Here at MUO, we’ve covered a number of free Wiki tools you can use to accomplish these tasks. Saikat covered a list of four Wiki tools that you can install locally for when you need the Wiki solution offline. Tina offered 3 online Wiki tools you can use to help with your studying needs. The solution that I’d like to cover today offers what I believe is the best solution – a Wiki tool called Tiki Wiki that you can host on your own web server so that you can decide exactly how it looks and functions, and at the same time you can access your Wiki from anywhere in the world.

Using Your Own Hosted Wiki

Why would you want to host your own Wiki site? That’s an easy question to answer. If you host it, then you own it. You can choose the appearance, manage the users and the content, and you can decide what features are available. This is especially true with the self-hosted Tiki Wiki, which offers far more features than most other Wiki platforms out there.

Also, the beautiful thing about Tiki Wiki is that the setup process is just as easy as installing a self-hosted WordPress blog. Just download the files to your PC, unzip them, and then FTP them up to your web host account under a subdirectory called something like /tiki/.  You run the setup procedure by going to the /tiki/ subdirectory on your site and the installer will automatically open. Just follow the steps, including setting up the database connection (hopefully you’ve already created the MySql database with an admin user that has full permissions.

Once the installation is complete, you have the option to choose from several pre-made profiles, depending on how you choose to use Tiki Wiki. These profiles are basically configurations where a certain segment of features are enabled depending on whether you’re using the Wiki as a collaborative blogging platform, as an internal company portal, or as a public collaborative community.

If you’re not sure exactly what you want to enable and what you don’t, then choosing the manual Administration option is the best way to go. In the Administration area, you’ll find the configuration menus for every feature that is available on Tiki Wiki, including importing RSS feeds, managing comments, managing the wiki pages, and much more. To choose the features you want to enable for your Wiki, just click on “Features“.

Trust me, the first time you look around in here, you’ll be blown away. This isn’t your typical Wiki – the platform extends far beyond simple Wiki pages. You can activate blogs (multiple blogging pages for your users), articles, a file management area, integrated Google Maps, Surveys, Quizzes and a whole lot more.

Another fun section to explore is the “Experimental” area, but keep in mind that these are features still under development, so there could still be bugs. One thing that’s apparent is that Tiki Wiki has an active programmer base – there are so many “add-ons” to choose from!

In my opinion, one of the most unique things about Tiki is that you can integrate Facebook and Twitter right out of the box. You will have to register the domain where you are running Tiki Wiki as a new application for each social network, but once you’re done, your Wiki users will be able to use the connectivity between your Tiki Wiki platform and their social network accounts.

Individual Wiki pages, if that’s what you’re using Tiki for, are very simple to edit. Just use the WYSIWYG editor and you’ll be pumping out multiple pages in no time.

The collaborative spreadsheet area is also pretty cool. This is pretty similar to the Google Docs spreadsheet app where you can share out multiple spreadsheets. Here, anyone can create a shared spreadsheet, and all of them are listed under “Spreadsheets” in the side menu.

Then there’s the useful collaborative calendar (think GTD), which will show up in the menu as well, so long as you’ve enabled the feature in the settings menu.

Unlike many Wiki systems where navigation can feel a little bit complicated, navigating at Tiki is just a matter of clicking on the side menu and then drilling down to where you want to go. If you’re logged into an admin account and click on “Admin“, you’ll see all of the Admin tools available to you.

One last feature I wanted to mention (there are far too many to cover them all in one article) is the RSS feed tool. Using the RSS feed tool, you can have Tiki read and import content from external RSS feeds and bring them into the Wiki environment for all users to read. This is a very cool way to create a news area with news stories that serve the common interests of your Wiki users.

Overall, the ease of installation and the huge variety of available add-on features for Tiki Wiki really make it one of the best self-hosted Wiki platforms I’ve ever seen. The large and active developer base is always a strong bonus.

Give Tiki Wiki a shot on your own server and see if it offers everything you need in a collaborative group environment for your team. Make sure to offer feedback or tips on ways to make use of it in the comments section below.

In light of this, OpenLeaks is set to fill the void left by WikiLeaks. They intend to do this by providing “dedicated and generally free services to whistleblowers and organizations interested in transparency.” The site seeks to create a knowledge base aiming to provide a comprehensive reference to all areas surrounding whistleblowing. Let’s take a look at how they are going about circumventing the WikiLeaks problem.

How is OpenLeaks different from WikiLeaks?

