Wiki Patterns
grow your wiki
EditDo it all
What is it?
Sometimes a Wiki Champion can over do it. If they don't trust other people to contribute to the wiki, they may feel the need to step in and make all of the edits and additions themselves. When that happens, no one else on the team ever becomes comfortable using the wiki, because it always seems like the Do it all's property.
How do I notice it?
If you find someone saying, "Oh, here. just let me do that for you," they may be going overboard. The more experienced team members need to be willing to tolerate some messiness, or some ideas that they may not agree with in order to let the rest of the team become comfortable contributing to the wiki, and feel the sense of ownership they will need to make the wiki successful.
How do I fix it?
Don't let the do-it-all take over work from other team members. Explicitly ask some less comfortable team members of the team to contribute. And if those team members need help, sit with them while they create their pages. Offer suggestions, but let them drive.
Take breaks, slow down. Remember [WikiIsSlow]
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Related Patterns
- It is the job of the Champion to encourage people to participate, but not to do it for them.
- A Maintainer is a good person to have since they can take a stewardship role with the page and encourage others to contribute.
- A WikiGnome will help improve the content of a page, but won't interfere with other peoples' contributions.
- A WikiZenMaster will polish the format and appearance of the page, but won't discourage anyone else from doing so as well.
Further Reading
Adoption Patterns
Adoption Anti-Patterns
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One thought that comes to mind is "MacroMan", which is a page that is entirely driven by macro content, whilst great for advanced users, it can be daunting to new users of a wiki who are just gaining confidence in editing text in a page. The new user will spot some information or would like to make a change, they edit the page and errr... what do I do now?
Robert,
Good point - I'm wondering what would be a good solution? Perhaps labeling the MacroMan pages as such, and explaining what they are and how they work on the homepage?