lnettels

How easy will it be to invite others? || Yes, Wikispaces is very easy to set up. all you have to do is enter your name create a screen name, enter your password, and you have a wiki. There are links on your startup page which also guide you through the editing process, etc.
 * || Wikispaces ||  PBWiki  ||
 * < How easy is it to set up?

It is also easy to invite others to participate in the site. You click on "Manage Space" and then click on "Invite People" under the Space Promotion heading. However, you cannot assign permission levels like you can in the PBWiki. || Yes, PBWiki is easy to set up as well. You enter your name, a screename, password, and you are sent on email to confirm your wiki. I like how once you click on that link from your email that a popup tutorial automatically shows to help take you through the basic steps of setting up your wiki.

Yes, it is very easy to invite people to participate. On your front page, there is a widget (?) in the sidebar which allow you to enter people's email addresses to invie them to join. You can also assign them permission levels. I really like how if you click on the "user settings" link you are taken to a page with another link so that you can set up classroom accounts if your students do not have email addresses. ||
 * < Is it WYSIWYG?

Does it have templates?

Automatic Headings?

Comments? || Yes, there is a floating visual editor that allows you to make adjustments to text, make lists, insert links, insert widgets or pictures, etc. I didn't like the table feature though because you cannot edit the size of the table yourself. You have to allow the text to be redistributed as you type. I found this to be a bit annoying (unless I just completely missed this feature on the page.

No, this wiki does not have templates automatically available for you. You have to create your own template.

Yes, there are automatic headings.

No, there is no comments box created at the bottom of the page. || Yes, there is a fixed editor at the top of the posting box which allows you to edit text and insert links and tables. This one did not have a simple insert picture button, which was frustrating. I actually had to go to a help page which gave me the code to be able to insert a picture from another website. I did like how there was a dropdown box in the fixed editor that allows one to change the font.

Yes, when you create a new page there are a variety of templates from you to choose from.

Yes, there are automatic headings.

Yes, a comments box is created and placed at the bottom of the page. || How do authors justify their edits? || Yes, there is a discussion tab listed at the top of the homepage on which you can click. There you can create a topic heading and make a post. It saves your post to a table. You can also mark "monitor this topic" to keep updated on responses that have been made to the post. || No, there is not a discussion page available on this site where you could post the reasons why you edited a page. || After reviewing these two wikis, I think I would personally choose PBWiki. These two different wiki providers offer so many of the same features. What differentiated them for me was the fact that on PBWiki you could make student accounts for those students who do not have email accounts. It also seemed a bit easier to navigate, and I feel that I could keep track of edits and revisions made to the page more easily.
 * < How is page history handled? || On the homepage of this site, there are tabs up at the top. There is a history tab that you can click on, and if you do that, you can bring up a page that shows revisions to the page that have been made in a table. You can also compare two versions of the page by hitting the select button. || On the front page, there is a little link off to the side on the frontpage in the righthand corner that says "Page History." If you lick on it, it takes you to a page with a list of revisions that have been made. They note the date, time, and author. There is also a column to the side of these links which allows you to select two and compare them. ||
 * < Is there a place to talk about the article outside of the article itself?
 * How can you be notified of changes to the pages you contribute to? || There is a "notify me" tab listed on the frontpage of the wiki. If you click on this, you can choose to be notified by email of when there are updates to the page. You can also subscribe to two different rss feeds: one for "page edits" and one for "page discussion." || I spent 10 minutes trying to find out how one could be notified of when the page is updated. I finally found an "About this Wiki" heading at the very bottom of the page which allows one to subscribe to an rss feed. I was not able to find anything on the page that allowed one to be notified by email. ||
 * How will you be able to control page edits? || Pretty easily. You invite the members you want to participate on the page. You can also limit permission by making your page a protected one. By doing this, you allow only members to make edit to the pages. If you do not like an edit that was made, you can click on history, then the link to the version of the page you would like to go back to. From there, you can click on "revert to this version" in the actions row at the top. || On PbWiki, you can assign different user settings to members of your wiki. You can also click on the recent history link on PBWiki, and from there you can click on the link of the version of the page you would like to revert back to and then click on "revert to this version." ||
 * How can teachers see what each student has contributed to the wiki? || In the sidebar to the left, you can check recent activity to see what edits have been made to the page. You can also click on the history page to see what edits have been made. || On PBWiki, there is a widget in the right sidebar which lists the recent activity that has been made to the page. You can also check the history page, and it will list the edits and revisions to the page that have been made. ||

The only downside is that I really despise how they don't have an insert picture button on their text editor. It seems like such a simple feature that most websites include, so I do not understand why PBWiki didn't include it. I am very visual, and I know I would want my kids to include pictures. I would have to have somewhere on the wiki a page with the different cods kids would need to know. Other than that as I have stated before, the features between the two wikis are so similar that it seems as though it is more of a personal preference to choose one over the other.