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Around 20 wiki providers have united to provide a new Firefox extension that will alert users whenever they are on a page which is publicly amendable. This can be done using a standard icon which lies at the same place where RSS autodiscovery icon is. You just have to click the icon (containing image of pencil) in order to access the page’s editing interface.

This innovative idea is good and will help bring new life to the Wiki community. If it works out fine, it may become a standard part of Firefox.

Beginning from Ward Cunningham’s very first wiki built to Wikipedia and a number of other Wiki software installations, the support for the initiative is pretty wide. Work is under process by other Wikis on full support. Right now SocialText sites oblige users to login, in order to see the button. On the other hand the fast flourishing DeWiki software and WordPress will support the extension in the coming days.

According to the group:

(Universal Edit Button) will be 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.

Furthermore they said:

As this kind of public editing becomes more commonplace, the button may become regarded as a badge of honour. It may serve 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. We hope that this button catalyzes the acceleration of the editable web, and helps accelerate society’s trend toward building valued common resources.

The idea is good but its not great. There are a lot of other icons in the browser toolbar, like the RSS, which are not usually noticed by the users, so there is no guarantee that people are going to notice the Universal Edit Button. The most inspiring thing is seeing different Wiki providers come together to work on a single standard.