As stated by Ars Technica, OpenLeaks confirmed that it doesn’t plan to publish information itself, but rather help third parties get access to leaked documents, which then would be shown to the public. Third parties would include non-profit and news organizations. Half of these “members” are to be handpicked by the OpenLeaks community, while the other half will be able to go through a public application process of sorts.

The site is not yet fully operational, but they have released a “first draft” video, shown below. It explains the process of leaking and publishing as it will be supported by OpenLeaks, and it visualizes how OpenLeaks works differently from other platforms.

If you have any further questions about what OpenLeaks is or who it’s for, as well as what the legal implications of this type of site are, check out the OpenLeaks FAQ page. There’s a lot of good information there. What do you think of the new OpenLeaks platform?

Source: Ars Technica

But Wikipedia’s not the only project brought to us by Wikimedia. A number of ongoing experiments are offered by the not-for-profit, all aimed at making it easier for human beings to share information. There’s a database of free media, a collection of public domain books and the ultimate quote book, to name a few.

All of these projects represent the Internet at its best: people from all over the world getting together to build something useful for mankind. If you’re not familiar with these tools you’re missing out on a great deal of the web’s inherent awesomeness, so let’s take a look.

Wikimedia Commons: Amazing Collection Of Free Media

I love this one. Mentioned in my post about Image Licenses You Need To Be Familiar With Before Using Someone’s Photos, the Wikimedia Commons is a great place to find royalty-free images, charts, videos and audio recordings of just about anything.

The Commons is more than a great resource for mankind. It’s also the media backend for the entire Wikimedia project, including Wikipedia. It’s the database of pictures that end up in all of Wikimedia’s other projects.

Wikiquotes: Largest Quote Book Ever

You’re pretty sure Stephen Colbert said something clever about the subject of your blog post, but you’re not sure of the exact wording. Check WikiQuotes.

This massive database of quotes cover everyone from Churchhill to Plato to Sun Tzu. Whether you’re looking for a particular anecdote, or just want to read the words of a certain person, WikiQuotes is a great place to check out.

Wikispecies: A Pokedex For Real Things

Every species on earth, indexed. That’s the goal of the wiki species, which acts as a biological counterpart to Wikipedia. You’ll find information about the classification of millions of species, and in most cases a photo. With around 300,000 species indexed there’s certainly a lot of work here to do yet, so if you’re a biologist join in and provide some information!

Wikisource: Massive Library Of Free Books

The slow march of time brings thousands of works into the public domain, and numerous books with open licenses are in production right now. WikiSource serves as a repository for this free information, and a really complete one at that. Similar in a way to Project Gutenburg, WikiSource is a great place to look for some classic literature or for public domain texts.

Wikibooks: User-Generated Textbooks

Free textbooks. That’s the goal of Wikibooks, and it delivers. Featuring over 30,000 English textbooks on subjects ranging from literature to atomic physics, Wikibooks is a huge resource for educators and the self-educated alike. Browse it to brush up on a particular subject, or contribute what you know to help others.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer a collection of Wikipedia articles on a certain subject, check out the Wikipedia community books project for PDF downloads of entire categories.

Wikiversity: Cheaper Than College

Making use of the free textbooks created by the Wikibooks project, Wikiversity aims to create entire courses. This includes everything from homework assignments to lessons to textbooks to supplemental material. This could be a great way to teach yourself about a given subject, but is also a pretty fantastic resource for educators looking for ideas or even an entire curriculum. Courses range from elementary school to university, so just about anyone could benefit.

Wikinews: Journalism, Wiki-style

Why not? Wikinews is a shocking experiment in how quickly a volunteer-only team can keep up a newspaper online. You’ll find up-to-the-minute summaries of the day’s big news stories, and even the occasional exclusive interview. Sure, the language is occasionally clunky, but Wikinews is a remarkably useful way to keep up with current events worldwide.

Is there a service I missed? Highlight it below. Also feel free to share how these projects have benefited you recently.

Wikis serve as collaborative sites and can be very useful if you operate a community or are part of a group of any kind. Wikis bring people with common interests together, and can be centered around anything from movies and video games to recipes and studying. With the right software, anyone can build a site like Wikipedia.

In this article, I am going to show you a few sites that you can use to build your very own Wikipedia-like website. Whether you are looking to join a wiki or build one of your own, you should be able to find what you’re looking for using the resources found here.

MediaWiki

MediaWiki, which we covered previously in the directory, is the best way to go about creating a Wikipedia-like collaboration environment. It is a free software wiki package written in PHP, and utilized by several projects and collaborations.

MediaWiki can accommodate any number of users, from the one-man team to upwards of a few hundred people or more. It has dozens of extensions you can install, configurations like file uploading and skinning, and it can be installed on any hosting provider.

