A wiki is a wonderful idea, in essence it's a website that anyone can edit and view. I've used wikis in several projects related to my studies in order to have a common site for storing documents and notes related to our work, and that has worked well and our teachers have appreciated it. So far I've used, tried and looked at four or five wikis, and despite the simple idea behind the wiki, none of them is easy to install, use or customize. Why does it have to be so complicated? I don't know, but I have some ideas on how to make a more usable wiki.

The primary way to store information on computers and digital media today is in text form and the reasons for this are traditional, it's easy to search and store text and it takes up little space. Stepping outside the traditional and limited sign systems of the digital era, allowing users to introduce their own signs, drawings and diagrams, seamlessly with typed text, will emulate the properties of traditional paper based media and add semantic richness to digital content.