Semantics in Wiki - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 236

customers, processes, and so forth, can be overwhelming and, despite good cate-
gorisation and other navigational tools, being able to search through the pages by
using semantics is an important advancement in the technology. Also, updating
different language versions becomes easier.
This chapter begins with an introduction to Wikis. This is followed by a defini-
tion of a Wiki, Web 2.0 applications and Wiki, and a discussion of the importance
and limitations of Wikis in Sect. 10.2 . In Sect. 10.3 , Semantic Webs are discussed
and their importance is critiqued. In Sect. 10.4 , we provide an overview of the
development of and rationale behind Semantic Web Wikis, followed in Sect. 10.5
by a description of current Semantic Web Wiki applications and in Sect. 10.6 the
direction of future developments. Section 10.7 presents our conclusion.
10.2 Background
A Wiki (fromWikiWiki, meaning “fast” in Hawaiian) is a set of linked Web pages,
created through incremental development by a group of collaborating users, as well
as the software used to manage the set of Web pages. A Wiki:
l Enables Web documents to be authored collectively
l Uses a simple markup scheme
l Does not publish content instantly, once an author submits a page to the Wiki
engine
l Creates new Web pages when users create hyperlinks that point nowhere
AWiki is essentially a collection of Websites connected by hyperlinks [ 1 ]. “Web
2.0” is commonly associated with Web applications that facilitate interactive
information sharing, interoperability, user-centred design and collaboration on the
World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include Web-based communities, hosted
services, Web applications, social networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis,
blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with
other users or to change Website content in contrast to non-interactive Websites
where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to
them [ 2 ]. Web 2.0 is not a new technology; it is the creative use and bundling of
existing technologies for use in new ways.
10.2.1 Social Software
Social software belongs to Web 2.0. In Web 1.0, a few authors of content provide
material for a wide audience of relatively passive readers. Conversely, Web 2.0
allows every user of the Web to use it as a platform to generate, re-purpose and
consume shared content. According to Boyd [ 3 ], there are three characteristics
attributed to social software, namely: