What features are typically provided by wikis?

A wiki is a type of website that allows anyone who can basically use a word processor or send e-mail to develop or to edit content on the site, with no special tools or programming knowledge. Wikis facilitate collaboration among community members. There is often no distinction between an author and a reader of content that is managed on a wiki. Visitors are encouraged to edit content posted by other users' contributions and to create new pages to improve the content of the site.

Typical features provided by a wiki include:

• simple interface permitting anyone with a browser to easily get involved in creating and editing content
• simple text formatting rules
• ease in creating links to other wiki pages
• ease in creating a new page for the site (e.g., by simply referring to the page or selecting a "new page" option)
• ability to view recent changes to a page's content or for comparing two or more states of a page (i.e., the differences) and then to revert content (i.e., a rollback capability) to a prior version, as needed (e.g., to remove errors in data entry, to refine the content, to remove vandalized text, etc.)

Other features may also be provided by a wiki:

• use a backlinks function to view all the pages that link to the page currently displayed
• search the wiki
• ability to register users and restrict editing capabilities
• ability to lock page content from edits
• ability to set access control by page
• discuss offline the changes or proposed changes to a page
• search the wiki use a backlinks function to view all the pages that link to the page currently displayed view recently changed pages