Decide on Tools for Your Wiki

You need to decide how to build the wiki, and whether you will spend money to build it.

Companies like Socialtext help companies structure, deploy and maintain their wikis via appliances, hosted service and software. Socialtext has set up and tracked wikis for organizations like Boston College, Epitaph Records and IKEA. Other vendors like BrainKeeper direct companies in creating a wiki that will encourage knowledge sharing, and many corporations find their guidance valuable.

But that's not mandatory. As technology librarian West says, "Why buy software when all the things you need are free?"

Free hosted wikis like WetPaint allow anyone to easily build a collaborative website. WetPaint includes features like video integration, customizable templates, profiles for users, address book upload, and version control that allows you to refer back to an earlier iteration of any page.

If a group of employees goes the free, do-it-yourself (DIY) route, they can create and maintain their wiki, for, say, a short-term project without needing to get IT involved. Plus, says West, "it's empowering to see what you can do on your own. Some tools are often so user-friendly that, if you can use Word, you can use them."

Pitfall to avoid: Don't go the DIY route just because its free. Similarly, don't jump into a contract agreement because you think having a vendor host your wiki will be easier.

Think about why you need the wiki, who has time to devote to it and how long you intend to be contributing to it. Wikimatrix is a site that can help you identify which software is right for you by comparing options according to price, security, support, features and multimedia options. There are a lot of wiki tools out there. Among them are Edit Me, and ThoughtFarmer, neither of which is open source. And of course, Wikipedia itself has a page that compares wiki options both free and for-fee.

If you want a wiki to help manage one project, or if you're a first-time wiki creator or user, you might decide it's worth working with a third-party hosting vendor, who can help you avoid snags. If the wiki has a long life ahead of it, perhaps as a knowledge management tool, you might want to save money and use free online tools. (And reread the section on "Hire a Gardener.")

Decide How to Set Up and Organize Your Wiki

Building a wiki means considering aspects such as what format it should take, what design template to use, how to organize the wiki's headings and lists.

Consider using an auto-generated template to make it easy for users and so all of the pages look the same, says West. "And if you want to make a change to all the pages, you just change the template once," she adds.

Use a header on pages that contain important information so users know what they are looking at. Also, start a list of bookmarks for websites that are valuable reference tools.

Pitfall to avoid: Administrators of the wiki must keep pages and entries clean and orderly, or the wiki won't be useful to anyone and people will stop contributing and referring to it. When you have a list of bookmarks and links, "people always add, but never subtract," says Jessamyn West. "You end up with an appallingly large list and users are unhappy." This is where the gardener comes in: That person should keep the list from becoming unwieldy so it continues to be valuable.