Semantics in Wiki - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 247

file system). Users of such an application are provided with limited control over the
contents of the application; interaction is usually limited to browsing and search.
The representation, computation and presentation components are primarily hosted
on the server and are controlled by Webmasters only.
Other models extend the Conventional Model with extra client-side control over
data and computation. The AJAX Model [ 18 ] uses an AJAX engine to act as a
mediator between the browser and the server and is becoming increasingly popular
due to its powerful client-side computing ability. It improves the user experience
with respect to both data transfer (e.g. asynchronous data retrieval from the server
without interfering with page display) and data presentation. For example, a
powerful word processing system (e.g. Google Docs) can be used within a browser
where the data is actually stored on the Web. It is notable that users may also insert
client-side scripts into Web applications for customised processing.
According to Bao et al. [ 17 ], the Wiki-based Model enables end users to directly
control some data content and presentation on the server side. For example, Wiki-
pedia articles are collaboratively maintained by users, and complex wiki templates
are frequently used to enable advanced page layout (e.g. to render a calendar).
A wiki page may embed external script languages (e.g. JavaScript) for more
advanced tasks.
The SemWiki (Semantic Wiki)-based model enables users' additional control on
the management and consumption of structured data. For example, it is not yet
possible to assert a structured, queryable annotation for an individual wiki page;
nor is it possible to execute a query of “all European countries that have female
government leaders” in Wikipedia. Semantic wiki overcomes these limitations by
extending wikis with the ability to create and query structured annotations using a
relatively simple modelling and querying language. As a result, users can now exert
greater levels of control over the data in an application.

10.4.2 Semantic MediaWiki

MediaWiki is software for running Web-based wikis. It is used to run many of the
most popular wikis in the world. It is written in PHP and is best known for powering
Wikipedia - that helps to search, organise, tag, browse, evaluate and share the
wiki's content.
Semantic MediaWiki was initially created byMarkus Krotzsch, Denny Vrandeˇi´
and Max V olkel and was first released in 2005. Semantic MediaWiki provides an

extension that enables wiki users to semantically annotate wiki pages, based on which
the wiki contents can be browsed, searched and reused in novel ways. Semantic
MediaWiki (SMW) is a semantically enhanced wiki engine that enables users to
annotate the wiki's contents with explicit, machine-readable information [ 15 ].
Typically, Semantic wikis are built upon RDF triples for storing structured data.
Data in a semantic wiki does not need to be stored with a predefined schema as is
required by an RDBMS (although it is possible to do this). This conforms to the

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