The KURATOR wiki software
The wiki this web site uses started life as an attempt to minimise maintenance times on small web sites by giving the ability to edit content directly to the site 'owners'. This differs somewhat to the traditional 'wiki' model, which assumes anyone will have the ability to edit the web site content. Whilst there are many examples of open access wikis, moderation and a fundamental ability to control the quality of the web site are pervasive problems that all wikis suffer from.
Some sites are lucky enough to have a large enough altruistic user-base which can revert any edits that are undesirable (
Wikipedia is one example), others rely on obscure or annoying
CAPTCHAs to prevent spambots from posting content. Some wikis close off all access to only subscribed members, offering more of a 'Content Management System' solution than an open-ended wiki. Simpler wikis offer no such access control, and often in these cases, quality control falls into the hands of the individual webmaster, which can become a costly task when severe vandalism occurs.
This wiki, which has become officially known as the
Signwave wiki, offers a halfway solution to this - it allows anyone to edit pages, but they need to know the single agreed password. The theory is that the decentralised nature of the wiki can work productively, and those that want to edit the web site need only make friends with an existing editor to find out the password. A network of friendly editors therefore share a single informal password (along with responsibility for maintaining the content) and the web site flourishes since no single person is accountable for content or changes.
