Wiki systems are a powerful tool for collaborative working. They allow to manage a version history, provide user accounts and makes it easy to use the wiki syntax to format text. During the upraising of the first wiki systems the technology was understand from a technical perspective. Computer experts have discussed which kind of linux server is a good choice for hosting a wiki software, and how to improve the efficiency of the sourcecode. These tutorials are available today but the more interesting approach in describing a wiki is from it's social perspective.
The assumption is, that the underlaying hardware and software works properly, was protected against remote execution of terminal commands with PHP scripts and some users have provided content for the wiki already. To infiltrate an existing wiki it's important to have a goal what has to be archived first. It has to do with squiring a needed ressources which is usually not available for new users. This resource is not the root access to the underlying server, but within the social community it's the ability to delete content in the wiki.
Each Wiki installation have rules who to delete content in the system. In most cases, it's done with a deletion debate. Winning this debate is equal to reached the first goal in the walkthrough tutorial. Let me explain it from a different perspective. In a wiki there are two sorts of users, Users who are allowed by the community to delete content and users who don't. Perhaps a simple example would explain the idea.
Infiltration of a wiki works only by partly fulfill the exception of the opponent. The new user has to pretend, that he is interested in contributing his effort to the wiki project but in reality, he has different plans. If the community beliefs, that the newuser is doing something important in the wiki project, they will trust him. The first step for the newbie is to search in the wiki for an article which looks outdated and is maybe spam. Deleting such content would improve the overall quality and produces an added value for the wiki. So the infiltrate has to put the page to the deletion discussion and provides extra information why this page can be deleted.
In response to the action, the wiki community which includes the admin, has two options. Either they can recognize the deletion request as spam by itself, or they can accept it. If they are doing so, the page gets deleted. This is equal to that the community has voted for the newbie. It's a positive interaction.
In the next step the deletion process is repeated. As a result the user gets a certain status in the community as somebody who flags spam which is a productive contribution. To improve the situation, the user has to observe which kind of content in the wiki is wanted and which not. He has to anticipate the judgment of the overall community.
Some critiques would argue, that putting content on the deletion list is not so important, and the more valuable contribution is adding new content. The funny thing is, that most users (and sometimes even admins) are not aware of the importance of deletion. They belief, it's a minor task which can be ignored. But in reality, deletion content has a top priority in the wiki. Most wikis doesn't delete any content. Because the overall project is small and the fear is, that if some pages are gone, the wiki project gets failed. The opposite is the truth. A healty wiki project has a lot of deletion request and response discussion. Not because of technical requirements but this is equal to create a group consensus. If certain content gets deleted, it's equal to quality judgment. That means, the wiki is moderated, and this is an advantage. Wiki systems are working interactively. The question is not what a single user likes to post, but the question is, what the purpose of the overall wiki is.
In the easiest case, the user is allowed to delete a page which is clearly identifed as unwanted. But suppose, all the content is deleted already which has a poor quality. In the next step, the user has to convince the community to change their opinion about normal content. That means, the wiki contains of 10000 pages, and all of them are well written. The user is trying to delete one of them, and before he can do so, he needs the approval of other users. Otherwise, it is equal to one man show which gets identified as vandalism by a single user. Instead of convincing the group that a certain page has a low quality, the better idea is stay passive and scan the discussion pages for arguments against existing pages. For example if a certain page was criticized by two longterm users in the past as low quality, it make sense to put exactly this article on the deletion list. The antipathy against the content is already anchord in the group, but it wasn't made explicit. The probability is high, that the group will approve the deletion as well. This increases the status of the infiltrator further.
In the third step, the new user becomes more self-confident and is trying to manipulate the target wiki directly. This can be done on the discussion page of an article. The question is, what should the newbie write to the page? To answer the question we have to describe what a wiki is trying to archive. The goal is to mirror and aggregate knowledge which is already available in the Internet. Between a page in the wiki and the overall Internet there is a knowledge gap. The knows only parts of the overall information. This gap can be utilized in the discussion. A valuable contribution would be to post a link to useful external sources and explain who to integrate the information into the wiki. The alternative would be to explain why the wiki is wrong and how to reformulate existing content. It's important to produce only a few edits and give the community time to read the comment. The reason is, that a new user has no reputation and as a result his actions are observed carefully.