Weaving the World Wide Web - The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution - page 238

Fig. 11.26. Tony Hey's personal blog on
e-Science.

online database that could possibly work.” 22 He produced software that allowed
users to interact with the wiki using a web browser. In some ways it is remark-
able that public wikis work at all. For example:

Most people, when they first learn about the wiki concept, assume that a
Web site that can be edited by anybody would soon be rendered useless
by destructive input. It sounds like offering free spray cans next to a grey
concrete wall. The only likely outcome would be ugly graffiti and simple
tagging, and many artistic efforts would not be long lived. Still, it seems to
work very well. 23

Wikis do sometimes get vandalized, but most users abide by the rules cho-
sen collaboratively for the wiki's governance. The most famous wiki of all is,
of course, Wikipedia ( B.11.13 ), the online encyclopedia created by its users. It
sums up its policies and guidelines in five pillars:

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

• Wikipedia has a neutral point of view

• Wikipedia is free content

• Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner

• Wikipedia does not have firm rules

Although it undoubtedly has its faults, Wikipedia is a remarkable collaborative
creation and makes a massive amount of content freely available.
Another important attribute of Web 2.0 is the ability of users to invent
their own tags and to use these to bookmark photos and other material on
the web. For example, Flickr allows users to tag their photos and use these
tags for organizing and searching through their collection. Tagging is also
used by virtual communities to create folksonomies , a grassroots way of clas-
sifying content based on user-generated tags or keywords that annotate and
describe the information. Unlike a traditional hierarchical taxonomy, in a
folksonomy all tags have more or less equal status. Finally, Web 2.0 offers the
capability to create mash-ups , web pages or applications that allow users to
combine data from multiple websites. It is common to make mash-ups with
map data and to overlay different data sets such as houses for sale, the traffic
status, and so on.

B.11.13. Jimmy Wales worked in the
finance industry before starting the
free web encyclopedia Wikipedia in
2001. Time magazine named him in
its list of “The 100 Most Influential
People in the World” in 2006.