Have you ever wanted to create your own wiki site?

Maybe something like Wikipedia but on a smaller scale?

Hmm....maybe I should start this article off with the definition of what a wiki is:

According to Wikipedia :

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.

"Wiki" (/wiːkiː/) is originally a Hawaiian word for "fast". It has been suggested that "wiki" means "What I Know Is".[4] However, this is a backronym. "Wiki Wiki" is a reduplication of the same word.

Now why would you want to create your own wiki?

How about a central repository to update information on a specific subject. Let's take a real world example. Say you are an international spy organization and you know that your secrets will be safe on the interwebs :)

So you create a wiki and allow all your spies to login and update information on targets, weapons, gadgets and all things spy-related.

Ok, it's not secure and no spy organization in the world is going to use this but you can use it for your next project, party or just for the fluck of it.

A while ago MakeUseOf had a story on How to Install a Wiki on your Website. The article recommends MediaWiki which is a popular open source Wiki software. It's an excellent alternative who want to install a wiki website on their own domain name. The only thing, you need to have some experience with alike tools and be comfortable with modifying config. files.

On the other hand, if you're looking for something simple and straightforward then you can go on over to the WetPaint [Broken URL Removed] web site and sign up. Start by hitting this big green 'go!' button on their home page.

Once you hit the button you will be on your way to setting up your account and having your wiki built for you. Check out the three easy steps.

In the first step we will pick our wiki's name, URL and tell WetPaint a little bit about your wiki's personality.

Then you need to tell Wetpaint who can edit your wiki - registered users, ANYONE (Including the anonymous trolls) or only specific people you choose.

Next we should choose a style for your wiki. There are a bunch more than the few below. There are actually 3 pages of 9 styles.:

After choosing the style, you get to brand your top banner. You can opt to leave it as is and this is what it looks like by default.

You can upload a custom graphic or point to one on the web. Once all that is out of the way it is time to get your WIKI on! Are you ready? Are you excited?? No?

Well what if I said I already set up one at http://asktheadmin.wetpaint.com and YOU can go ahead and edit and play with it to your hearts content! I have opened up edits to anyone and everyone - now go have some fun and play around with it :). Post links to your wetpaint wiki's for us to check out as well.

Leave us some notes in the comments on how much you love or hate this service. Do you use something similar? Put us on!