What is a Wiki?

A wiki is one of those websites you go to and you see a button that reads "Edit" somewhere. Some of the more common wikis that you have probably heard of, or maybe even use on a regular basis include Wikipedia and wikiHow. Wikipedia is a wiki dedicated to building the world's largest encyclopedia, and wikiHow is a wiki dedicated to building the world's largest how-to manual. Any website that allows you to edit the contents of the web page is considered a wiki.

Who makes sure that wikis remain accurate?

If anyone can edit the content of a wiki, then how could it possibly remain accurate? You have probably heard that wikis such as Wikipedia can not be used for school projects. However, teachers and professors do not allow students to use wikis because they are uneducated on how a wiki works. Every edit that someone makes to a wiki is reviewed by several volunteers that we choose to call contributors. Every time you click the edit button and make a change, someone will view the edit while they are patrolling the recent changes. If the edit was good and adds to the article, the person viewing the change will leave it, although if it was not a constructive addition, the person will remove your edit.

What about the people that constantly add non-sense?

People that constantly add irrelevant information to a wiki are considered to be vandals. Generally, someone is only referred to as a vandal if they are adding information they know for sure is not going to benefit the wiki in any way. If someone spots a vandal, this person can then be blocked from the wiki. This doesn't mean they are banned from the entire website, although they will not be able to edit or make any more changes to the article.

Who are these administrator people?

Every wiki will have a group of people called administrators, commonly referred to as SYSOPS. An administrator is exactly the same as any other person on the wiki, although they have a few extra powers that a normal contributor would not have. Administrators have the ability to protect pages from editing by others (commonly used to stop people from constantly adding false information), deleting existing pages that don't belong, and blocking other people from contributing to the website.