8 tips for creating a wiki everyone will use
When you hear the word “wiki,” Wikipedia is probably first thing that comes to mind. Founded in 2001, the famous online encyclopedia now has 27 million registered users and an estimated 18 billion monthly page views. Wikipedia, which is technically a collection of hundreds of wikis, is one of the world’s most visited websites .
Outside of Wikipedia, there are thousands of other wikis—both public and private—that were created by an array of individuals, educational institutions, and enterprises.
What’s a wiki?
It means quick in Hawaiian, but the word has taken on new meaning in the digital age. A wiki is a collaborative webpage with an open-editing system. Users can create and link pages and easily share, organize, and edit content.
Ward Cunningham, the computer programmer who created the wiki in 1994, described his invention like this :
“The idea of a ‘Wiki’ may seem odd at first, but dive in, explore its links and it will soon seem familiar. ‘Wiki’ is a composition system; it’s a discussion medium; it’s a repository; it’s a mail system; it’s a tool for collaboration. We don’t know quite what it is, but we do know it’s a fun way to communicate asynchronously across the network.”
While Cunningham wasn’t sure how it would be used at the time, the wiki has proven to be a powerful collaboration tool for groups, schools, and organizations. A successful corporate wiki serves as a central knowledge base for the company’s workforce.
Here are just a few reasons you should consider creating a wiki for business:
- Build it and they will come. A wiki allows you to compile all essential organizational information—including company processes, procedures, contact info, best practices, and tools—into one easily accessible place. Your team will consult this information hub multiple times a day to find answers and guidance.
- Boost employee productivity and autonomy. Because wikis are searchable, your people can quickly find the info they need. They won’t waste time digging through emails, files, and chat messages, and they’ll never again have to reach out to coworkers or managers with simple questions.
- Streamline the onboarding process . A wiki can be an extremely effective onboarding tool. Share your company wiki with new hires to get them up to speed quickly on all the resources they need to hit the ground running.
Keep reading to learn how to make your own wiki, from kick-off to distribution.
How to make a wiki
To create a wiki that your people will actually use, follow these eight steps:
1. Decide what info to include based on your audience.
Are you building a wiki for your entire company, your team, or a specific project? The answer will impact the type of content you include.
A company wiki should include important organizational resources, such as:
- Onboarding info for new employees.
- Company policies and procedures.
- Workplace safety and security information.
- Organizational charts for all departments.
- Contact info for all employees.
- Professional development resources.
If you’re creating a team wiki, provide information that’s relevant to your specific department, including:
- Team processes and procedures.
- Passwords and access information.
- Strategic marketing plans and style guides.
- Notes from team meetings.
- Step-by-step guidance on how to request, submit, approve, and deliver projects.
- Details on who to contact for specific questions, requests, projects, and approvals.
- Quick links to templates, tools, calendars, style guides, websites, and other information.
If you’re creating a project wiki, consider including:
- A project calendar with deadlines and other important dates.
- Creative briefs and project parameters.
- A list of project deliverables.
- Contact info for stakeholders, collaborators, and other point people.
- Notes from all project meetings.
- Any other resources that will contribute to the success of the project.
2. Choose the right software.
There’s a wide range of wiki software on the market, and some options are easier to use than others. Do your research and find a solution that meets your team’s needs. Look for helpful features like:
- Intuitive navigation.
- A quick and reliable search function.
- User-friendly content creation and editing.
- Easy linking between pages.
- Ability to categorize pages with tagging.
- Integration with current collaboration tools .
- Strong privacy and security.
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3. Select your contributors.
Determine who will create pages and provide content for each section. If you’re creating a company wiki, choose a point person from each team to make sure all critical information is covered. As you recruit contributors, explain the benefits of a company wiki to increase project buy-in.
4. Schedule a kick-off.
Invite all stakeholders and contributors to a wiki kick-off meeting. This is your opportunity to build enthusiasm around the project and make sure contributors understand their role. It’s also a good time to teach contributors how to use the wiki software, discuss what content and resources should be included, and set clear expectations and deadlines.
5. Build the wiki.
As contributors create the wiki pages, encourage them to:
- Write in simple, concise language.
- Follow a consistent format and use the same font across all pages.
- Break up sections with headlines, subheads, and text boxes.
- Enrich pages with images, videos, and links.
- Include a list of FAQs in each section.
6. Review the content.
After all the content has been added, designate one or two reviewers with strong editing skills to:
- Carefully proofread all the content in the wiki.
- Ensure consistency in text font and formatting.
- Correct punctuation, spelling, and grammatical errors.
- Simplify overly complex or confusing language.
- Make sure that links click through to the right places.
- Test the search function.
- Check that pages are tagged correctly.
After a thorough review, share the wiki with a small focus group of employees and ask for their feedback. That way, you can resolve any glitches before launching the wiki company-wide.
7. Distribute to the team or company.
When you share it with the organization, emphasize that this wiki is now the central knowledge base for the company. Explain that all the answers they need—including policies, processes, contact information, best practices, and other essential information—can be found in the wiki. Give clear instructions on how to use the wiki, including the search feature, so they can quickly and easily find the info they need.
Once the wiki has been published, empower your employees to use it. When people ask questions or request info, don’t send them the answers via email or chat. Instead, direct them to the section of the wiki where they can find the info. This will get everyone in the habit of searching the wiki for anything they need.
8. Update regularly.
Your employees are more likely to use the company wiki if the content is accurate and current. Ask contributors to review and update their pages regularly with any changes to contact info, processes, and other important info.
It takes time, patience, and teamwork to create a wiki—but your efforts will pay off in the long run. A corporate or team wiki not only increases the productivity of your current employees, but it also simplifies the onboarding process for new hires.
Some collaboration tools can simplify the process of creating a wiki. If you’re looking for user-friendly collaboration software that allows you to easily create a Wiki tab , try Microsoft Teams for free .
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Create and edit a wiki
A wiki is a site that is designed for groups of people to quickly capture and share ideas by creating simple pages and linking them together. Your organization can use a wiki for a variety of uses. On a large scale, you can share large volumes of information in an Enterprise wiki. On a smaller scale, you can use a team site as a wiki to gather and share ideas quickly about a project.
To learn a little more about wikis, see Wiki overview at the bottom of the page.
Create a wiki page library
A team site is a wiki. That’s also true of other types of sites. Therefore, you can start from your team site or another type of site and begin creating wiki pages right there. In a team site, each new page is created in the Site Pages library. If that’s all you need, you don’t need to create a wiki page library and you can skip to other procedures in this article. If you prefer to manage your wiki separately, you can create a wiki page library.
Note: You can also scroll though the apps to find Wiki Page Library .
Click Wiki Page Library .
In the Name box, type a name for the new wiki page library, such as Wiki Pages .
Click Create .
In the Contents list, click the new wiki to open it.
