Questions From Students

This is the WikiHelpDesk especially for students. If you are a student with a WikiWikiWeb-related question, please feel free to ask it here. Click on the "EditText" link at the bottom of this page to write your question in the space below. Someone will be along to help you shortly. As a courtesy, please add the date to your question. It will help us clean up later.

Also, your question might already be answered here or on one of these pages:

Write your questions below.

What about non-wiki technical questions addressed to general WikiZens? Is there a topic for that?

Q I am from Purdue University and doing a research on member satisfaction with online communities. Is there a way to ask Wiki members to answer my online survey? Thank you. -- Svetlana

A Just ask.

2006-12-05

I am currently studying a Masters of Learning Innovation at QUT (Brisbane, Australia), and as part of my Cyberlearning unit, we are preparing a presentation for fellow colleagues of ‘Learners in Cyberspace’. This presentation is on a free access website, and I would like to use the following link as part of the presentation.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors

Can you please confirm if I have your permission to use this link on my presentation?

Thankyou and Regards

-- Talia

Please do. See HowToCiteWiki for further info about this.

Q: Hi - I'm a student at Northwestern University and I'm writing a research paper about wiki communities. I don't know very much about these intriguing phenomena and I'm hoping that there's someone out there who could give me some insight. Please, please, please email me at j-lissner@Northwestern.edu. I would love to learn more about this interesting virtual community. Thank you and please email me at j-lissner@northwestern.edu.

A: Start by reading all the introductory pages on this wiki, and then you can ask more specific questions.

[EditHint: need a list of "all the introductory pages on this wiki"]

Q: I am a student of Informatic, from Brazil. I am studying about wiki now. I don't understand many things. I checked wikipedia, smesh, sourceforge,... I don't understand if I need to install something in my computer to use wiki? If I have to pay for a server? How to start a wiki page? Please, help me!! My email: nochalant@ig.com.br (2004-19-05)

To use a particular wiki, you don't need to install anything -- just a normal web browser on your computer. Free.
To set up your own wiki on one of the free WikiFarms, and use it, you don't need to install anything -- just a normal web browser on your computer. Many are free. A few have a monthly fee.
To set up a customized wiki -- you need to install a WikiEngine on your web server. You can use free software to turn your computer into a WebServer, but (apparently) most people pay for a server (?). See RunningYourOwnWikiFaq.

By the way, somehow your edit added a lot of garbage binary characters to this page, throughout, from top to bottom. See if you can fix that next time (I repaired the damage just now).

Q: Hi - I am also a Student and I am doing a thesis partly about wikis. In my opinion, The best free info about wikis is found on wikis themselves such as this one. But how am I supposed to give references to the material I have used from WikiWikiWeb when it might constantly change? If one of my teachers looks up a quote or a section I have paraphrased from one of your WikiPages, that information may not be the same or it may have been removed altogether when they visit the link to verify the existence of the information I have given in my reference. Then I would get in trouble. To fix this problem then, is there any chance that I would be allowed to indirectly claim the information found here as my own by not giving any references as to where I found it at all? Can you tell me what the WikiWikiWeb's policies are on this? I appreciate any advice. mike. mikeforbes@hotmail.com

A: Your thesis should state that pages here can be changed at any time. Give the url of the page, together with the last updated date. It is then very unlikely you will be penalized.

A2: You might also consider linking to a "old" version of the page (which will not change). Other wiki have a "history" of every version of the page. This C2 wiki does not, but you can get the same affect by giving a link to something like http://web.archive.org/web/20040514090820/http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHelpDesk . -- DavidCary 2005-05-06

(Later) Ah, I learned something new. This C2 wiki *does* keep HistoryPages. -- DavidCary 2005-06-27

However, the HistoryPages on this C2 wiki are only kept for a few days -- so it wouldn't help you. Sorry. But web.archive.org should still work for you. -- DavidCary 2005-07-05

Q: I'm not formally a student, but I do have a tech question for Java experts, of which I am not. What are some recommended ways to use Java to build a DynamicRelational database, or at least a MultiParadigmDatabase? It doesn't have to be high-end, or even ACID, at this point. But index-ability of columns is a must. Thanks. --top

A: Download the RelProject, modify to suit.

Rel is based on the Berkeley DB, from what I gather. Do you have any experience with Berkeley DB, and if so, why do you think it would be well-suited for a dynamic DB engine (as opposed to the common "static" form)?

I'm assuming that by "based on", you mean Rel is an extension of the Berkeley DB. It isn't -- it's a full-fledged multiuser DBMS with associated programming and query language, which the Berkeley DB is not. However, Rel does use the Berkeley DB as part of its storage engine. The Berkeley DB simply provides persistent, transactional, high-performance maps. These can be used as a building block for the storage engine of any kind of DBMS, whether "dynamic" or "static".