Wiki Patterns
grow your wiki
EditBarnRaising
What is it?
A wiki BarnRaising is a planned event in which a community meets at a designated time to build content on the wiki together. One person alone can't build all the content in a wiki, and a community of people needs to understand how to use the wiki, and feel a sense of buy-in for it to become successful. A BarnRaising achieves this because people come expecting to learn how to use the wiki, and they are able to interact with each other as they work, thus strengthening community bonds and creating a support network that keeps people using the wiki.
Usage
BarnRaising is a great way to jumpstart a wiki. It gets people used to using the wiki, and gets a critical mass of content on it so people keep coming back. Since everyone is working on it at the same time, it establishes a support network that's essential to building peoples' confidence and breaking down misconceptions they may have about the wiki.
Example
If you're starting a new wiki for your team or workgroup, arrange a time when everyone can meet to work on the site. Provide lunch or snacks to keep people energised!
It's a good idea to meet briefly before or at the beginning of the BarnRaising to plan what content will go on the wiki, establish a basic organization system (this can be as simple as making sure links to all pages appear in an organised list on the home page), and agree on general standards for the wiki.
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Related Patterns
- Magnet - a BarnRaising can set a wiki on the path to becoming a magnet for a group's most critically important and often accessed information.
- EmptyPages - a BarnRaising avoids this anti-pattern by ensuring that pages are filled with at least some content as they are created.
- Scaffold - a BarnRaising doesn't have to result in every page filled with content. Sometimes just getting together to get a scaffold in place is enough to jumpstart active wiki use.
Further Reading
Adoption Patterns
Adoption Anti-Patterns
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Seems interesting. But is there any example? (in Meatball link their example is about real barns!!)
I think IBM's jam sessions are a good example. I can't find a great link (http://www.ibmeye.com/last-day-of-habitat-jam/
). As I understand it, what they do is have employees around the world (like 100,000+) meet virtually to discuss an overwhelming problem and figure out how to move forward.
Well, many have argued, Meatball itself is a BarnRaising event. I'm unsure about that. But more practically, we used to post barn raising events on http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BarnRaisingNominations
. Back in the good ol' days, we used to go around helping smaller wikis set up and get rolling. Commercialization has demotivated collaboration in the public domain, but that is irrelevant in groups where there is no internal competitive threat. After all, BarnRaising is all about helping your neighbour because a strong neighbour will build a strong neighbourhood and community for all members... but this only makes sense if your neighbour is not a threat.
I cannot emphasize enough that one of the key points of barn raising is the celebration afterwards.
Re: "Commercialization has demotivated collaboration in the public domain, but that is irrelevant in groups where there is no internal competitive threat."
An explanation somewhat similar to 'a rising tide raises all boats' could be used to overcome commercializations' negative aspects. When all participants follow the same rules in order to benefit such as 'open reviewing' then only those that do not participate will not benefit (except, of course, for the ramp-up in their knowledge). The opportunity should be left open for newbies and late-comers.
After all, BarnRaising is all about helping your neighbour because a will build a strong neighbourhood and community for all members...but this only makes sense if your neighbour is not a threat.
BarnRaising is a great way to jumpstart a wiki. It gets people used to using the wiki, and gets a critical mass of content on it so people keep coming back. - Since everyone is working on it at the same time, it establishes a support network that's essential to building peoples' confidence and breaking down misconceptions they may have about the wiki.