wiki-page

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A wiki page is a web page known primarily by its name (in contrast to a datetime stamped post) that is editable from web browsers, versioned, and allows browsing version history & past revisions, that has a few IndieWeb examples, and community examples like the IndieWeb wiki and Wikipedia.

A wiki page is different from (and often hosted in addition to) sequential / time-ordered posts, though both the edits and the entire versions from a wiki page's history are sequential and time-stamped.

For IndieWeb efforts, projects, and brainstorms for wiki pages on your own site, see:

Essential Qualities

What makes a page a wiki page beyond just a page?

Essential qualities (of a wiki page as compared to other e.g. static pages). A wiki page is:

  1. editable - the page is editable from web browsers, ideally any web browser, desktop, mobile etc.
  2. versioned - versions of the page are saved/stored, ideally with their own version-specific permalinks, typically with a permalink for each edit as well.
  3. version history - a visible list of revisions
  4. browsable versions - the ability to view past revisions and edits

Additional Qualities

What are other common attributes of wiki pages?

Additional qualities:

  • multi-authored - typical wikis and wiki pages have the ability for multiple authors to edit and change them. However, from an indieweb perspective, multi-authorship is not really an essential quality. E.g. indieweb posts and content authoring solutions are designed primarily for a single author.
  • multi-platform interface - this is kind of a given for any indie *web* solution. A web standards based UI = multiplatform interface.
  • categories / tags - MediaWiki in particular has the ability to "tag" a page with an explicit "Category:" which then turns into a link to a collection to all pages tagged with that Category. hashtags on indieweb post also work that way, and could possibly be re-used for indie wiki pages.
  • templates - MediaWiki in particular has templates you can create and then use inside multiple pages. See template: HTML based template formats for more thinking on how this might work with static HTML pages.
  • backlinks - MediaWiki in particular has the "What links here" feature which you can click and see a list of all the pages that link to the current page. Such a feature could be useful for indieweb posts and wiki pages too - being able to one click see a list of all your pages/posts that link to a particular page or post.
  • user contributions - MediaWiki in particular has a "contributions" page for each user/author that shows the edits that the author has made, to which pages, in reverse chronological order.

IndieWeb Examples

IndieWeb community members that have wikis on their own personal sites:

Chris Aldrich

Chris Aldrich uses MediaWiki on a subdomain of his site at https://wiki.chrisaldrich.net/. He set it up on 2019-03-24, the anniversary of the first wiki. His use is inspired by the article The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral by Mike Caulfield. He uses it as a supplement to his personal website to act as an extension of an online commonplace book.

James

capjamesg runs a small personal wiki on a subdomain of his website. As of December 2021, the wiki is private. James is considering whether some pages that may be useful to others could be made public. These pages would all be featured on a "public index" page that shows all public pages to aid navigation.

Currently, a wiki page on James' site is comprised of:

  • title
  • post content
  • last modified date
  • links to other wiki pages
  • links to edit / delete a post or view the revision history of a page

James' wiki uses Flask for the back-end, jinja2 for front-end templating, and sqlite3 for storage. James has considered using static files but a database has made building out the application quicker so that he can focus more on using the site first.

Previous examples

Amber Case

Amber Case uses MediaWiki for her own wiki at http://wiki.caseorganic.com/ Previously:

Tom Morris

Tom Morris uses MediaWiki for his own wiki at http://wiki.tommorris.org/ since 2013-04-01.

IndieWeb Partials

IndieWeb community members that have some partial work towards a wiki on their personal sites:

Tantek

Tantek Çelik has a redirect on his own domain setup for wiki pages at /w/ since 2010(?), e.g.:

This way he can at least share URLs he owns to his wiki pages, where presumably a future self-hosted wiki will live rather than redirecting to the PBWorks silo.

Martijn van der Ven

Martijn van der Ven uses a wiki for pages that are expected to constantly change. The wiki is hosted on http://wiki.zegnat.net/.

An example is the page on pronouns microformat that evolved during IWC Nürnberg 2017 and got tweaked over several days afterwards.

Hosted Examples

There are also various wiki hosting sites / silos.

IndieWeb Community members that are using a silo (currently) to host their wiki (but likely want to or are trying to move it to their own domain)

Brainstorming

Thoughts on how an IndieWeb wiki could be implemented:

  • In short: Static Pages Plus HTTP Headers

Additional variants of wiki pages:

See Also

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