[Note]: Depending on your hosting provider, you might already have MediaWiki functionality built-in and ready to install. Check with your host or find out by searching around on your CPanel.

You can find hundreds of examples of companies utilizing MediaWiki here. Note that I have only point to the English section.

As Daniel pointed out a few years ago, MediaWiki is pretty simple to install. Just download the software, upload it to your server, and configure the application to meet your needs.

Wikia

If you don’t pay for hosting, have your own web server, or are just looking for something a little simpler, Wikia might be for you. As Saikat pointed out in an article last year, Wikia is a wiki farm, meaning that essentially it is a website made up of tons of different wikis.

Here is an example of a Call of Duty wiki that was created with Wikia. You can browse the various types of wikis you can join and create right from the home page.

Whether you’re looking to join one community or several, Wikia will grant you access to them all with a single username and password. If, for some reason, you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can create your own.

Additional Resources

By now you should be in wiki-Heaven. However, if you think the list of suitable wikis stops there you are wrong my friend. If you are looking for something more, you might try Wikispaces or Wikidot. They offer premium features at a price but they both also have a pretty decent free option.

Wikispaces

With a free, basic plan on Wikispaces, you can build one individual wiki (per account) with unlimited users and unlimited pages and messages. You are allocated 2GB of file storage and will have access to all the standard features, including the WYSIWYG editor, image and file upload, simple page linking, widgets, and easy setup.

Wikidot

A free account on Wikidot gets you 5 sites, 300MB of storage on each, unlimited number of pages, custom CSS themes, simple backups, custom domain mapping, and advanced membership roles and permissions. They even have a sandbox that lets you “experiment without consequences”.

If you are not looking for an online wiki and would rather have something smaller/desktop capable, check out Justin’s article on Zim.

For every other piece of wiki software known to man, explore Wikipedia’s massive list of wiki software.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many different ways to create a Wikipedia-like website. Based on your current needs, one of the resources mentioned may better suit you than the others, so it’s important that you do your homework. You can start by joining a few wikis that interest you. If you take part in these online communities, you will begin to realize what you need to do to create an effective one of your own.

What would you need a Wikipedia-like website for? Will you be using any of these resources to create a wiki of your own?

Please leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below. Also, if you found this article useful, try sharing it with the social media buttons below!

As usual, there’s a simple solution for this. There happens to be two great dictionaries online and they’re both wikis (another Internet word). If you aren’t aware, a wiki is a collaborative website which can be directly edited using only a web browser, often by anyone with access to it. But, why would there be two?

In this article, I’m going to cover the Wikipedia Dictionary and Urban Dictionary. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of each and offer a comparison of the two. You’ll soon see just how different two collaborative websites can become.

Wiktionary – The Wikipedia Dictionary

Wiktionary is an online dictionary similar to the very popular Wikipedia encyclopedia. In fact, it is one of the 8 Sister Wikis from Wikipedia We Should Be Aware About. Wiktionary is home to hundred of thousands of articles/entries and is completely editable by the online community. Entries can be viewed in dozens of different languages.

What makes the Wikipedia Dictionary – or Wiktionary (and Wikipedia for that matter) – so unique is how precise it is. You would think that a website in which anyone could alter content would be pretty crazy and entertaining at best, but that isn’t the case here.

Wiktionary, part of Wikimedia, has a strong-willed core group of users known as Wikipedians monitoring the site at all times. These are volunteers that willingly monitor the site to ensure its integrity. Anytime a page is altered with slanderous or inaccurate material it is immediately fixed within seconds or minutes.

With the Wikipedia Dictionary, you can find a definition for most any Internet terminology and slang in Wiktionary, but it isn’t necessarily for that purpose. Definitions are very precise and the appearance of the site is that of an ordinary dictionary. Being able to alter it on-the-fly, however, keeps it up-do-date and extremely accurate.

Urban Dictionary

“Urban Dictionary is the dictionary you wrote.” It is similar to Wiktionary in that it can technically be edited by anyone, but it has one colossal difference.

Urban Dictionary isn’t monitored for accuracy or vulgarity by anyone, at least it seems. In fact, a lot of the content on Urban Dictionary is NSFW (not safe for work). I call it the Freedom of Speech Dictionary.

What’s great about the site is how amazingly accurate it still is. Any word, slang, or term you could think of is probably there, and if it isn’t you’re free to add a definition yourself.

The site gives its viewers the opportunity to vote definitions up or down, which helps the most useful/helpful definitions rise to the top. You can have a lot of fun while viewing Urban Dictionary but still find what you’re looking for.

