A:  In the simplest of terms, a Wiki is a website that enables its users and visitors to author and edit web pages. What distinguishes a Wiki from any other form of user-contributed web content is that, unlike a discussion group or forum, any Wiki may be created and edited by any person at any time. The primary difference between a Wiki, then, and any other website of any kind is that, unlike merely providing content to be read and viewed, it encourages everyone that sees it to participate in its creation and evolution.

It takes no special computer or programming knowledge or any particular set of tools on one's system (beyond an internet connection) to contribute to a Wiki (whether as author or editor or both). All a person needs is included in the design of the Wiki. As Wikis are edited and undergo changes, a record is archived of the history of every page of that Wiki for future reference.

In the widest, most philosophical sense, a Wiki is never actually complete, always evolving, changing, being corrected, expanded, enhanced, and fine-tuned, ever-reaching towards that nearly-attainable goal of information perfection. One website describes a Wiki as "a living collaboration".

The most familiar example of a Wiki to most internet users is Wikipedia, a virtual encyclopedia written by and for the people - literally! Wikipedia has millions of authors and editors, having become among the top 100 sites worldwide, and while the information it contains, much like an encyclopedia, is always being referenced for various forms of research, it is also always undergoing revision.

The origin of the word Wiki, incidentally, is (according Wikipedia itself) the Hawaiian word for "fast" or "quick", though many people mistakenly believe the widespread misconception that it's actually an acronym for "What I Know Is...". The first Wiki software was called WikiWikiWeb and was considered by its developer to be the simplest functional database system possible.

Any website that wishes to foster community - such as social networking and bookmarking sites - can benefit from the power of Wiki. As can any website that has a goal of encouraging and empowering collaboration amongst its visitors and users.

The cPanel Control Panel included with HostPapa web hosting includes two valuable Wikis, both completely free of charge:

TikiWiki (otherwise known as TikiWiki CMS/Groupware) is a content management system written in Open Source, a computer language that allows anyone to alter the code according to his/her needs. A content management system is a set of tools for creating, organizing, modifying, archiving, and deleting information from a site. There are many uses for TikiWiki on any given website, including:

	A blog
	A platform for collaboration with others
	A Knowledgebase
	To track bugs
	An online forum

PHPWiki, similar to TikiWiki, is also a content management system, only it's written not in Open Source, but in the PHP programming language. Essentially, this is software for creating Wikis in PHP.

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