12,137 downloads - 22 February 2010

Universal Edit Button

From Universal Edit Button

The Universal Edit Button

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[edit] What is this?

The Universal Edit Button is a green pencil icon in the address bar that indicates a web page is editable. It is similar to the orange "broadcast" RSS icon that indicates there is an RSS feed available.

The universal edit button is available for Firefox (installation notes), Opera and Chrome - (also Wordpress & Drupal) . In time, we expect web browsers will support the Universal Edit Button natively, as they have done for RSS feeds.

[edit] Why the Universal Editing Button matters

The Universal Editing Button (UEB) allows a web surfer to more quickly recognize when a site may be edited. 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.

In these ways, we hope that this button catalyzes the acceleration of the editable web, and helps accelerate society's trend toward building valued common resources.

For more explanation of the Universal Edit Button, you can listen to a podcast by Ward Cunningham (inventor of the wiki), Mark Dilley (AboutUs.org), and Peter Kaminski (SocialText).

[edit] Background

Tim Berners-Lee's initial vision for the web was a read-write medium. Yet as the web matured, very few web sites offered users the ability to write or edit. The web became primarily a "read only" medium. Everyone web surfed but few got to enjoy web editing.

Over the years, wiki practitioners and other edit-friendly folks spread the idea that the web should be editable by anyone at any time. The success of Wikipedia, and the increasing utility of wikis like wikiHow, AboutUs, wikiTravel and Wikia demonstrates that open editing creates high quality information resources. "Read only" sites are increasingly adding the ability for anyone to participate. Wikis appear in enterprise software products and in consumer offerings such as those from net behemoths like Google. As the Internet becomes more editable by the day, web users are becoming more adept and creative in the tools that allow information to be shared.

[edit] History of the Universal Edit Button

Conversations on this idea started at RoCoCo (a RecentChangesCamp) in Montreal 2007, and discussions continued on the AboutUs wiki. At the Palo Alto RCC in 2008, a handful of people explored the idea, got excited with auto-discovery, and helped spread the idea.

Many ideas were suggested and designed by wiki editors for the Universal Edit Button icon, as evidenced in the logo for this wiki. The first icon was selected from a suggestion made by Ward Cunningham at the start of the discussions. Afterwards, a new icon design () was adopted, from a suggestion by Lorenzo Pastrana.

The initial firefox extension was updated by Andreas Gohr, in order to solve some compatibility bugs and adopt the new design.

Our goal is to promote a button that works across platforms (wiki to start with), is independent of any particular language; and is simple, yet evocative of what it means to be able to edit.

For more information or to get involved, please check out the Community Portal

(that page also links to how to implement it on your website, and the Firefox plug-in)

[edit] Sites with Universal Editing Button

[edit] Wikis, Wiki Engines, Wiki Farms

To enable your Wiki or site with the UEB, see the Add The Link page.

Note: Sites using MediaWiki 1.14 software or Wikis hosted at Wikia do not need any changes to work with the UEB.

[edit] edit this list

(roughly in implementation order)

wikiHow the how-to manual that you can edit

Ward's wiki, the Portland Pattern Repository the first wiki

WikiIndex a place to help new wiki folk find wiki communities they are interested in

WikiAngela Angela Beesley's (co-founder of Wikia) wiki

FortWiki documents the historical forts, camps and stations that provided security and protection for the U.S. and Canada

AboutUs an editable guide to the Web organized around domain names

Wikimedia Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, and other Wikimedia Foundation Projects

MediaWiki.org the wiki for the open source MediaWiki software which runs this site and many others

Wiki-Translation.com discussing the impact of the wiki phenomenon on the world of translation

TikiWiki CMS/Groupware a WikiEngine & Content Management System (CMS)

Thief Wiki - The Dark Wiki about the critically-acclaimed Thief video-game series.

Kamelopedia a wiki for the Kamel software

Domain Wiki an editable wiki for domain names

MoinMoin 1.7 a WikiEngine

Oddmuse a WikiEngine

pbwiki.com a WikiEngine and Wiki host, Open Source

PhpWiki a wiki about the PHP programming language

Socialtext a wiki host

ArborWiki a hyperlocal collection of information about Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and other places in Washtenaw County, Michigan

FanHistory a wiki directory about fandom and its history

TWiki.org a wiki engine

wiki.creativecommons.org a wiki about the Creative Commons family of licenses

pageoftext.com a page on pageoftext.com called universal_edit_button

pageofcreole.com a page on pageofcreole.com called universal_edit_button_creole_style

Agree2 a wiki-like repository of Agreement Templates

JSPWiki sandbox an official feature of JSPWiki 2.8

MindTouch Deki Open source collaboration & integration

DokuWiki a wiki engine

Wikidot wiki hosting

Wikispaces wiki host

PBwiki wiki host

Whole Wheat Radio a wiki for Whole Wheat Radio, a grassroots online radio station originating from Talkeetna, Alaska.

