As much as you may claim to be, or hope to be, all know-ing, chances are good that you're not. But if you combine your knowledge, with my knowledge, with the knowledge of 7,000 or so others around the world, chances are good that we are collectively a whole lot smarter than we are individually. This philosophy is the guiding principle behind the two-year-old online encyclopedia Wikipedia, founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It is now maintained and developed by approximately 7,000 users including 600 established contributors. The Wikipedia is a WikiWiki (meaning "quick" in Hawaiian). Often called "Wiki" for short, a WikiWiki is a collaborative software application that enables Web documents to be authored by a collective. Wikis are known for having strong software support and an active user community. Although similar to Blogs, Wikis are unique because they allow users to edit almost all articles. Ward Cunningham invented and named the Wiki concept, produced the first implementation of a WikiWiki server, and established the original WikiWikiWeb.
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