How to make a Wiki

Experimenting with creating wikis in Wetpaint

In light of the praxis (i.e. theory and practical mix) that my new media course has been based on this year, I decided to branch out of theoretical blogging and find out how to create a wiki myself.

I figure that open source ideas are supposed to benefit the average someone and I am a someone.  So how easy/difficult is it to contribute and share my own ideas and not just borrow from generous developers?

The main trickiness of the wiki idea is that you need a host of some kind because otherwise it is very unlikely that anyone will ever see your wiki and then there will be no additions or benefits to the information that is put up there.

I found two fairly solid bases for wiki creations; Wetpaint and Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is obviously the most common one and many organizations use it as a host for wikis.  Wikipedia also hosts one of the web’s most extensively contributed-to wikis on the Virginia Tech Massacre.

Wikipedia seems to value contributions by users that have proved themselves to be reliable and valuable which is good if you are looking for reliable information but which makes life a little more difficult if you are trying to break into the wiki creation world. But it is still possible to create your own wiki within the system.

Wetpaint on the other hand makes wiki creation as easy as creating a blog. I went to the main page here.  Then I followed the simple steps to make my very own wiki for the purpose of this blog.

But to be honest, the process seems a little stagnant now.  I could just keep adding to my wiki myself but otherwise I just have to wait until other people stumble upon it and add.

I thought at first that the wiki idea would require the same promotion as a blog.  But have now realised that that isn’t true. Blogs are a place that people can come to and browse and leave again.  But unless someone is looking for the information that your specific wiki provides it can have almost zero stickiness.