In the Share dialog box, enter the names, email addresses, or the alias 'Everyone'. If you have team email aliases such as "Engineering", or any other group alias, you can also enter those here. As you enter the names, the server queries to verify the existence of the user account or alias. If, later, you want to add users, see Adding users to a wiki page below.
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Click Share to save.
You can configure the settings for the wiki page library, such as permissions, page history, and incoming links, by going to the library and clicking Page in the header.
If you create a new wiki page and later want to change its title, see Customize your team site .
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Create an Enterprise wiki site
Before you create an Enterprise wiki, think about whether it’s the best solution for your organization. To learn more information about how to plan and create an Enterprise wiki site, see Plan sites and manage users to get some ideas. A full-scale Enterprise wiki should be created as its own site collection. See Create a site collection for more info.
Important: The Enterprise wiki is on the publishing tab in the template collection. The Publishing tab will not appear if the publishing features are not enabled at the site collection level. Your site collection administrator needs to enable the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature on the site collection to make publishing-related templates available in the site. To enable publishing (with correct permissions), see Enable publishing features , Features enabled in a SharePoint publishing site or Enable publishing features on SharePoint 2013 or 2016 .
The following instructions show how to create an Enterprise wiki as a subsite.
On the Site Contents page, click New+ , and then Subsite , or click new subsite .
On the New SharePoint Site page, type a Title and a URL name for the site.
In the Template Selection section, click Publishing , and then click Enterprise Wiki .
To set unique permission, click Use unique permissions .
You may be taken to the Set Up Groups for this Site dialog, where you can leave default, add, or change groups.
Note: You can configure the site permissions and other site settings for the Enterprise wiki site later, by clicking Share . For information, see Adding users to a wiki page below.
Edit a wiki page
When you first create a wiki, the home page contains sample content about wikis. You can edit it or replace it with your own content. The easiest way to start adding content to your wiki is to edit the home page and add placeholder links to pages that you will create later.
Note: To edit wiki pages, people need permission to contribute to a wiki.
On the wiki page that you want to edit, click Page , and then click Edit .
Type any text you want into the text section.
Use the buttons on the ribbon to format text, and insert other content, such as pictures, tables, hyperlinks, and Web Parts.
To add wiki links to other pages, type the name of the page surrounded by double square brackets: [[Page Name]]
For example, to add a wiki link to a page named "Project Dates," type: [[Project Dates]]
When you start to type [[ , if the page exists, you'll be able to select it from the list.
If the page that you are linking to does not exist yet, you can create a link to the page anyway. After you save the edited page, the placeholder link you just created will have a dotted line beneath it. The actual page will be created later when someone else clicks the link to the page.
When you are finished editing the page, click Page and then click Save . If you don’t want to save your changes, click Page , click the arrow under Save , click Stop Editing and then click Discard changes .
Tip: You can add more content later or change content that you have entered by clicking Edit . If you created a placeholder link, you can later click the link to create and edit the page.
Adding users to a wiki subsite page
In the Share 'Wiki Name' dialog box, click Invite People to add users to the page.
Enter the names, email addresses, or the alias 'Everyone'. If you have team email aliases such as 'Engineering', or any other group alias, you can also enter those here. As you enter the names, the server verifies the existence of the user account or alias.
To set permissions for the new users, click Show Options . Under Select a group or permission level or Select a permission level , select one of the groups or permission level (such as Read, Edit, or Full control.
To see the list of all users who are already sharing the site, click Shared with .
When you're done, click Share .
Check out a wiki page for editing
You don’t usually have to check out a page for editing, but it’s a good idea if you think someone else might try to edit it at the same time as you. When you check out a wiki page, you ensure that others cannot make changes to the page while you edit it. While the page is checked out, you can edit and save it, close it, and reopen it. Other users cannot change the page or see your changes until you check it in.
From the wiki page that you want to edit, click Page and then click Check Out .
Note: When you check a page out, you are only reserving it for yourself, it doesn't save, download, or edit. You need to choose what you want to do.
Click Edit to edit the page.
Note: To check in the wiki page after editing, click the Check In button. To discard checkout, click the arrow under the Check In button, and then select Discard Check Out .
Add a picture to a wiki page
You can add a picture from your computer, web address or from your SharePoint site directly to your wiki page.
Click where you want to insert the picture, and then click the Insert tab on the ribbon.
To insert a picture from your computer, do the following:
Click the Picture and then click From Computer .
Browse to the picture on your computer, select the library that you want to upload the picture to, and then click OK . You may need to fill in additional information about the picture you are uploading.
To insert a picture from a web address, do the following:
Click Picture and then click From Address .
In the Address box, enter the web address where the picture is located.
In the Alternative Text box, type some text to describe the picture. Alternative text (or Alt text) appears as tooltip text when readers point to the picture. Alt text also helps people using screen readers understand the content of pictures.
To insert a picture from a library on your SharePoint site, do the following:
Click Picture and then click From SharePoint .
In the Select an Asset box, select a library or folder containing the picture you want to insert, Then click the picture, and then click Insert. You may need to fill in additional information about the picture you are inserting.
You can use the commands on the Image tab to add Alt Text for your image, change its appearance, and position it on the page. When you’re done editing the page, click Save to save your changes.
Adding and editing links in a wiki page
Wiki pages support the placement of links to other web or SharePoint sites outside the wiki across the top of the page and on the Quick Launch bar. These links differ from wiki links placed directly on the wiki page by users as they are specifically managed by the wiki administrator. You can also drag and drop links to rearrange them.
Enter the text for the Text to Display field for the link. This determines how the link appears on the page.
Enter the URL address in the Address field. Example: http://www.microsoft.com.
Click Try link to test your link URL. When you're done, save your link.
Add a wiki link to another wiki page
You can use wiki links to link pages together by simply using the page name surrounded by double square brackets. You create wiki links the same way whether you are linking to existing wiki pages or pages that do not exist yet.
For example, if your team will be creating a link later for Training Issues, you can go ahead and insert the link to the page now by typing [[Training Issues]] . After you save the page, the link to your future page appears with a dotted line under it.
To create the page later, someone can click the underlined placeholder link and then click Create .
Click where you want to insert a wiki link.
Type [[ and then begin typing the name of the page. The wiki will suggest page names that start with what you are typing.
Do one of the following:
To select one of the suggested pages, use the arrow keys and then press ENTER, or use the mouse.
Type a new page name followed by ]] . If you type a new page name, you will create a link to a page which has not yet been created.
Your finished page name should be surrounded by double square brackets, like this: [[Page Name]]
Tips: To quickly add a link from a wiki page back to the home page for your wiki, type [[Home]] . You can link to many objects in SharePoint, not just pages. Here are some examples of links:
[[Dogs]] : A link to a page named Dogs in the same folder.
[[Animals/Dogs]] : A link to a page named Dogs in a subfolder called Animals.
