Wiki - Why a Wiki

Why do I want a Wiki? I would like a central repository for notes. These notes become the framework for design documents, and documentation. As a developer and a system administrator, I work on multiple machines with multiple platforms. The most common denominator is the network. The next is that there is a web browser. Also, my notes are generally text based, since a text editor is available on all platforms, and generally, a text editor does not screw with the source code within a document. It not try to correct the capitalization, or expand abbreviations.

Basically, when I am working on an issue at a machine that is not my desktop, I don't have to wait til I back to my machine with the proper version of word to document the solution.

Most wiki's work on a common format that can be close text document.

=== A Heading ===
* List 1
** List A
* List 2

Table Below
| Column 1 row 1| Column 2 row 1|
| Column 1 row 2 | Column 2 row 2 |

In addition, many wiki's allow for source code formating, which means that code (c#, XML) will be "pretty printed".

The Basics ¶

So this is why would like to have a wiki as the knowledge repository.

Central Repository
Unstructured Notes
Almost Plain Text
Source Code Formatting
Force a simple document formating, you only have headings, list, bold, italics.
forces you to break up information into manageable pieces.

Why Not?

Does not do Microsoft Word
- spell check is not integrated (unless you use Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari)
yet another markup language to learn
Unstructured
Can be a mess. Main users need to keep information organized.

Advanced Reasons ¶

Wiki are generally open to encourage collaboration. They do not need to be open, but they should always be collaborative.

Other reasons for a wiki:

collaboration. I don't need to ask someone for the lastest version of a document in order to to minor revisions.
A good wiki will allow a user to get an alert when a page is edited
A good wiki has a good search engine
a good wiki keeps a list of revisions
my preferred wiki, allows for different workspace, which can be public of private.