What's a Wiki?

I thought this was a good article for beginners like me. It explained the basics of the wiki and some of the differences between different wiki sites. I still don't have a clear explanation as to why the author believes online collaboration is better than face-to-face collaboration, but I guess this will be something I explore throughout this semester.

One thing in the article that grabbed my attention was on the top of page 17. It was stated, "Wiki is inheritently democratic -- every user has exactly the same capabilities." That might be true to some degree because design and word processing is extremely simple. But the statement should be reconsidered, because not everyone is comfortable working on computers. Also, the wiki we're using for our class doesn't seem to be compatible with my iBook, so it's not democratic for people who use certain types of computers.