My top 5 wiki tips that apply across nearly all wiki software packages irrespective of vendor:
- Before creating a new page, perform a local search for existing pages that may cover the same topic. If finding any that are even close to the same topic, consider putting your effort to evolving the existing page versus starting a new one.
- Name any new page uniquely for your topic and context. For example a page named “Meeting Notes,” wouldn’t be a good choice as you or your colleagues will likely have the need for other meeting notes pages. A better name would be something like “Project Foo – 6 March 07 Meeting Notes”
- Create at least one link to and from any new page. Don’t set yourself up as an information island. For example, create a separate sub-section for “related links” or similar that contains links that readers of your page would likely also be interested in.
- When editing a page, provide a short description in the edit summary field. Doing this will aid those that follow by providing them with a quick way understand what was edited and why with only a quick look at edit history. Additionally this will help those that subscribe to edit notifications.
- Use the provided heading format (whether via WYSIWYG or wiki syntax). Don’t create via bold-face and font size what appears to be headings but really aren’t. As with the previous point, using real headings will help those that follow you.
Bill Ives at Portals and KM has been writing about wikis for nearly three years, including a week long series earlier this year and a piece regarding my own wiki experience at Novell.
0 Responses to “Wiki Tips”