Learning how to make wikis work effectively

Atlassian has indeed put together a very useful resource with their Wikipatterns site. The social patterns that contribute to successfully wikis are by no means self-evident. This provides some really useful tools and ideas to help someone who grasps the technology make headway on the necessary changes in work practice.

Making the Wiki Work

“If you build it, they will come.” We’ve all heard those words way too many times, and yet I’ll bet if you look around at your online haunts you can find more than a few ghost towns: places that some web worker built where nobody bothered to come. Part of the problem is that we tend to be the virtual vanguard: we assume that everyone else on the team will “get” the latest bit of social software as fast as we do, and jump wholeheartedly on board.

In real life, things are different, as anyone who has ever tried to set up a corporate wiki has probably discovered. Faced with the possibility of building up a vibrant company-wide user-edited online resource, most people end up scratching their heads and retreating back to more familiar modes of communication. Now Atlassian (makers of commercial wiki software Confluence) have done something about this particular problem with their new site Wikipatterns. [Web Worker Daily]