Ward Cunningham and co-author Bo Leuf, in their book The Wiki Way: Quick

Collaboration on the Web, described the essence of the Wiki concept as follows:
[citation
needed]
A wiki inites all users to edit an! page or to create new pages within the wiki
Web site, using onl! a plain-anilla Web browser without an! e"tra add-ons#
Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages b! making
page link creation almost intuitiel! eas! and showing whether an intended target
page e"ists or not#
A wiki is not a carefull! crafted site for casual isitors# $nstead, it seeks to inole
the isitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantl!
changes the Web site landscape#
A wiki enables communities to write documents collaboratiel!, using a simple markup
language and a web browser# A single page in a wiki website is referred to as a %wiki
page%, while the entire collection of pages, which are usuall! well interconnected b!
h!perlinks, is %the wiki%# A wiki is essentiall! a database for creating, browsing, and
searching through information# A wiki allows non-linear, eoling, comple" and
networked te"t, argument and interaction#
[&]
A defining characteristic of wiki technolog! is the ease with which pages can be created
and updated# 'enerall!, there is no reiew before modifications are accepted# (an! wikis
are open to alteration b! the general public without re)uiring registration of user
accounts# (an! edits can be made in real-time and appear almost instantl! online# *his
can facilitate abuse of the s!stem# +riate wiki serers re)uire user authentication to edit
pages, and sometimes een to read them#
(aged ,# -amel Boulos, Cito (aramba and .tee Wheeler write that the open wikis
produce a process of .ocial /arwinism# %01nfit0 sentences and sections are ruthlessl!
culled, edited and replaced if the! are not considered 0fit0, which hopefull! results in the
eolution of a higher )ualit! and more releant page# Whilst such openness ma! inite
0andalism0 and the posting of untrue information, this same openness also makes it
possible to rapidl! correct or restore a 0)ualit!0 wiki page#%
[2]
Editing wiki pages