Looking to start a new saying or meme? Add it to Urban Dictionary.

Wiktionary vs. Urban Dictionary

While both sites generally serve the same purpose, it is amazing how different their governance is.

The Wikipedia Dictionary is popular because it is a credible source and the information is kept neat and accurate. Urban Dictionary is popular because its words/phrases are creatively put together and managed by the community only in the form of votes.

Do both systems work even though they’re different? Yes, they each serve a purpose and should be used as such.

You can find the definition of almost any word or phrase in existence by using these sites in conjunction with one another. They are a reflection of Internet culture and collaborative tools whose reach cannot be measured.

What do you think of the Wikipedia Dictionary and the Urban Dictionary? Can they even really be compared to one another? Hit me with your thoughts and ideas in the comment section below!

Wikipedia is social web at its finest and freest. As Wikipedia co-founder and promoter Jimmy Wales had said long back ““

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”

Wikipedia is also being increasingly used and cited by schools, colleges and scholars. So, let me also ask you here ““ how do you use Wikipedia? Not for what, but how exactly do you browse through it?

The answer is relevant because there are lots of different Wikipedia search engines you can use to tap into the world’s largest encyclopedia. And in lots of ways, it’s more interesting than going to it directly and searching for the information you want.

Wikipedia at 15,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages is an ocean of information. Just like there are different ways to catch a fish, there are also different ways to angle for the information that’s there.

Throw a line in Wikipedia with these ten websites and see if they make browsing Wikipedia more fun, easy or just different.

WikiMindMap

If you are familiar with mindmaps, you will know that they are useful for getting a helicopter view of any topic, especially if it’s a complex one. Some articles in Wikipedia are just that intensive. WikiMindMap brings the diagrammatic relationship of mindmap to Wiki content.

The central topic is in the center and directly related topics linked around it on the first level. Clicking on the text takes you to the Wikipedia entry. Clicking on the green arrows brings you to the next level. There are also links which take you to external resources.

VisWiki

We have covered it earlier when it went by the name of VisualEncyclopedia. Since then, they have added more categories. But the same visually intuitive way to browse and read Wikipedia information has remained. It also has the Wikipedia content followed by a “˜related to’ mindmap diagram. What you might like about VisWiki are the direct links to relevant YouTube, Flickr, Google Maps etc straight from the Wikipedia content you are reading.

Video on Wikipedia

Getting video on Wikipedia can only make it more complete. Wikipedia based Navify was about video links and comments. When I checked, the site seemed to be down. So, that’s why I went on to Video on Wikipedia which is trying to advance the cause of getting videos on Wikipedia. The submissions are forwarded to Wikipedia. All this goes to show that as promised, we will see a lot more articles loaded with videos.

Qwika

Qwika is a Wikipedia search engine straight up. But it not only searches Wikipedia but also other wikis. The homepage says that it searches 21,964,380 articles in 1,158 wikis. Qwika also searches wikis across 12 languages which you can select from the dropdown. The search results from other language wikis are translated to the language chosen in the dropdown. There’s also a Qwika toolbar for Firefox and IE.

Clusty Wikipedia

Clusty is a Wikipedia search engine that groups search results into clusters after it does its meta-search. Clusters helps to organize thousands of search results into more organized groups or topics. Clusty also searches through Wikipedia. You can check out the clusters on the left side of the page. You can expand the clusters by clicking on the little red icon. Clicking on Remix reveals the other submerges topics.

Searching for more search engines? Read 4 Search Engines to Search Wikipedia the Pro Way

Simple English Wikipedia

Simple English Wikipedia is a good resource for less intensive searches. Children, non-English speakers, adults with learning difficulties, and first timers to Wikipedia can give this simpler version of Wikipedia a read. Though the total number of content (59,566) is less than the standard version, the easier uncomplicated usage of words makes it a great introductory tool.

Ten Word Wiki

If you are searching for a Wikipedia app that’s even simpler, go to Tenwordwiki.com. This site helps you to find our facts and meanings in scraps that aren’t lengthier than ten words. You can think of it as the Twitter equivalent of Wikipedia. Tenwordwiki.com shows you that sometimes briefness can also be the soul of information. Sometimes with a pinch of humor.

Here’s a brief description that’s a bit longer than ten words.

Okawix

We have covered this previously, but just to remind you ““ Okawix is a great starting point to download the whole content of Wikipedia, with or without images, so that you can browse it offline. You can download it for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can also choose to go the torrent way. Okawix lets you choose the language among the 253 it supports. The great thing is that you can not only download the 6GB of Wikipedia but also bundle it with its sister sites like Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks etc.

