I understand that, in theory, a community wiki exists. I also understand that the term "wiki" may have a somewhat fluid definition. None-the-less, I'm thinking that questions like this would be really great to alter somewhat and include on a wiki of the Wikipedia-style-wiki.

If such a thing exists, I cannot find it. I know this is a noob question, but

  1. Where is the wiki?
  2. Is it a Wikipedia-style wiki, or what sort of wiki are we talking about here?

Bonus question: How the heck do you access the chat?

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    ↓ Down there in the footer is a link to the chat – Rizier123 Nov 23 '15 at 20:58
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    A community wiki is a post that is able to be maintained by community with less work and does not provide reputation gains to the author. It is not intended to create broad open ended questions like the one you linked. Here is the help center article on it. stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/community-wiki – Joe W Nov 23 '15 at 20:59
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    Is it possible to access all wiki questions somewhere? – NotAnAmbiTurner Nov 23 '15 at 21:00
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    Community Wiki on stackoverflow is really just a question that can be edited by a larger number of users. It isn't a separate portion of the site, and questions still have to follow the rules. – Kevin B Nov 23 '15 at 21:03
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    @KevinB Well... that's a misleading term. Thanks for the answer! (if you wanted to make that an answer, I would choose it). – NotAnAmbiTurner Nov 23 '15 at 21:08
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    @NotAnAmbiTurner How is it misleading at all? Something being a wiki implied how it's edited, not what that content is. That's not an unusual interpretation. – Servy Nov 23 '15 at 22:19
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    @Servy I dunno, I just googled define wiki and it said "a website that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by its users." Emphasis on the "and structure." – NotAnAmbiTurner Nov 24 '15 at 7:30
  • @NotAnAmbiTurner And that applies here, just within the content of a single post, rather than an entire site. – Servy Nov 24 '15 at 13:36
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    @Servy I'm not so sure about that, it kind of seems to me that editing the "structure" of a post isn't sufficient to make bring it within the definition of a wiki. But really, who cares? It is what it is. The point is that there is no wikimedia-type-wiki. – NotAnAmbiTurner Nov 24 '15 at 17:40
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    @Servy: the term is misleading because it isn't a separate site or tree (e.g. wiki.stackoverflow.com), only a category of question and answer, mixed in with the others. Every other wiki I've ever seen was. Personally I would have called it "community-editable question/answer" – smci Mar 15 '20 at 4:38
  • @smci All answers on the site are community editable. A community wiki answer simply has more lax requirements on what type of edits are allowed and lower requirements on making them without review. But all posts still allow certain types of editing. – Servy Mar 15 '20 at 15:22

Community Wiki on Stack Overflow is really just a question or answer that can be edited by a larger number of users. It isn't a separate portion of the site, and they still have to follow the rules.

The question you linked to wouldn't be a very good candidate for a community wiki.


(this answer is a community wiki)

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    Should also note that a Community Wiki don't give/take rep when it's up/down voted – Memor-X Nov 23 '15 at 22:20
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    Thought about adding that, but concluded it wasn't important to the question. – Kevin B Nov 23 '15 at 22:26
  • @Memor-X: no rep for the one who adds the answer and marks it as wiki or no rep for the ones who edit it afterwards? – Crick3t Feb 6 '19 at 9:48
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    @Crick3t Neither. I don't remember if the OP gets to keep any rep they had gained from the post before it was made wiki. – Lundin Mar 4 '19 at 14:52
  • @KevinB, I think it's very important that people don't get reputation anymore for cw questions, and this is the worst part actually. By the way, I never edited my answer, not even once, but still my answer converted to cw. Now I can't gain repution. If my answer never updated, then why I'm not gaining reputation when people upvote it? I would vote for stopping this future (cw questions/answers) actually. Can we make voting for stopping this future? Preventing the author from reputation is not the right solution, there must be better solution for that. – Scott Dec 31 '20 at 3:13

A control exists under the answer editor that allows to post an answer as a community wiki directly:

community wiki checkbox

For example, when this answer was posted that checkbox was checked, which means this is now a community wiky, editable by the community at large.

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    Upvote for the freehand circle :) – Gourav Mar 4 '19 at 15:49
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    How to make a question community wiki? – user541396 Jun 29 '19 at 10:22
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    @user541396 Become a moderator. – Servy Mar 15 '20 at 15:23
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    @Servy I found that the privilege to make an answer community wiki "Awarded at: 10 reputation" stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/community-wiki Where did you find about making the question community wiki? – Yaroslav Nikitenko Apr 8 '20 at 12:33
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    @YaroslavNikitenko You could...read the comment I posted stating the answer? That's kinda all there is to it, really. – Servy Apr 9 '20 at 2:01
  • @Servy which answer do you mean? I was wondering about community question, not answer. – Yaroslav Nikitenko Apr 9 '20 at 8:40
  • @YaroslavNikitenko meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/310947/… – Servy Apr 9 '20 at 16:38
  • @Servy this comment I read (otherwise I wouldn't ask), but didn't think that is a definite reference. – Yaroslav Nikitenko Apr 10 '20 at 11:31
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    @YaroslavNikitenko If you don't want to believe me then that's your choice. You have my answer, what you want to do with it is up to yo. – Servy Apr 10 '20 at 21:56

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