[[List:Announcements/Welcome]] : A link to the item called Welcome in the Announcements list on this site.
To display double opening or closing brackets without making a link, type a backslash before the two brackets. For example, \[[ or \]] .
Create a wiki page from a placeholder wiki link
You can create wiki placeholder links to pages that do not exist yet. Creating placeholder links helps people create the wiki in smaller pieces without worrying about creating every page in the wiki all at once. A placeholder wiki link has a dotted line beneath it.
Go to the page that has the placeholder link.
Click the placeholder wiki link.
In the Add a page window, click Create .
Add the content that you want to the new page and save it.
Edit a wiki link or its display text
You can edit wiki links, as well as the display text that someone sees when they click the link. Wiki links are different from hyperlinks to pages or websites outside of the wiki. To edit or change hyperlinks, use the Format tab on the Link Tools contextual tab of the ribbon instead.
You might need to edit the display text for a wiki link if the name of the page you want to link to is not clear in the context of the page where you are inserting the link. For example, if the page for brainstorming ideas about the first chapter of a book is named CH1, you might want "Chapter One" as the display text for the link, so that the purpose of the page is clearer.
To edit the path of the link so that it points to a different page, click between the two sets of double-square brackets ( [[ and ]] ), and then replace the current link with the name of the page that you want to link to.
To change the display text to something other than the exact name of the page, type a vertical bar character ( | ) after the name of the page ( SHIFT + \ ) and then type the text that you want to appear: [[Name of Page|Text that Displays]]. For example, to use different display text for a page named CH1, you could type: [[CH1|Chapter One]]
Add a hyperlink
You can add a hyperlink to a page that is external to your wiki or even external to your site.
Add a link to an external page
Click where you want to insert the hyperlink.
To add a link that’s external to your site:
Click Insert , then click Link , and then click From Address .
In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, type the text to display and the web address for the link.
Add a link from another SharePoint site
Click Insert , then click Link , and then click From SharePoint .
In the Select an Asset dialog box, browse to the file that you want to create a link to, and then click Insert .
Add a list or library to a wiki page
You can add other items to a wiki page, such as a tasks list to track action items or tasks related to the wiki. Later, you can choose whether or not the list or library appears on the Quick Launch navigation for the wiki.
Click where you want to insert the list or library.
Click Insert and then click Web Part .
On the pane that appears on top of the page, under Categories click Apps , and then under Parts , select the name of the list or library, and then click Add .
If you need to add a list or library to the Web Parts list, see Create a list in SharePoint . To create a library, see Create a document library in SharePoint .
Wiki overview
A wiki can help your organization collect and capture institutional knowledge, assemble content from numerous sources, and share plans and ideas. For example, a corporation can create a company-wide Enterprise wiki where employees can find and contribute the latest, most comprehensive information about corporate activities, benefits, and services. Or your team can use a wiki to collect information for new team members, to plan a conference, or to collect ideas for a large document or manual.
After someone creates a wiki page, another team member can add more content, edit the content, or add supporting links. The community of authors helps to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the content. Wikis continue to evolve as people add and revise information.
Because team members can edit wiki pages without any special editing tools, wikis are a good tool for sharing ideas and collecting information from several people. Team members can easily create links to pages for someone to finish creating later, or links to existing pages, without having to struggle with long web addresses.
Your team site is a wiki
The default page type on team sites, and other types of sites, is a wiki page. So in that sense, wiki is everywhere. What that means is you don’t need a special site to create a wiki.
Because the home page of a team site and the new pages that you create there are automatically wiki pages, you can create a wiki right on your team site without creating other libraries or sites. New pages are created in the Site Pages library on a team site and you can manage your pages from there. However, the disadvantage to this approach is that you will not have as many specialized options that come with a wiki page library or an Enterprise wiki site.
Wiki considerations
If you know you will be creating many wiki pages or if you want to manage permissions separately for your wiki than for the rest of your site, you have a couple of options, depending on the scale of the wiki you plan to create and the range of options you want:
Wiki page library A wiki page library is tailored to managing wiki pages and includes special commands on the ribbon for managing page history, permissions, and incoming links to pages. A site owner can create a wiki page library on most sites and get many of the benefits of a traditional wiki.
Enterprise wiki An Enterprise wiki is a publishing site for sharing and updating large volumes of information across an enterprise. If an organization needs a large, centralized knowledge repository that is designed to both store and share information on an enterprise-wide scale, consider using an Enterprise wiki. Before you create an Enterprise wiki, think about whether it’s the best solution for your organization. To learn more information about how to plan and create an Enterprise wiki site, we recommend reading the articles about planning sites and site collections.
Who can create a wiki?
You need to have permission to create a site, library, or pages. But the good news is, if a site has been shared with you and you have permission to edit it, you most likely have permission to create a wiki.
Permission levels can be customized, but for most sites, you can create a wiki page library if you have the Edit permission level. By default, members of the Site Name Members group have the Edit permission level. You need to have the Full Control permission level to create an Enterprise wiki site, or your administrator must enable self-service site creation. By default, members of the Site Name Owners group have the Full Control permission level, but your site may be set up differently.
To manage permissions for a page in a wiki page library or an Enterprise wiki, a site owner can click the Page Permissions command on the Page tab on the ribbon.
Although initially creating the site or library is similar to other sites, adding content to a wiki is different from how you add content to other types of sites. On a wiki, you usually start by editing the home page and adding placeholder wiki links to other pages that do not exist yet. You can create those other pages as you go or create them later. When you want to create the page that corresponds to a placeholder link, click the link. The page opens in Edit mode where you can add text and other content such as images.
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Article • 10 min read
How to Create a Wiki
Collecting and sharing knowledge at work.
By the Mind Tools Content Team
Almost every organization needs to gather institutional knowledge, collate material from multiple sources, and share experiences and insights. And many companies achieve this by using wikis – web pages that can be worked on by multiple users.
But are wikis the best way to keep your information accessible and up-to-date? With a vast array of data-management and communication products now available, businesses have to choose their tools carefully. Wikis have moved on, too, giving organizations fresh options and new decisions to make.
In this article, we explore whether a wiki is the right way for you to collect and use information. If it is, we explain how to set up your wiki, and how to start using it effectively where you work.
What Is a Wiki?
A wiki is a website or online resource that can be edited by multiple users. Some wikis, such as Wikipedia , are publicly accessible. Others are used by organizations to manage information in-house, enabling teams to easily share knowledge and work together more effectively.
The Advantages of Wikis
In the right circumstances, a wiki can be a very efficient way to gather and distribute information. It can improve collaboration among team members who need to refer to, or work on, the same material. Anyone with the necessary editing rights can add ideas and observations as they occur, often in response to other people's updates.
Because they're online, wikis can make it easier for teams – especially virtual teams – to cooperate on tasks, share notes and suggestions, and contribute resources. Where several authors are updating the same piece of work, a wiki can aid version control, as it's always clear which version is the most recent.