There are four other ways to take Wikipedia offline.

Wikipedia Game

Wikipedia is not only about barrages of hyperlinked information. It can give you a bit of a break in between all your Wikipedia research. You are given a random word at the beginning (e.g. Portmanteau) and a final article as an end goal (e.g. Tokyo). Your job is to go from the first article to the last, clicking as few links as possible. That sounds like it could do something to our fun quotient as well as our intelligence one.

Wikipaths is a similar game based on Wikipedia but as a Greasemonkey Firefox add-on.

Wikimedia Mailing List

Clicking on this Wikipedia link takes you to a list of all public mailing lists that you can subscribe to. The most useful mailing list you can subscribe to lets you get the Wikipedia article of the day, every day in your inbox. You also get mentions of a few selected anniversaries as well as the word of the day from Wiktionary and the Quote Of The Day from Wikiquote.

Think of these ten addresses as different kinds of agents who go about gathering Wikipedia information differently. Dive into our past archives of posts on Wikipedia and you will get a few more. They all show one thing ““ the ocean of information that’s Wikipedia is constant, but the way we navigate through it can change in many ways.

Tell us if you depart from the beaten track while trawling through Wikipedia.

What you’ve perhaps never considered is how useful a personal wiki can be for everyday life. A wiki can act exactly like a to-do list, but with the ability to branch off any complex task to its own page. A wiki can also contain your contact list, detailed information about ongoing projects and any other piece of information you can think of – and do so in an organized manner.

The Zim wiki is an open-source program available for Linux and Windows, and it’s a great way to build a simple desktop wiki. Best of all, it’s named after the single greatest cartoon character in history.

Installation

Installing the Zim wiki is easy. If you’re a Linux user, the program is most likely in your repositories already, so check out your package manager and find the package called “Zim.” Alternatively, you can find links to packages here.

Windows users can find a link to an installer here. Simply run the executable and you’ll install Zim wiki in one easy step.

OSX users can attempt to install Zim, if they want, but it’s not easy. Find instructions here that assume you already know how to use Mac Ports, then cry into your pillow softly when you realize you’ve no idea how to get it working. Recover by looking at cute kittens here, then read more about installing Mac Ports here. I’d help you out myself, but I’m not a Mac user”¦sorry about that.

Start Up Zim Wiki

When you start Zim for the first time you’ll be asked to create a repository. A repository is essentially a folder on your computer containing the text documents that make up your Zim wiki, so decide where you want your folder to be (‘Directory‘).

Pick a name for your new wiki (‘Name‘), then a name for your home page, if you care. You can also pick a custom icon, and tell Zim the folder in which you store most of your documents.

Once you’ve created your wiki you can get started using the program. The home page of your wiki is automatically opened, leaving you free to type whatever you want.

Text editing tools are basic: you can highlight, bold, italicize and underline text as well as pick from six different fonts. But Zim isn’t supposed to be a text editor first and foremost: it’s a way to organize information.

Potential Uses

Let’s say you have a project coming up that’s going to take multiple steps. You could write the entirety of your steps on one page to function as a to-do list, but this is going to be visually overwhelming and might discourage you from getting started. If instead you break your project into sections, and give each of these sections a different page in your wiki, you can focus on the tasks immediately on hand without ever feeling overwhelmed.

Adding a new page to the wiki is easy. Simply type the name of the page you want to create, highlight the name and click the link button on the toolbar (alternatively, you can click “Insert” followed by “Link.” A new page will be created, which you’ll be taken to immediately.

Doing this for all the separate pages you want, you can create a wiki containing all the tasks you need to accomplish for your project. You can even provide direct links to documents and websites pertaining to the project, allowing you to work from one central place that you can edit at will.

If project management isn’t your thing, there’s still a lot of uses out there. I use it as a sort of simple contact management system: it allows me to set up everyone into categories.

Other things I’ve used Zim wiki for in the past include compiling a list of albums I want, a list of terminal lines I need to run regularly or even wireless passwords (though this probably isn’t terribly secure on my part).

Keep It In Sync With Dropbox

If you’ve got more than one computer you’re going to want your wiki to be the same on each computer. The simplest way to achieve this is to use Dropbox, or any other file-syncing program, to keep your wiki identical from one computer to another. I described how to do this in my article 4 Unique and Cool Ways to Use Dropbox.

Conclusion

The Zim wiki is a powerful tool for organization if used properly. What uses can MakeUseOf readers think of for the program? Sharing your ideas helps us all, so go ahead and share your ideas with everyone in the comments below.