Cassie+Lawson

**Wiki Article**
Before this author has delved into the realm of wiki, all she knew was the popular Wikipedia. She had never posted to a wiki or considered its value. So let's start the evaluation with the COMET-touted WikiSpaces.

WikiSpaces offers a very quick and easy sign-up process. This is a signal of things to come from this site. The site is remarkably user-friendly with a clean page design and helpful links. The user is not overwhelmed with tons of distracting buttons and tabs. This is excellent for a first-time wiki author or anyone who enjoys diversion-free editing. As far as editing goes, it is pretty much what you see, what you get (Except the space where I am typing now has larger margins than the viewable page does. Does that still count as WYSIWYG?). The History tab on the editing screen is helpful when wanting so see who has editing what and when. There is even a Discussion tab so users can deliberate over an edit without having to publish it. And the Notify Me tab is an easy way to set up notifications of when changes are made on the pages. As far as templates and layout design, WikiSpaces has some basic options if you do not want to pay, with more exciting and ad-free options if you're willing to open up your wallet. The security also has some options for a fee, but the other options are fine for free. If you want to keep it private, you probably should not have it on the internet. And finally, to monitor what students are contributing to the site, simply click on the Recent Changes to link. Easy peasy!

In the other corner, we have PBWiki. PBWiki is also super-quick to set up. You can add additional contributors to be approved to access your wiki. For a new wiki user, PBWiki is slightly more intimidating looking. There are lots of tabs and links on the right-hand side, and you may need to take time to explore these or look at the day-by-day guides to help you properly set your wiki. And like WikiSpaces, PBWiki offers WYSIWYG, another great plus for novice users. There are also great ways to organize the content of your wiki, with sidebars and tabs. Neat! PB also has templates and customizable pages. There is a Page History button to view changes and by whom, and a handy Delete button to swiftly remove unwanted edits. There is also a feature to compare edits. For discussion, PB has a comment box below the text for users to explain and argue content. To get notification of changes, it is really simple -- go to Settings and decide who gets what. The Page Security button allows you to adjust who gets to do what, along with a Customizable Security feature. To view statistics of contributors, you will need to pay.