Wikis can be set up temporarily, to support discrete projects, or developed over the longer term as ever-evolving archives of organizational knowledge.
The flexible structure of wikis allows them to adapt as the information itself changes. Plus, by keeping a record of each step, edit by edit, wikis show how a project, an area of knowledge, or even a whole organization develops over time.
The Disadvantages of Wikis
However, in other situations, some of these potential benefits can, in fact, become problems.
When you let multiple users alter important information, inaccuracies can appear. Shared pages can quickly become cluttered and hard to navigate. And if people disagree about key points, conflict can arise – and be played out in public!
Wikis aren't usually the best way to share definitive information that should not be edited, such as formal procedures or records. In these cases, consider using static web pages, databases, or other techniques and tools. You can still link to these from your wiki if you wish.
Wikis are not ideal for capturing conversations, either. Communication platforms such as Slack , Teams and Asana can give your team members safer and more sophisticated spaces for discussion and debate.
Even if you do decide to use a wiki, there are many different types, so you'll need to select wisely in order to reap the benefits and avoid the pitfalls. And the first question to ask is: do you need to create a wiki at all?
Establish Your Need for a Wiki
Before building any type of wiki, it's important to ask what business problem you'll solve by doing so. What are the benefits of sharing knowledge in this way?
Perhaps you've identified the need for an accurate and up-to-date collection of team-building activities. If you gather these in a wiki, people in different departments will be able to add their own resources and share their ideas.
If you're setting up a new project, a wiki might help your team to organize key documents, and add comments to them for others to discuss.
Or maybe you've noticed that important information about your company's culture and heritage is being lost when people leave. With a wiki, everyone could contribute to a collection of knowledge that would remain in place even after they themselves had moved on.
You'll likely get the most value from a wiki if the following points apply:
- You're trying to build up a "big picture" based on multiple perspectives.
- You want to capture information that's evolving or still being agreed.
- Everyone on the team needs to see all the knowledge gathered so far.
- There's value in creating links to other information, either internal or external.
- It's helpful to see all the writing and editing steps that have led to this point.
- It won't be disastrous if errors appear, because they'll quickly be spotted and fixed.
If not enough of these factors apply, or if you have difficulty stating how a wiki would benefit you, it's likely the wrong approach. What's more, if you already have effective ways to store, edit and communicate all the material you work with, a wiki may be more trouble than it's worth!
Creating a Wiki
If you've decided that a wiki is the right way to go, here's how to get one up and running:
1. Choose Your Technology
Your organization may already have the technology that you need to create a wiki. With SharePoint in Office 365 , you can easily set up wikis and make them available to others. And there are add-ons to Google Docs , such as YouNeedAWiki , that let you design and share wikis with your team. Or, your current intranet may allow you to post information that others can adapt.
If you can use existing tools like these, you'll save time and effort, and reduce the need to train others.
If you decide to bring in new technology, there are both free and paid-for options. Some systems allow you to design your own wiki in full, while others provide templates or can even produce the "foundation" wiki pages for you.
Free software packages such as MediaWiki allow you to create wikis on your existing servers. Other services, like the paid-for Confluence , host your wiki pages on their own systems.
Some products, such as Tettra , give you additional control over users' access. People can be given responsibility for particular areas of the wiki, and alerted when anyone else wants to make a change. Some also offer enhanced search and analytics tools, which will likely be increasingly important as your wiki develops.
Many organizations are using systems like these to redefine their approach to wikis. While still allowing multiple users to contribute and collaborate, they also put more controls in place over how and when information is changed. In addition, they can be connected to other work-management tools.
As a result, wikis can be used to manage high-value, company-wide knowledge and sometimes even opened up to people outside the host organization.
2. Set Up Controls
When you create a wiki, carefully consider the levels of security it will require, and whether you need to put any of your own rules in place. Pay particular attention to data security, and liaise with your IT department to ensure that anything you set up complies with company policies and national laws.
Decide who should have access to read and edit your wiki, and how much you want them to be able to do. Other controls will likely be in the form of "rules for use." Maybe there are particular style points that you want users to stick to, or other important guidelines about how they should edit their own or other people's work.
Whatever technology you use for your wiki, make sure that you know who's in charge. Appoint curators for the whole wiki or just for particular parts. They can help by culling irrelevant material, and by guiding people to put their information in the right place.
This should also reduce the risk of conflicts developing between team members as they edit each other's work (known as "edit warring"). Curators can decide if and when posts appear, and whether certain discussions need to be held offline.
3. Start Writing
Writing in a wiki is different from other forms of communication, because your initial work will be changed – possibly many times, by many different authors.
So, when you start, establish the structure and style you want, but expect the content to be adapted over time. Organize and express your information as clearly as you can – this enables others to understand it easily, and to contribute effectively.
Before making your wiki live, get some feedback. Is its purpose clear? Is the content understandable and accurate? Is it obvious how other people should take it forward?
It's also a good idea to get someone else to road test your wiki. See if they can access it as you intended, and check that any changes they make appear as expected.
4. Begin Collaborating
When you're happy with the way your wiki looks, and how it works, it's time to get other people involved.
But don't just tell them how to use the wiki – also explain why it's a good idea. Emphasize the benefits of keeping information relevant and accurate. Explain that an effective wiki will reflect different people's knowledge and experience, and that everyone will be able to access it wherever they're working.
Be sure to explain how each edit is recorded and displayed. And reassure people that mistakes can easily be corrected by reverting to earlier versions. This should help new wiki users to feel more comfortable about altering a shared document, particularly if it contains business-critical information.
For best results, wikis require effective collaboration and mutual respect – as well as an appropriate level of honest challenge between colleagues.
For this to happen, everyone needs to feel safe in offering their input, but be ready to have their contributions challenged. For more on creating the right environment for this, read our Expert Interview with Amy Edmondson, Why Psychological Safety Matters .
Some people may resist using the wiki and fall back on other familiar tools, such as email, to share information. This can make the wiki less effective, because it limits knowledge sharing, and stops the wiki being as rich and responsive as it could be.
Look for ways to change people's habits if necessary – not least by celebrating the impact of your wiki as it flourishes and grows.
Wikis are collaborative web pages. They can help you and your team to share institutional knowledge, discuss ideas, and work on projects together.
However, open-access wikis are not suitable for all forms of information. Many organizations prefer systems that take a more controlled approach.
Before creating any type of wiki, first establish a business need. Then work out exactly what you want your wiki to do, and choose the right technology to do it.
Address any security implications, and put in place clear rules for use.
Make sure that the "foundation" information you post is accurate and organized. Then ensure that all your people know how to use the wiki, so that it remains a safe and productive way to gather and share knowledge at work.
