Wiki Patterns
grow your wiki
EditToo much structure
What is it?
Trying to guess the structure of a wiki in advance won't work. A wiki will evolve into the optimal organization of information as people use it, and it's better to adjust the structure based on the content, instead of the other way around.
How do I notice it?
If there are lots of empty pages in your wiki, and people are putting content elsewhere than those pages, then the wiki is probably subdivided too much.
How do I fix it?
"It's best to start with as little structure as possible and only add more structure when it proves to be needed." - Ken Tyler, Seedwiki
If you see pages that are empty, and content of the same topic as those empty pages being developed elsewhere, let the content continue to grow and delete the empty pages.
Once content grows to a point that it should be separated from the core and given its own set of pages, propose this to the community by leaving a comment on the page containing the content.
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Related Patterns
- Champion - a good champion will guide the growth of a wiki without imposing unnecessary structure.
- WikiGnome - a WikiGnome will tidy up the content on a wiki, while respecting the overall structure created by others.
- EmptyPages - this anti-pattern can be a result of too much guessing about the structure.
Further Reading
Adoption Patterns
Adoption Anti-Patterns
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I don't like this name. Perhaps "Organic Structure" or "Grow Structure Organically". That also allows this to become a Pattern instead of an Anti-Pattern.
Jason,
How about creating a pattern page called "[OrganicGrowth]"? I like your idea of turning the anti-pattern into a pattern, so would you be willing to write what you think is important about growing organically? I would however, suggest keeping the Subdivision page (and adding a prominent link to the [OrganicGrowth] page? since the anti-pattern pages are intended to help people recognize potential (or occurring) problems with their wikis.
Stewart
hello
wikipattern
On this topic, I'd like to know if anyone has discussed the varying strengths and weaknesses of wikis with a built-in hierarchy, vs thosewith none at all. My company currently has a "tree" wiki, and there are a lot of users who really want something like Mediawiki that has no inherent structure. Where could I find an intelligent comparison of these things?