easy to use and flexible
PBwiki is an old favourite, which has grown out of a classic wiki edited with markup language. It now has the advantages of a very loyal following and has moved into providing a good WYSIWYG editor. It is especially popular amongst educators. PBwiki has a free plan, which allows you to get a taste but the plan has limited features and you are unlikely to stick with it if you want to stretch your legs. It is difficult to get good information on the features available on PBwiki. The best way is by signing up for the free plan, and then you will be told the advantages of upgrading. To give you a short cut I have compiled the features in this article.
PBwiki provider statement
“A PBwiki is an easy-to-use web page that multiple people can edit. It’s as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich”
PBwiki hosting options
The storage in PBwiki refers to storage of files and attachments on your wiki. Your number of actual wiki pages is not limited in any way. Apart from increasing your storage capacity the better paid plans give you more features all the way up to Platinum.
Free One wiki - 10MB storage - unlimited pages - free
Silver One wiki - 100MB storage - unlimited pages - $9.95 per month
Gold One wiki - 2GB storage - unlimited pages - $24.95 per month
Platinum One wiki - 5GB storage - unlimited pages - $34.95 per month
Domain names
You choose a sub-domain name: www.YrName.PBwiki.com. In the Platinum Plan you can use a custom domain you have registered and your domain name will look like : www.wiki.YrChoice.com
Access to PBwiki wikis
Free PBwikis are either public or private. Wikis are editable only by people you give a password to. A new feature allows people to gain access by registering with the wiki. This is being developed further to give more control over the ‘Who and How’ of access to your PBwiki. Access controls are more flexible in paid plans
PBwiki Security
PBwiki security
PBwiki has limited security options on the free plan but they do get better on paid plans. Spam has been the subject of discussion on the forum and the PBwiki community have not reached agreement on how they want to improve this. Some favour the introduction of CAPTCHA, others require registration before any one can comment on their wikis. I would be surprised if PBwiki does not address this problem soon.
Keeps out spambots - No
Blocks vandals - No, only by required registration
Lockable pages - Yes, in Corporate Plan only
Can review changes to pages - Yes
Can revert to a previous edition of a page - No
Can restore your site from a local back up - You can get a zip backup of all your pages. In paid plans this includes all revisions.
Censored word list - No
Privacy policy - No
Secure information transfer - Platinum Plan only
PBwiki language options
Help is available in a wide range of languages. International characters do not appear to be supported in WYSIWYG mode.
Translations - No
International characters - Not supported
Right to left writing - Not supported
Help language - 26 languages at the last count
Editing a PBwiki wiki
PBwiki has a very good WYSIWYG editor with good handling of text, tables smilies, images and flash. Layout options can be improved by a smidgeon of knowledge of html.
WYSIWYG - Excellent WYSIWYG editor
Markup - Yes
HTML - Yes
CSS - Yes, only on Platinum Plan
Content supported
PBwiki supported content
PBwiki has a wide range of plug-ins, which can easily be inserted into your wiki. So even if you stick with the WYSIWYG editor you will still have a lot of options for content in your wiki including any Google gadget.
Images - Easy upload and insertion of images and slideshows
Flash - Not supported
Audio - Not supported
Video - YouTube
Chat - Yes
Instant messaging - Not supported
Mathematical notations - Yes
RSS reader -
Diagrams - Not supported
Attachments - Yes
Task lists - Not supported
Calendars - Yes
Maps - Not supported
Shopping basket - No
Content restrictions - No
PBwiki is very visitor friendly
This is a very easy wiki to get round and it can easily to be customised to your visitors needs.
Search engine friendly - Keywords and description for your site, control of headers and layout. You can submit your sitemap to google. Place Digg, Del.ici.ous and other tags on your wiki.
Access by mobile - No
Looks match topic - Templates provided, more available on paid plans
Easy to read - Yes
Provider placed Ads - No
Clear navigation - Customisable menu, search, automatic index page
Effective wiki - Yes
Recent activity list - Yes
Wanted pages list - No
Custom template for new pages - Yes
email pages to friends - Yes.
RSS feeds - Yes, all plans but individual pages only on Paid Plans
Easy to make and read comments - Yes
Page history available - Yes
Acceptable use policy - You can require visitors to view this before they are able to edit pages or leave comments
Save as pdf - You can save a page as a .pdf file
PBwiki Management
PBwiki appears to be very well managed. The site has a good solid feel and it has all the site management requirements you are likely to need. Lack of automatic save when you are editing a page does leave you open to risk of losing your work if you lose a connection.
Automatic save - No
Site statistics - Detailed traffic reports but only at wiki level not for individual pages.
email notifications - Yes
Income from Ads - Not supported
Technical support - Yes
Server support 24/7 - Not sure
Stable provider company - Yes
Help and Support
PBwiki users have a great sense of community, especially amongst educators who appear to be very willing to share ideas and tips. Help is very good and PBwiki seems to respond well to any problems or requests.
Loyal wiki community - Yes, very strong
Community forum - Yes, here is where you can find out what’s going on with PBwiki
FAQs - Yes
Help - Yes
PBwiki is a well established wiki provider company with a loyal following. Users have stuck with them from the old Markup days because PBwiki has moved with the times and listened to their users requests for modern features. They have now got a very good WYSIWYG editor and integration with google gadgets is good.
Give it a go, have a taste.
Tagged with: PBwiki • Review • Wiki
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