Explain a wiki to someone in the early 2000s and the response was typically “Wait so anyone can edit any page? Why would you do that?” Wikis as we know them came to life in the mid 90s and went mainstream thanks to Wikipedia‘s launch in January 2001.
A lesser known chapter of wiki history is the prevalence of wikis in organizing community wireless networks. Seattlewireless.net is as far we know was the first cwn project to adopt wikis, launching on the PikiPiki wiki software in June 2000 and migrating to MoinMoin on December 25th 2000. Ease of collaboration led to wikis becoming a tool of choice for many community wireless projects including Personaltelco.net and BCWireless. Personaltelco.net still runs the MoinMoin platform.
Healthy wikis are moderated, maintained and protected by their communities. Seattlewireless.net felt the slashdot effect multiple times in 2000 and 2001. Dealing with vandalism was common during the slashdot effect and the community worked to restore vandalized pages. We even got a phone call letting us know the site was on slashdot and anyone could edit it. The caller left the following voicemail:A voicemail left during one of Seattlewireless.net’s slashdottings.
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