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How to Create a Wiki Using Google Sites
When you need to create a wiki for your team or company, there are plenty of options. If you have a Google account and want a free place to build a site that has an intuitive interface and useful features, check out Google Sites.
Get Started on Google Sites
Name your wiki and adjust the settings, add pages to the wiki, choose a theme for the appearance, add content to your wiki on google sites, collaborate on your wiki, preview your site, publish your wiki, google sites wiki alternatives, frequently asked questions.
Visit Google Sites and sign in with your Google account. You’ll notice that the main page is similar to Google’s other applications, like Docs and Sheets.
- At the top, you’ll see a “Blank” option along with a few templates. If you’d like to see additional templates, select “Template Gallery.”
- You can browse through the categories for a template style you like. Because you’ll add your own text, images, and options, you can pick any template that suits your taste, regardless of its category. These just give you a jump start on design and colors.
- If you prefer to start with a clean slate, choose the “Blank” option at the top of the main page.
Whether you choose a blank site or one of the templates, when the page opens, name the file, site, and customize the basic settings.
- The filename does not appear in the URL or on the site itself. It’s merely for you to identify it on the main Google Sites page. On the top left, select “Untitled site” and enter your own.
- Select the “Enter site name” field and enter the name you want displayed on your site.
- You can set up the basics for the wiki, including navigation, logo, and an announcement banner. Select the gear icon on the top right.
- Choose an option on the left to customize it on the right. For instance, you can select “Navigation” to pick the side or top for its location or “Brand images” to upload your logo and favicon.
- When finished, select the “X” on the top right of the pop-up window to close the settings and start building your wiki.
While many websites include more than just the main page, with a wiki, you’ll likely have different pages for the various areas your visitors can view.
- Go to the “Pages” tab in the sidebar on the right.
- To add a new page, click the plus sign at the bottom of the sidebar, then give the page a name.
- You can create up to 10,000 pages and manage them from the “Pages” tab in the sidebar. To reorder the pages, drag and drop them in the order you’d like. For additional actions, select the three dots to the right of the page name.
Whether you started with a template or a blank site, you can change its appearance using a theme that includes colors and font styles.
- Go to the “Themes” tab in the sidebar on the right to see your options.
- When you choose a theme, you’ll see your site on the left update immediately. If you like the theme, you can also make slight adjustments. Choose a color in the palette below the theme name, then use the “Font style” drop-down arrow to choose a different style.
You can take advantage of several helpful features for your site, depending on your needs. From adding text to inserting images to including a YouTube video, there are plenty of tools.
Let’s take a look at some common examples of how you could build a wiki on Google Sites.
Head to the “Insert” tab to get started.
Use a Content Block
If you want to include text with images, use one of the Content Blocks.
- Drag the block you want from the sidebar onto the page on the left or simply click to insert it.
- Click the text area to type your text and the plus sign to add your image.
Add a Text Box
If you want to insert a block of text, insert a text box.
- Select “Text box” at the top of the sidebar.
- When the box appears on the page, add your text, then use the toolbar above it to format your text.
Insert an Image
You may want to place an image on your page, whether for something useful like a screenshot or simply a decorative picture.
- Select “Images” at the top of the sidebar and choose either “Upload” or “Select.” Again, you can upload an image from your computer or choose one from Google Drive, Images, Photos, or a website.
- Once the image appears on your page, use the toolbar that appears above it to format the picture to your preferences.
Include a YouTube Video
Follow these steps if you have a YouTube video that displays instructions or explains a process.
- Select “YouTube” in the sidebar.
- In the pop-up window, search for the video using the “Video search” tab or use one you’ve already uploaded using the “Uploaded” tab.
- You’ll see the video appear on the page. Your viewers can click the Play button to watch it.
- Review the remaining tools in the sidebar for other items you may want on your wiki. Select “Map” to include your headquarter’s location, “Calendar” to show a schedule of events, or “Forms” to add a Google Form your visitors can fill out.
If you’d like to work with others on your wiki, you can provide access and adjust the editing permissions.
- Select the Share icon at the top.
- Use the “General access” section at the bottom of the pop-up window to restrict access or allow anyone with a link to visit both the Draft of the site and Published site version.
- Add collaborators using the field at the top of the pop-up window.
- Adjust the permissions to the right of their name. You can give them “Editor” privileges to make changes or “Published Viewer” permission to prevent them from editing the site.
- Optionally, check the box to notify your collaborators and include a message. Select “Send” to send the invitation.
As you work on your site, your changes are saved in real time, and you can preview the wiki at any time.
- Select the Preview icon (computer and mobile device) at the top.
- You’ll see the wiki as your visitors will. Use the mobile, tablet, and computer icons on the bottom right to view the site on different devices. Click the “X” on the right to exit the preview.
When you’re ready to make your wiki live for others to see, it’s time to publish it.
- Select “Publish” on the top right.
- By default, your URL begins with https://sites.google.com/view . In the field at the top, add the remaining part of the URL you want to use. You’ll see a checkmark if the URL is available and a preview of the link beneath it.
- If you want to use a custom domain , select “Manage” to the right of that section. You’ll be directed to the Custom Domains section of the site settings to complete the process per the domain name service you use.
- To restrict who can visit your site, select “Manage” in the “Who can view my site” section. You’ll be directed to the share permissions pop-up window to restrict or allow access per your preferences.
- If you want to stop search engines from displaying your site in searches, check the “Search settings” box.
While Google Sites gives you a free and easy way to create a wiki, it’s certainly not the only option. If you’d like to check out alternatives, a few good options are mentioned below.
Take a look at MediaWiki , a free option that is the structure behind Wikipedia. You can download, install, and configure MediaWiki at no charge, then install extensions for added functionality.
Another free site to check out is DocuWiki . It’s easy to install, user friendly, and offers a large variety of extensions for added functionality.
SlimWiki is yet another option. You can choose from templates, access page history, and use drag-and-drop to lay out your pages. It’s free for up to three users and offers paid subscription plans for larger groups.
Can I unpublish my wiki on Google Sites?
If you no longer want your wiki live and accessible by your group, you can unpublish it.
Select the arrow next to “Publish” on the top right and choose “Unpublish.” Confirm this action by choosing “Got it” in the subsequent pop-up window.
Where can I obtain a link to my wiki?
At the top of your site in Google Sites, select the Copy published site link icon (link), then choose “Copy link” in the pop-up window that displays your wiki’s URL.
Can I make a copy of my wiki to create different versions?
If you want to create similar wikis for different purposes, making a copy gives you a head start.
Select the three dots on the top right of your site and choose “Make a copy.” Give it a name, choose the sharing options, and copy the entire site or only selected pages.
Image credit: Pixabay . All screenshots by Sandy Writtenhouse.
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With her BS in Information Technology, Sandy worked for many years in the IT industry as a Project Manager, Department Manager, and PMO Lead. She wanted to help others learn how technology can enrich business and personal lives and has shared her suggestions and how-tos across thousands of articles.
