CoPress

Wikis for news organizations have been a buzzing topic recently as both a means of spreading news and passing down information to future editors. If creating a wiki is your summer plans, you’ll need to use software that meets your needs. 

MediaWiki

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This is perhaps the most well-known wiki software, especially because of its use by Wikipedia. It’s the open source software that is used on the CoPress wiki.

For your readers, this might be the functionality they’re most familiar with on the front end, but the complexity of the back end could intimidate and deter people from contributing.

If you put a helpful guide showing users how to edit the wiki and use the system’s formatting, they might be more likely to contribute. You have to be able to set up a MySQL database for your wiki, but it’s easily done. Setup is straight forward process that only takes a few minutes.

• Price: Free
• Open source
• Requires installation
• Requires database setup
• Anyone can login to edit
• Customizable skins using CSS
• Must learn MediaWiki markup

Download MediaWiki

WordPress Wiki

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If you want the wiki to match the brand of your site rather than the typical wiki look, you can use the WordPress wiki plugin (assuming, of course, that you’re running WordPress).

Editing is straight forward because you edit the pages just like posts, and simply mark the “wiki page” option to designate wiki status.

The catch, though, is that for users to edit a page, an administrator must create a “Wiki Editor” user who has access to the backend of your site. That user is only allowed to edit pages designated as editable by an administrator, but the notion of having many users access the admin end of your site may make you uncomfortable.

• Price: Free
• Upload and activate the plugin
• Does not require database set up
• Only designated users can edit pages
• Minimally customizable
• Updates are easy once a system is established
• May be hard to organize once you start accumulating many pages
• Users can’t create new pages, only edit existing pages

If you do decide to go with this software, it would probably be best to create one account called “WikiEditor” and post the username and password at the bottom of each editable page. Create a separate page or category under which all wiki posts can fall.

Download WP-Wiki plugin

WikiSpaces

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If this is all too complicated, there is a free service that does the hosting for you. WikiSpaces is a simple solution to your wiki woes. All you have to do is sign up for an account.

• Price: Free
• Doesn’t require installation
• Does not require database set up
• Anyone can make an account and edit pages
• Can change colors; must pay to change CSS
• Free version has advertisements

This is the ideal option if you have no idea how to set up a new database or if you want something that feels more intuitive for your users to update. WikiSpaces doesn’t require users to learn complicated formatting language; it uses a clean WYSIWYG editor. The downside is that if you want full control over the look and feel and ads, you have to pay for a pro version.

Sign up for WikiSpaces

Other options

These are by no means the only wiki software out there. These are just the systems with which I have experience. Wikipedia has a full list of wiki software too. If you have any suggestions or experiences, please share.