A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
that indicates whether a web page (most often a wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
) is editable. It is similar to the orange "broadcast" RSS
RSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an aggregator...
A computer icon is a pictogram displayed on a computer screen and used to navigate a computer system or mobile device. The icon itself is a small picture or symbol serving as a quick, intuitive representation of a software tool, function or a data file accessible on the system. It functions as an...
opens the edit window. It was invented by a collaborative team of wiki enthusiasts, including Ward Cunningham
Ward Cunningham
Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and Extreme Programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham , on...
Jack Herrick is an American entrepreneur and wiki enthusiast. His entrepreneurial projects include wikiHow, eHow, Luminescent Technologies, and BigTray.In January 2005, Mr...
, and many others. The concept was first conceived during the 2007 RecentChangesCamp
RecentChangesCamp
RecentChangesCamp is an unconference focused on wikis, that was first held in 2006. It is named after the "recent changes" feature that is found in most wikis...
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
and other programmers, the button was officially launched on June 19, 2008.
Description
The Universal Editing Button (UEB) is intended to enable an internet user to quickly recognize when a site — such as a wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
— may be edited. According to the UEB's creators, "it is a convenience to web surfers who are already inclined to contribute, and an invitation to those who have yet to discover the thrill of building a common resource. As this kind of public editing becomes more commonplace, the button may become regarded as a badge of honor. It serves as an incentive to encourage companies and site developers to add publicly-editable components to their sites, in order to have the UEB displayed for their sites."
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
's initial vision for the web was a read-write medium. However, as the web matured, very few web sites offered users the ability to write or edit. The web became primarily a "read only" medium. In the 2000s, wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s spread the concept that the web could be editable. The success of Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, and the increasing utility of wikis like wikiHow
WikiHow
wikiHow is a web-based and wiki-based community, consisting of an extensive database of how-to guides. wikiHow's mission is to build the world's largest and highest quality how-to manual. The site started as an extension of the already existing eHow website, and has evolved to host over 127,000...
AboutUs.org is a wiki Internet domain directory. It lists websites along with information about their content. As a wiki, AboutUs allows Internet users to add entries or modify information....
Wikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...
demonstrated the possibility that open editing could create usable information resources.
Implementation
The plug-ins on a browser side recognize the specific form of the alternative link specification in HTML fragment:
type="application/x-wiki"
title="Welcome to edit this page!"
href="wiki?edit=myEditLink"/>
The href part tag species the edit page that corresponds with the page being viewed. Every server that is capable and willing to support the user editing can include this fragment and this way enable the button. Hence the button support can be relatively easily added to various web applications if the source code is available. The tag does not put any requirements on the details about the editing session itself and simply brings to the page where the user would also come by clicking on Edit tab (or similar). The button is normally used in the user editable pages, so no maintainer-only credentials should be asked to start a valid editing session. If only registered (logged in) users can edit, the button should bring to the register/login form.
Plug-ins are currently available for Firefox, Opera
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
Epiphany is an open source web browser for the GNOME desktop environment. The browser is a descendant of Galeon, and was created after developer disagreements about Galeon's growing complexity...
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
RecentChangesCamp is an unconference focused on wikis, that was first held in 2006. It is named after the "recent changes" feature that is found in most wikis...
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
AboutUs.org is a wiki Internet domain directory. It lists websites along with information about their content. As a wiki, AboutUs allows Internet users to add entries or modify information....
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
RCC in 2008, a handful of people explored the idea, got excited about the ability to have the button automatically detected by browsers, and helped spread the idea.
Websites
Websites supporting the Universal Edit Button include wikiHow
WikiHow
wikiHow is a web-based and wiki-based community, consisting of an extensive database of how-to guides. wikiHow's mission is to build the world's largest and highest quality how-to manual. The site started as an extension of the already existing eHow website, and has evolved to host over 127,000...
AboutUs.org is a wiki Internet domain directory. It lists websites along with information about their content. As a wiki, AboutUs allows Internet users to add entries or modify information....
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an American non-profit charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida, where it was initially based...
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
DokuWiki is a wiki application aimed at small companies’ documentation needs. DokuWiki is licensed under GPL 2 and written in the programming language PHP. It works on plain text files and thus needs no database. Its syntax is similar to the one used by MediaWiki.-History:DokuWiki was created by...
MoinMoin is a wiki engine implemented in Python, initially based on the PikiPiki wiki engine. The MoinMoin code is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2, or any later version .A number of organizations use MoinMoin to run public wikis,...
Oddmuse is a wiki engine. It is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Oddmuse is based on UseModWiki version 0.92, and many patches published on the UseMod site. The programs have diverged since the fork...
PhpWiki is a web-based wiki software application.It began as a clone of WikiWikiWeb and was the first wiki written in PHP.PhpWiki has been used to edit and format paper books for publication.-History:...
Socialtext Incorporated is a company based in Palo Alto, California that produces enterprise social software, comprising an integrated suite of web-based social software applications including microblogging, user profile, directories, groups, personal dashboards using OpenSocial widgets, and shared...
TWiki is a Perl-based structured wiki application, typically used to run a collaboration platform, knowledge or document management system, a knowledge base, or team portal...
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
Foodista.com is an editable online encyclopedia of culinary information. Foodista is built by both registered community members and anonymous contributors through a structured wiki...
Wikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...
WikkaWiki is a free, lightweight, and standards-compliant wiki engine. Written in PHP, it uses MySQL to store pages. WikkaWiki is a fork of Wakka Wiki to which a number of new features have been added...
Memory Alpha is a wiki that is an encyclopedic reference for topics related to the Star Trek fictional universe. Conceived by Harry Doddema and Dan Carlson in September 2003 and officially launched on December 5 of that year, it uses the wiki model and is hosted by Wikia, Inc. on the MediaWiki...
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
(as a plug-in), and many others. Currently, the project's website lists over 80 other websites that have implemented support for the button.
Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and Extreme Programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham , on...
AboutUs.org is a wiki Internet domain directory. It lists websites along with information about their content. As a wiki, AboutUs allows Internet users to add entries or modify information....
Socialtext Incorporated is a company based in Palo Alto, California that produces enterprise social software, comprising an integrated suite of web-based social software applications including microblogging, user profile, directories, groups, personal dashboards using OpenSocial widgets, and shared...
).
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
) that indicates that there is a web feed
The Universal Editing Button (UEB) is intended to enable an internet user to quickly recognize when a site — such as a wiki