How to Create a Wiki for Your Company or Team
An easy step-by-step guide on how to set up a modern wiki.
McKinsey has found that employees spend almost 20% of their time searching for internal information , rather than focusing on their primary tasks. That's a full day each week!
While FAQ sections and help centers for customers are commonplace, many companies neglect to create a company wiki or an internal knowledge base for their own teams. Employee productivity is, however, no less important than customer satisfaction, and can potentially make or break your business.
Whether it's questions about an HR policy or setting up your company email account, if you feel like you're sending daily emails containing the same instructions or procedure checklists, chances are good that you could use a wiki .
In this guide, we will take a closer look at what a wiki is and how you can create a wiki for your own company or team.
What is a wiki?
How to create a wiki, best practices for creating a wiki.
A wiki is an online database for collaboratively creating, browsing, and searching for information. Wikis can take many forms and solve very different problems. Public wikis, such as Wikipedia and Fandom Wiki, are publicly accessible on the internet, while private wikis are used by teams and companies to share internal information.
The term "wiki" originally came from the Hawaiian language, where it means "quick". The first person to create a wiki site was Ward Cunningham, a computer programmer who aimed to build a space where software developers could document and share chunks of their code. He described his software, WikiWikiWeb , as " the simplest online database that could possibly work ".
Wikis have come a long way since then. Here is an example of what a modern wiki could look like in Nuclino , a unified workspace where teams can bring all their knowledge, docs, and projects together:
Your team can create a wiki for a variety of uses: engineering teams use wikis to collaborate on technical documents , HR teams can create a wiki to organize onboarding guides and employee handbooks , customer support specialists can share canned responses to speed up the handling of requests, and more.
Creating your own wiki is easier than you may think, especially when you find the right tool. In the past, companies had to choose between setting up a complex and unintuitive wiki using open-source platforms like MediaWiki and tools like SharePoint , or having to hunt through folders in their Google Drive to find what they are looking for.
Fortunately, this is no longer the case, and you have quite a few user-friendly wiki tools to choose from.
Step 1: Select the best wiki software
Finding a wiki software that is right for your needs depends on what you want to accomplish with it.
If you're looking to set up an internal company site designed for employees to quickly and easily capture and share their knowledge , ideas, and best practices, you need internal wiki software. Rather than simply storing company information, such a wiki should be searchable and intuitive enough for anyone to find what they are looking for. It can also serve as your team's online collaborative workspace for members to collectively contribute to projects and pool resources.
An ideal wiki should:
Provide an instant and reliable search function.
Have intuitive navigation and content hierarchy.
Be easily editable even by non-technical users, ideally, in real time .
Have permissions and access rights management .
Allow easy linking between pages .
Integrate with other tools to keep all content in sync.
One such tool is Nuclino . It was developed to be intuitive, lightweight, and flexible enough to accommodate any team regardless of size and industry. Nuclino aims to live up to the core values of the original wiki concept and remain as fast and easy to use as possible, facilitating seamless team collaboration rather than hindering it.
Give it a try and see if it's the right wiki for your team .
While Nuclino can be used exclusively to create a wiki, it's a highly versatile tool that is capable of much more. It offers a variety of ways to structure and visualize your content, including a nested list, a Kanban board , a table, and a mindmap-style graph. This makes Nuclino a great solution for many additional use cases, including project collaboration , sprint planning , asynchronous communication , and more. Nuclino works like a collective brain, allowing you to collaborate without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
Want to learn more about your options? Read our detailed wiki software comparison guide.
Step 2: Identify and involve the key contributors
The content of a wiki is usually crowdsourced, meaning that the readers are also welcome to contribute, collaboratively maintaining and expanding the shared wiki. However, when you are just getting started, inviting everyone to freely add content to the new wiki at once will inevitably lead to chaos.
To get the first version of your wiki off the ground, start with a few select contributors. They will likely include the upper management, team leads, and other employees who are experts in their fields.
A meeting between all the contributors can be a great way to kick off the project and get everyone on the same page. Introduce your colleagues to the wiki software you have chosen, teach them how to add and edit the content of your wiki, agree on the key milestones of the project, and address any open questions that come up.
Step 3: Set up the wiki structure
Once you have found the perfect wiki software and identified the key contributors, it is time to create your wiki! Keep in mind that your wiki will only be used if it contains helpful and up-to-date information and is structured in a way that is easy to navigate.
There are hundreds of topics you can potentially document, but not all of this information is equally relevant to your team's day-to-day work. Take a look at your company and its workflow, consult your key contributors, talk to as many employees as you can, and try to isolate the most common issues and questions.
Another great way to gather content ideas run a company-wide survey to give all employees a chance to provide their input.
Next, go through all the input you've received from your team so far and create a list of things you want to cover in the first iteration of your wiki. There are many ways you can structure your content, for example, by team, department, or topic. Consider the structure of your wiki carefully — if things are chaotic, getting people on board will be hard and the wiki will eventually get abandoned.
If you've decided to use Nuclino to create your wiki, you can add a dedicated workspace for each team or topic, for example, "HR policies", "Guides", "Engineering", and so on. Each workspace comes with its own privacy and access settings, so you can keep confidential information safe and prevent unauthorized team members from changing or deleting important documents.
Inside each workspace, you can group related wiki pages together using collections and organize them in a hierarchical list with infinite nesting. You can also track additional information about each page, such as who created it, who last edited it and when, who is responsible for keeping the content up-to-date, and so on.
Step 4: Populate your wiki with content
Now, it's time to create — or import — the content of your wiki. The intuitive WYSIWYG editor of Nuclino makes it easy to get started.
All content in Nuclino can be collaborated on in real time, automatically saving every change in the version history and preventing version conflicts. Integrations with 50+ different apps allow you to bring your wiki pages to life with interactive media embeds.
One of the core features of a wiki is internal linking. In Nuclino, linking pages together is as easy as typing an "@", allowing you to instantly organize information without even thinking.
Step 5: Invite your team and configure access rights
Don't try to guess and do everything by yourself – invite your team members to contribute and share their feedback.
To make sure confidential information stays safe, you will need to configure permissions and access rights for your team members. There are several decisions you need to make:
Which information should be shared with everyone and which should be private?
Which team members should be able to edit the content in your wiki?
Which team members should have access to account settings and billing?
Depending on the wiki software you choose, as well as your team size, configuring access rights may be very simple or quite complicated. Nuclino aims to keep roles and permissions as straightforward as possible, so this should be a fairly easy task.
Getting your team on board
A wiki can only serve its purpose when it's consulted on a regular basis. If your team is already familiar with wiki tools, getting them on board should be easy. However, newcomers may be reluctant to use the wiki and start falling back on more familiar tools like email and chat to share information.