SmallBusiness.com the wiki-resource for small business

Confluence an enterprise wiki

LinuxBasics.org an online community that helps people to get LinuxÂ® installed and running

WikiSpielwiese.de using the Plugin for DokuWiki

OpenSocial Directory a free resource for the OpenSocial Community

Wikia a wiki host

IkiWiki a wiki compiler, it converts wiki pages into HTML pages suitable for publishing on a website

Nico Nico Pedia(ãƒ‹ã‚³ãƒ‹ã‚³å¤§ç™¾ç§‘)

XWiki.org both a generic platform for developing collaborative applications using the wiki paradigm and products developed on top of it

Keiki The Free Parenting Guide

Travellerspoint Travel Guide a travelers' guide to the world

ICANNWiki a wiki for the ICANN community

IGI Databank about the IGI video-game series

Comindwork online tools for knowledge-intensive collaboration

Suomencup.net The Definite Guide To Finnish Cup Football

Mahalo.com Human Powered Search

Classic Fantasy & Science Fiction a database of classic fantasy and science fiction stories

Venicewiki.org the city wiki of Venice, Italy

Enciclopedia RomÃ¢niei the wiki of Romania

WikiPlus(ã‚¦ã‚£ã‚ãƒ—ãƒ©ã‚¹) Wiki-based CMS to build a business website

ScribbleWiki wiki host

theDIYpal the home improvement site that anyone can add to or edit

Memory Alpha The canon Star Trek wiki

OpenGuides Collaborative city guide project/software

Elektonik wiki More informations about Elektronik (German)

The Domain Wiki the domain site that anyone can add to or edit

Kisimi An open source wiki system that has a few extra features.

SimpleMenteWiki a place to share and discuss experiences about design of better artifacts for people

de-rec-fahrrad.de A Wiki to share information about anything related to bicycles (technical, daily use etc.)

ApocalypseWiki ApocalypseWiki is based on UseModWiki, and is used by sites on http://apocalypse.rulez.org

WikiAnswers Q&A the wiki way

WebwareWiki The Webware Wiki

Foswiki.org a wiki engine

Rucksack a collaborative organization tool

WikkaWiki a WikiEngine

YourWiki a Wiki host

Theopedia Christian wiki

Reformed Word Christian wiki

Envirowiki Australian environment wiki

Foodista.com The Cooking Encyclopedia Everyone Can Edit

The eArt-wikis, kabo-wikis, obm-wikis, odd-wikis The wikis currently in the wiki-net

Wiki4Games a wiki about all video games

WabiSabi Wiki a fast experimental wiki engine

WhatsYour.Name A Universal List of names and name meanings

BattlestarWiki.org Largest wiki for every incarnation of Battlestar Galactica and its spinoffs

[edit] Other Platforms

[edit] edit list

Weblog WordPress plugin

Message Board Toledo Talk, local message board with wiki features

Comparison charts Narabe, ãªã‚‰ã¹ã¦, user editing comparison charts service. English and Japanese versions

Conference CFP Widget Summit, expose a call for proposals page inside schedule and session listings

CMS framework Midgard CMS

Website host Hatena(ã¯ã¦ãª) - hosting websites widely with wiki-like features, Hatena::Group(ã¯ã¦ãªã‚°ãƒ«ãƒ¼ãƒ—), Hatena::Bookmark(ã¯ã¦ãªãƒ–ãƒƒã‚¯ãƒžãƒ¼ã‚¯), Hatena::Diary(ã¯ã¦ãªãƒ€ã‚¤ã‚¢ãƒªãƒ¼)

Tabulas

Drupal CMS Available in the Admin Links module

SportsPower (part of active.com) Micro-sites for each high school and college football team

LocalHero LocalHero is is a local search pilot/proof of concept. It is not strictly a wiki but a cross between a CMS and a search engine. It implements universal edit for its self hosted content.

Community Calendar Calagator

Applied Stacks Applied Stacks is a structured wiki (/wiki-database) that allows web developers to share what software components, tools, libraries, frameworks, and languages they've used to build specific websites. For an example entry, see website/An Origami Gallery.

eZ Publish eZ Publish is an open source CMS in PHP, sometimes refereed to as an Enterprise CMF because of it high degree of customize-ability and a flexible, xml based content model witch lets you define new content types and define the way they work with templates, workflows and permission system. Support for Universal Edit Button is currently offered as a patch, and will probably be included in future versions: #015162: Add support for universal edit button