Re: WIKI to produce customer documentation

Subject: Re: WIKI to produce customer documentation
From: Steven Jong <SteveFJong -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 09:23:36 -0500


The company that Cheryl Webber <CWebber -at- seagull -dot- nl> works at is thinking of using a WIKI methodology for documentation. Disclaimer: I haven't worked with WIKI, so it sounds fascinating. I'm sure we'd all like to hear how it goes.

Aside from the nuts and bolts of implementing the systems, it's interesting to think about the process and policy of updating documentation in a collaborative, completely democratic way. It seems to me that using WIKI means that every comment is accurate, and everyone equally competent to make changes. No? Well, that's what you're going to get.

If everyone is entering information, then no one is vetting it--it will now be very time consuming to go through it looking for random changes--so whatever anyone puts in, you may have to accept as fact. This would be like leaving documents as Word files on a server and letting everyone open and edit them at any time, with no review and no version control. In my experience, review comments overlap and contradict each other; in a WIKI environment, I suppose that means whoever gets there last wins.

In a conventional methodology, not only is information vetted, but so are the information sources. Some sources are more authoritative than others; some people are better writers than others. In a WIKI environment, anyone who cares to make a change can do so. I should think you'll get more raw information, but it will be just that--raw. It may not be clear, concise, timely, or accurate. (I was going to say at least it will be timely, but to draw an analogy to organizations, when everyone is responsible for something, no one is. So if you figure everyone will pitch in, I wonder if, after the novelty wears off, no one will, at least not on time.)

To sum up, WIKI sounds like fun, but it also has many potential problems. We'd like to hear how it goes.


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