Be patient and continuously nudge people to use the wiki. Make it a part of the new hire onboarding and make sure every new employee knows that the wiki exists and how to use it. If someone asks a question that has been documented, guide them towards the wiki and offer some tips on how to look things up in the future.
To prevent this from happening, be prepared to invest enough time in changing their habits. Choosing a wiki tool that is easy to use and intuitive can make the process much smoother by reducing the learning curve and allowing new team members to contribute from day one.
Keeping your wiki up-to-date
A wiki is an evolving knowledge base that needs to be maintained. No matter how well the wiki is set up, if users have no confidence in the information it contains, they will be less likely to use the wiki and its purpose will be undermined.
To encourage people to contribute, Nuclino tracks the history of each edit, so nobody's work will be lost if someone changes or deletes it accidentally. If you want to prevent accidental edits or don't want to allow all members to contribute freely, you can assign the comment-only role to all readers of your wiki. This will allow them to easily leave feedback when they see something outdated or incorrect and engage their colleagues by tagging each other in comments.
Continuously improving your wiki based on feedback
Your wiki may not be a perfect resource right from the start, so make sure to monitor your team and identify potential areas of improvement. Are there repetitive questions that could be documented in the wiki? Is the content helpful and relevant? Are new hires struggling to find the information they need? Use your team's input to continuously iterate on your team wiki, making your employees feel included, valued, and heard.
At the end of the day, a wiki can only fulfill its purpose if it's regularly consulted and updated. If your team has never used a wiki before, make sure to invest some time into communicating its value to your colleagues.
Nuclino : Your team's collective brain
Nuclino brings all your team's knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. It's a modern, simple, and blazingly fast way to collaborate, without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
Create a central knowledge base and give your team a single source of truth.
Collaborate in real time or asynchronously and spend less time in meetings.
Manage and document your projects in one place without losing context.
Organize, sort, and filter all kinds of data with ease.
Integrate the tools you love , like Slack, Google Drive, Figma, Lucidchart, and more.
Ready to get started?
- Why Nuclino?
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How to Create a Modern, Flexible Wiki for Your Company
Updated on: 9 January 2023
As a company grows, it accumulates a wealth of knowledge, from what your company vision is to best practices to follow, that helps direct and form its path for growth. And preserving such knowledge is nothing but critical to its progress.
However, without a proper system to capture them, these valuable stores of information may get scattered across the organization or lost. This is where you can use a company wiki. It helps collect all the information into a centralized repository, thus providing an easily accessible resource for everyone. In this post, we will discuss how to build a company wiki step by step.
What Is a Company Wiki
A company Wiki (also known as an internal Wiki or corporate Wiki) is an online database used to centralize information about the company and its processes, employees, projects, clients, etc. Companies often consider it as a single source of truth for capturing, organizing, and sharing company knowledge internally. A company wiki allows every team member to access, create or edit content.
A wiki can include information such as,
- Important company processes
- Company culture, values, and policies
- Company roadmap
- HR and administrative documents
- Project documentation
Benefits of an Internal Wiki
Wikis make everyone’s job easier. For new employees, it’s the quickest way to find all the information they might need. And more established employees can refer to it to understand how the rest of the company operates better, and further improve how they work.
- Internal wikis provide a centralized point for all internal documents, be it employee training material, SOPs, whitepapers, emails, or webinar content, making it easier to find information.
- They help avoid knowledge loss and streamline storing, retrieving, and sharing knowledge.
- They enhance team collaboration by providing a common space for teams to work together on mapping out company processes and information.
Knowledge Base vs. Wiki
A company wiki is not the same as an internal knowledge base. Knowledge bases are authoritative resources with a dedicated team of content producers and managers.
On the other hand, wikis are a collaborative tool. Not only can any employee access, create, or edit the company wiki at any time, but teams can also collaborate on content population. And the changes are typically designed to be instantly displayed after an edit.
How to Build a Company Wiki
Your company wiki is a place for capturing, organizing, and managing organizational knowledge. It’s important that you have a streamlined process in place to ensure that you structure company-wide information productively. Here we have listed down the steps on how to build a company wiki effectively.
Decide the Reason for Creating a Wiki
Whether it’s to document company processes and procedures, onboard new employees or create a team playbook, have the goal of your wiki defined prior to actually building it. This will help,
- Identify the type of information that you need to include
- Define the target audience you need to consider (i.e. new employees or existing employees or both)
- Accumulate the existing documents, resources, reports, and material that you may need to integrate into the new wiki.
- Identify the key contributors such as senior managers or team leads with specialized knowledge of the subject matter.
Choose a Wiki software
The next important step is to find the software that suits your needs. Since you have already narrowed down your goal, you now have a specific idea about the capabilities you are looking for in the software.
Here are a few important capabilities every wiki software should possess;
- Unified workspaces to centralize your documents
- Features to easily edit and search content
- Real-time multi-user collaboration features such as in-line commenting, discussion threads, @mention tagging, live mouse tracking, smart notifications, offline sync, etc.
- A rich text editor with the ability to create or add visual content such as diagrams, charts, images, etc.
- Folders to organize documents within
- Integrations to other tools in your workflow such as Slack, GitHub, MS teams, Google Suite apps, etc.
- Ability to facilitate communication (meeting minutes/ weekly updates), learning (onboarding instructions/ handbooks), and project management (project plans/ progress reports)
- Document download options including PDF, SVG, and PNG exports
A few popular company wiki software that you can consider include Google Drive , Confluence , and Microsoft SharePoint .
Creately to Build Your Company Wiki
Creately, a work management software that runs on a smart visual canvas, used by teams to brainstorm, plan, manage projects, and capture knowledge, also serves as a modern wiki software solution.
It offers all these features mentioned above and more, including workspace version history, customizable tables, built-in agile project management tools such as Kanban boards to create workflows, ready-made templates for Wiki structures, project documents, and 100+ use cases spanning across industries. Moreover, Creately also offers integrations for Google Drive and Confluence as well.
Create an Initial Wiki structure
Create a basic structure depicting the document or information hierarchy of the wiki. This will provide you with a bird’s eye view of or a preview of what the wiki will look like, and you can keep it as a reference during content curation and creation.
Populate it with Content
With the basic structure at hand, start writing content for each section or title. This is where you need to bring in content from other platforms to centralize everything in one place.
In Creatley, you can add them as link resources, copy and paste content from other sources directly on Creately shapes, or even migrate them directly from third-party apps including data in CVS files, GitHub issues, Spreadsheets, and Google Sheets.
A few of the best practices you can follow to create engaging content are as follows;
- Insert visuals such as images, diagrams, charts, videos, etc. as much as possible to break blocks of text. For example, you can use a process map to depict process steps.
- Add internal links to make navigation easier and make information easier to find.
- Include bulleted or numbered lists, checklist items, shorter paragraphs, etc. to make content more scannable.
