster’s definition, roughly any site with user comments can be called a wiki. If you change the OR to an AND, the only thing stopping HN from being a wiki is the “corrections” component — which definitely does not correctly capture the difference between the two. Wikipedia’s definition is also awkwardly constrained — hypertext and web browsers are obviously just an artifact of current implementations; if you managed it through markdown files and an app, does it seize to be a wiki? Is an offline read-only dump of Wikipedia passed around on a USB by bicycle no longer a wiki?

cxr 3y ago
> Given the number of “personal wiki” applications that exist [...] Wikipedia’s definition is also awkwardly constrained It's neither awkward nor overly constrained. It's just defining what a wiki actually is. I find the questions at the end of your comment strange; they have correct answers that you'd probably find surprising, given the fact that you're asking in a way that suggests you think constitutes a sound argument for your side. For example, your last one: > Is an offline read-only dump of Wikipedia passed around on a USB by bicycle no longer a wiki? Uh, yes? Wikipedia remains a wiki, certainly. Your offline dump of it is not. What you have there is an encyclopedia. And that exemplifies what's really at issue. The word "wiki" being thrown around inappropriately is the product of shallow thinking about wikis, encyclopedias, and the relationship between the two. People who are in the audience for the tools described here and that you are talking about are simply not talking about wikis. These people are not building a personal wiki—they're building a personal encyclopedia. That's what they're doing. An "encyclopedia of me". But because of a failure to grok how portmanteaus work and likely their only exposure to wikis being through Wikipedia, they have a debased understanding of what the "wiki" part of Wikipedia denotes. (Or perhaps they just think "wiki" sounds cooler than the far less hip suffix -pedia, and so they have contorted their thinking and their arguments around trying to defend saying one instead of the other at the expense of the rest of the world—the "I missed my turn, but that's okay, I'll just make everyone around me pay for it"-style of thinking.) It's like if you lived your whole life in a part of the world where iced coffee isn't consumed (and other types of coffee only rarely), then when it's introduced to your people it's to great fanfare, and for no good reason a subset of your countrymen start calling all sorts of unrelated things "ice", whether ice is involved or not. Their sole motivation? The thing they're referring to is a coffee product. So someone asks, "Have you checked out the ice?" — at a diner where the only type of coffee comes poured from a pot of the hot stuff. "We're really getting into icemaking" — after having just bought a new countertop espresso machine. "I got some ice candies from Barter Jack's" — referring to chocolate-covered coffee beans. > does it seize to be [...]? The correct word is "cease", but I suppose you'd argue that that's overly prescriptive and a constraint that needs changing, too.