what is wiki

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
http://www.xomba.com/cat_breeds

Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.
http://catlifespan.ohlog.com/common-cat-disease.oh59308.html

Like many simple concepts, “open editing” has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.
http://users.search-o-rama.com/Article324233.htm

WikiWikiWeb was the first site to be called a wiki. Ward Cunningham started developing WikiWikiWeb in 1994, and installed it on the Internet domain c2.com on March 25, 1995. It was named by Cunningham, who remembered a Honolulu International Airport counter employee telling him to take the “Wiki Wiki” shuttle bus that runs between the airport’s terminals. According to Cunningham, “I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for ‘quick’ and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web.”
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/User:Msary80

Cunningham was in part inspired by Apple’s HyperCard. Apple had designed a system allowing users to create virtual “card stacks” supporting links among the various cards. Cunningham developed Vannevar Bush’s ideas by allowing users to “comment on and change one another’s text”. In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in enterprise as collaborative software. Common uses included project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially for technical users. Today some companies use wikis as their only collaborative software and as a replacement for static intranets, and some schools and universities use wikis to enhance group learning. There may be greater use of wikis behind firewalls than on the public Internet.