Dear Nina and others,

'Wiki' is a term for a special sort of website. The name comes from
'wikiwiki', a Hawiian term meaning 'quick' or 'super fast'. The idea
of a Wiki is to avoid the 'bottleneck' of a single webmaster by
allowing anyone who is a member of a website (or in some cases, anyone
at all) to edit the documents that are stored there. These sorts of
systems are often referred to as 'collaborative content', because the
idea is that all the members of a community will work together to
improve the site content.

There are several different software packages- many of them free- that
will let you run a Wiki site, with names like Twiki, MoinMoin and
Wikimedia. They are variations on the same basic idea, the way that
Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and Notepad are all variations on the
idea of a word processor. Some have more features than others, or run
on different types of computer systems, but all of them provide the
same basic functions: a way to create, edit, and organize documents,
and some way to track or store changes.

To provide a specific example related to our ideas for a Pali Wiki:
I might write a small article describing how to write Pali using the
Velthius encoding scheme, providing links to a couple of websites that
discuss the system. Later, perhaps someone will decide that there
should be a more complete description of the system. Rather than
asking me to change the document, and then waiting until I have time
to do so, that person can just make the change themselves. If someone
spots an error in the text, they can quickly edit the document without
having to wait for me, or whoever wrote the addition to the document.
The Wiki system gives everyone who is a user of the site the same
access to a document that the initial author has, removing them as a
bottleneck for making updates or corrections.

This Wikipedia article provides a more in-depth explanation of what a Wiki is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Hope this is helpful,
Clay Collier

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:16:46 +0100, Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@...> wrote:
> Dear Yong Peng,
>
> op 20-01-2005 03:24 schreef Ong Yong Peng op ypong001@...:
>
> > The only problem is va.n.na.m is in singular.
> N: I saw it in the singular in a sutta. To speak praise means: to praise.
> I have another question. Could you or someone else give a definition of
> wicky to an atechnical person who does not know much about software? I went
> to the wicky site several times, but did not understand what it is.
> Nina.
>
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> [Homepage] http://www.tipitaka.net
> [Send Message] pali@yahoogroups.com
> Paaliga.na - a community for Pali students
> Yahoo! Groups members can set their delivery options to daily digest or web
> only.
>
>
> ________________________________
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> Pali-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.