Wikis are a type of collaborative website that usually attempts to provide a certain type of information. Of course there's Wikipedia, which attempts to provide information on everything. Wikis, though, are the same in style but differ in scope. That is, if we think of Wikipedia as a general encyclopedia, then Wikis are like subject encyclopedias.
Let's take for example the Wikipedia article on The Lord of the Rings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_rings) and the Lord of the Rings wiki (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). We can see that Wikipedia offers a fairly long article with tons of links to other pages on characters, locations, etc. However the information is organized in a way that caters to a user looking for broad information about Lord of the Rings. The wiki on the other hand has almost 4000 pages just about Lord of the Rings. When you go to the homepage you can see Youtube videos, images, and news along with a more encyclopedic article. There is simply much more depth in the wiki than would be appropriate in Wikipedia.
Just like Wikipedia one must exercise caution when referencing wikis. Perhaps more careful as they can be edited by anyone and are less likely to be checked for accuracy. One of the key features of wikis is the ease with which one can edit them. One does not need to know HTML to edit a wiki and its very easy to link from one article to another.
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