Continuing to follow the Defra wiki project (), I came across this list of tips for wiki administration. It was part of an e-moderator workspace published (on a wiki) by the United Nations Development Program.
The list identifies as a strength that the medium is good for text-based content. Whereas email contributions expire after they are sent, ideas on a wiki are integrated into the present, visible state. They expire only if someone consciously edits them away, and even then are available in page histories for later reference.
The biggest challenge is loneliness. Editing a page, particularly when part of a large wiki with many pages, can feel isolated. Chat, for instance, is a medium about the instant exchange of ideas. What sticks there are not the words (which are meant to be disposable) but the ideas each participant manages to take with them. In a wiki, the dialogue is primarily the act of editing, which is not a synchronous collaboration. Editing a wiki is largely a relation between author and content, not between other authors.
Suggestions for improving a wiki experience include strong leadership and goal setting. Open-ended collaborations are often incentives not to participate, even if interest in the domain is high. Using WebLab strategies of setting limits may have the effect of increasing personal investment in the process. The Water Wiki community suggested wiki-ing in waves. Leadership also needs to help move the project along by offering opportunities to brainstorm, followed by attempts to summarize and translate that discussion into action items. The idea, too, is that wikis are best viewed as “medium-term tools” to complement the “short-term tools” (chatrooms) and bridge to the “long-term tools” (Word documents).
