hartnell 1209237122|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I've created this forum because we need a place to talk about making successful wikis. There is an art and science to it to be discussed. Well, stop reading this sticky and get to thinking about these questions :
— Shawn
Socks 1209239253|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I think success is when the wiki achieves its goal. This could be, for a informational site, to have a number of pages and editors, or for a gaming site, a number of active members.
It's really hard to generalize an a topic like this.
Remi Torracinta 1213330733|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I agree. Nevertheless, I think that rarely, particularly with wikis, which are constantly changing and growing, is there a clear cut success. I don't think there is a fine line between success and not success. A wiki could maybe be successful but other than that it's hard to define it clearly. Take an informational site, for instance. At it's peak, there might be many editors, and most people who go on the site contribute in someway. At another time, it may seem to be dwarfed by another informational site. Because wiki's are everchanging (and that's the beauty of the wiki), I don't think we can really define success in terms of a wiki.
9beckerc 1213473898|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I agree, definitely. There is no fine line behind success of a Wiki, other than that of the personal goal of the Wiki-creator.
Such goals could be as you listed, to have a certain number of pages, editors, active members or anything. Success of a wiki is most definitely more personal based rather than as a community. A personal goal that definitely should not be a sole goal would be that of, make this much money off of Adsense. The reason that would be an utterly immoral goal, as it would probably lead to the creation of pointless pages, and endless information that does not pertain to the site given. If money was a driving goal of a wiki, then a site originally focused around music, may just be generalized way too much, to include members who wouldn't like music, like a videogame forum. No harm in having a videogame wiki, the only problem would be, your site now includes members who like World of Warcraft, and some who like Children of Bodom. You would be making almost a brand new wikipedia, which we all know, already exists.
Money isn't always a bad goal, but should never be the driving reason of creating a wiki. Personally, no matter what a person's definition of success is for a wiki, it is definitely centered around maintaing a wiki that is specific, sticks to one point, and pleases it's members by giving the information it promises to. Having such a goal to please one's members, is where a page creator's success becomes the success of the wiki as a whole.
Nguyen Trong Quoc 1214891836|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
If the wiki can still achieve its goals after the site-owner left, then it is successful.
Craig Macomber 1214892971|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
However, if there are no other admins it is doomed because some things will never be able to be changed/fixed, and would be best moved to a new site with admins. A solution would be to use an aggressively managed community that promises to fix that issue. I think that, and spam site removal is the biggest reason behind hartnel's http://www.wikicomplete.info/
Read his FAQ. By your definition of success, his server (running the same software) might be a better final place for your wiki. He will let someone else replace you if you leave and a new admin is needed to fix some things.
I haven't considered moving anything there, but for non personal traditional wiki sites, it seems like a better concept. Wikidot is more optimized for sites that belong to small communities and people I think.
I also agree completely with your definition of success.
Nguyen Trong Quoc 1215093091|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I agree, no matter how open a wiki (or any other form of collaboration) is, a core team is always needed. But by site-owner, I did not mean admin (a.k.a manager) but rather leader. I'm not a good admin anyway so it's no problem if I leave.
Leadership is so much harder to find and replace; especially when your site is not-for-profit. It's extremely hard to get someone as passionate about the community as the founder him/herself.
I'm creating the Business Community wiki for students at my university only. So it's a small community, but that community changes. I mean, new students coming and old students left all the time. So while it is not a big community, on-going leadership is still an issue.
So how do we pass the touch to the next generation of leaders? How do we ensure the soul of the project remains, when the originator left? What mechanism should we set up to ensure long-term functionality and ease of maintenance / extension to the project?… These questions are not easy.
