The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20020621221535/http://c2.com:80/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory

Wiki History

This is the first ever wiki site, founded in 1995 as an automated supplement to the PortlandPatternRepository! The site was immediately popular within the pattern community, largely due to the newness of the internet and a good slate of InvitedAuthors. The site was, and remains, dedicated to PeopleProjectsAndPatterns.

I created the site and the WikiWikiWeb machinery that operates it. I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for quick and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web. An early page, WikiWikiHyperCard, traces wiki ideas back to a HyperCard stack I wrote in the late 80's. This same stack, by the way, spawned CrcCards. I've reconstructed the WikiDesignPrinciples I applied at the time.

PatrickMueller wrote probably the first WikiWikiClone, choosing the RexxLanguage as a convenient vehicle for a night's work. I soon wrote a version of wiki that could host its own source code and announced WikiWikiGoesPublic. Rather than fold changes back into my editable version, implementers chose to distribute their modifications on their own sites and boast of the many features they had added, accepting raw html being the most common one.

The wiki script behind this site has slowly (like real slow) evolved to meet the needs of a steadily growing community. Landmark changes include (approximate dates) ...

The RecentChanges page leads to a meandering discourse dubbed ThingsOnWikisMind. Those who follow submissions closely are dubbed RecentChangesJunkies. Even without this effect, this site has been known as a definitive site for information on varying subjects (again, approximate dates)...

From the beginning, wiki was intended to index itself. Or, more correctly, wiki visitors were supposed to evolve into VolunteerHousekeepers. This is one reason that RecentChanges has never automatically pruned itself. A variety of indexing innovations have been introduced and maintained by the community.

I occasionally suggest how this site should be used. My GoodStyle suggestions have been here since the beginning and are linked from the edit page should anyone forget. I have done my best to discourage dialog InFavorOfDissertation which offers a better fit to this medium. I've been overruled. I will continue to make small edits to pages for the sake of brevity. -- WardCunningham.

See also WikiReadingHabits, WikiMindWipe, WikiWikiSuggestions, WikiInnovations
Discussion:

2000 wiki itself

The WikiMindWipe, followed by suggestions of the "WikiReductionists", created significant controversy which divided several veteran wiki authors; the disputes have not been fully resolved, but have led to a widespread disgust of WikiOnWiki topics.

A statement by the chief of the Reductionists on this subject in late 2001:

I would submit as a matter not just of historical but current interest that the controversy, the division and the disgust were caused more generally by TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemies. As far as the enemies were concerned these effects, especially the division, were quite deliberate. -- RichardDrake

The NewYorkTimes Sunday Magazine Sunday 9 Dec 2001 did a special on "Important Ideas of the Year" and mentioned the WikiPedia. -- CharlesShapiro

In 1995 I started keeping wiki pages in a directory that let them show up in the disk-usage (du) statistics that I collected about once a year. This table shows when I made the record and the number of 1k blocks consumed by wiki pages on that date. 

	Nov 29  1994: -
	Dec 15  1995: 2426
	Dec  1  1996: 5134
	Dec 31  1997: 10600
	Mar 25  1998: 14554  
	Dec  2  2000: 62919
I have compressed logs around somewhere but can't put my fingers on them. I have located some early mail that indicates wiki went public 3/95.

Judging by the last month or so, the deletion of pages became (to some) a big issue in 2002, two years after it was introduced.

Even though I am wary when confirming a deletion and try to RefactorDontDelete, I am surprised how much cruft wiki collected in its corners.
EditText of this page (last edited May 11, 2002)
FindPage by searching (or browse LikePages or take a VisualTour)
Why