Wikis and web content management

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/wikis_and_web_content_management.htm]

Wikis are an interesting concept; a wiki is a website that lets users directly edit the content using a simple syntax. Wikipedia is perhaps the most famous, and biggest, wiki around. By letting anyone edit any page, this allows a lot of community feedback. It removes much of the red tape and bottlenecks that slow down other collaborative sites. Of course there are problems – such as vandalism (a malicious user ruins a page), but there are ways around this, such as reverting the page to the previous revision, or giving only certain users access to certain “controversial” pages.

Several developers have made FlexWiki, open-source, ASP.Net-based Wiki. It’s quick to set up, and built in .Net so it’s easy to modify or improve.

An interesting paper explaining the technical issues of Wikis is Mattias Beermann’s Collaborative web content management – Wiki and beyond.