Keep Your Wiki Updated
Company information or processes won’t remain the same. As they evolve, so should your wiki.
As employees rely on your company wiki to obtain timely information, it’s important to regularly consult with the key contributors and make necessary changes to reflect the current state of things.
You can also identify areas for improvement by monitoring your team. Observe whether they are finding the information helpful, or if they are confused and keep asking questions which you can then answer better by updating the content.
In Creately, the full version history is automatically tracked for all workspaces. So every change you make to your wiki is recorded separately. You can name versions in history to keep track of key points in the evolution of the wiki and branch out from an earlier version if needed at any time.
Best Practices to Build a Company Wiki Effectively on Creately
A wiki for your company knowledge might sound like a good place to facilitate collaboration between your team members, however, it comes with disadvantages that cannot be disregarded including limited search functions, inconsistent content, edit permissions, etc.
Following we have listed down some best practices that you can follow to overcome these challenges when you build a company wiki on Creately.
Make Your Company Wiki More Flexible
One of the biggest complaints a wiki has is its inflexibility. With multiple documents across pages and folders, it can become quite difficult to effectively organize content in a wiki. However, with a proper hierarchical workspace or folder structure, you can easily overcome this.
In Creately, what you usually store in multiple pages and folders in a traditional wiki software can be placed within a single workplace using simple visual structures that logically make sense.
For example, you can create an org chart for employee information or a process map to contain process documentation. Each shape can hold a magnitude of information varying from pages of content, attachments, links, images, data fields for role assignment, tasks, estimates, and more that can be added via Shape Data. This way you can easily centralize information contained in multiple pages in a single visual structure. Plus, with Creately’s infinite canvas, you can also place any number of these visual structures in the same place.
You can also connect shapes across workspaces and folders with shape links and create navigational flows and link information. Click on the linked shape to automatically zoom in on the connected shape in the same workspace or open the workspace the connected shape is in.
Ensure a Proper Navigation Structure
A major downside of maintaining a company wiki is that it can be a hassle to locate information from among the multiple documents that you continuously add to it. However, with a proper navigation menu or search capabilities, this can be eliminated.
Creately’s smart search capability will fetch you any information you are looking for in a workspace or folder in seconds; simply do a Cntr+F (or “Command+F” on a Mac) search for the keyword to find the information you are looking for instantly. Once you select it from the search results, it will take you to the exact spot it is contained in on the workspace.
Or you can create a navigation menu with the help of the Navigation panel where you can list down links to the items on the workspace and use it to find the information easily.
Keep Content Consistent
With multiple team members from different departments contributing to wiki documents, there can be inconsistencies, which may also result in knowledge gaps.
To prevent this from happening, ensure that there are templates or a standard format that anyone can refer to when they write content.
Limit the Number of Editors
Wikis allow the contribution of multiple authors. However, it might not always be ideal for a company wiki, especially since employees rely on it to gather reliable information about organizational processes and knowledge.
Thus, it will serve you well to authorize only a limited number of editors – especially subject experts – to write, edit and publish content to your Wiki.
With Creately you can define roles for writing and accessibility. It provides different access levels and roles to streamline how you manage sharing and permissions. While you can assign some team members as owners and editors to a workspace, you can add the rest of the employees whom you only wish to share the information with as commenters or viewers.
This way you can also control who you share information with and separate private and public information.
A New Way to Wiki
A wiki, although containing layers and layers of documents, doesn’t have to be too complicated to create or manage. With the right software providing the right tools, you needn’t fret as much.
Try Creately to build your company wiki today. Simplify the process with smart visual tools and advanced real-time collaboration.
Got more tips on how to build a company wiki? Do share your thoughts and suggestions with us in the comments section below.
Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.
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Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, getting started writing on a wiki.
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by M . C. Morgan , Kyle D. Stedman
M. C. Morgan’s wiki is at http://biro.erhetoric.org
The Simplest Writing Space
Wikis were designed with simplicity in mind: The writing space is minimal—a text field. The controls are pedestrian—Edit and Save. The formatting is fundamental—Type to enter text, hit return twice to create paragraphs. Use equal signs or hash signs for headings, slashes for emphasis, enclose links in double-brackets, or just paste in urls. The tools are basic—Create and link new pages by using WikiWords.
The writing space is easy to read, and creating pages is simple so that you can focus on writing.
Navigation and page management is also stripped down—Use the PageIndex to see what’s on the wiki, use RecentChanges to see what’s new, and use the all-important PageHistory to look at previous versions of the page.
Caption to Image I (Image of StyleGuide page): A well-developed WikiPage. Writers have used headings to organize the page and included links to related topics by writing Wikiwords into the flow of the text. The writers have also left three signals that invite readers to develop the page further: the [more] under Jumping In, the ellipses in the bullet list, and the note “Let’s add a WelcomeRitual.”
Wikis don’t demand that you write in a particular way, but they don’t give you any guidance on how to proceed, either. Wikis are very different writing spaces than weblogs and paper notebooks, and to make the most of them, you may need to learn some new moves, some of the new media literacy skills Kyle Steman mentions. Wiki users have developed some general practices for writing on wikis. This article will help you get started developing your own techniques, whether you use a wiki collaboratively or on your own.
One Draft Centrally Located
Wiki articles develop over time and often by multiple hands. So the idea on a wiki is to keep things centrally located—all in one place. Notes, the developing draft, and discussion on the draft are all posted to one place. Everyone’s on the same page, everything is always current, and additions and changes and deletions are played out on the page itself.
If you’re working solo, the centrally located draft is a benefit. All your notes, considerations, and sections of developing drafts are all in one place. And what you’re working on is always the most up-to-date material. You access it from any device, you can recover earlier drafts using the PageHistory, and that means that you can move in and out of drafting and refactoring easily, without shuffling through versions.
The WikiWord
The WikiWord is central to using a wiki. WikiWords—more accurately, wiki phrases—are created in traditional wikis by using capital letters in the middle of the phrase or word, as in WikiWord, or CamelCase, or MyGreatIdea. The wiki treats a phrase in CamelCase (as this move is called) as a potential page name and a link to that page. That means that you, as the writer, treat a CamelCase word as a topic: A point of interest to be developed, a path to create, an idea, problem, issue, concept to think about. On any page, create a WikiWord to start a new page.
WikiWords are powerful because the WikiWord is both the title of the page and a link to that page. Once created, using the WikiWord anywhere on the wiki will link to that page, and that allows you to cross-reference any page from any other page.
Some wikis are not set up to use CamelCase WikiWords but require another way to indicate a WikiWord, such as double square brackets. While there are good reasons for this, there are better reasons for using CamelCase to designate WikiWords. If you’re setting up your own wiki, use CamelCase to encourage you to keep your WikiWords concise.
ThreadMode and DocumentMode
Wiki writers have developed ways of working from notes-and-drafts-and-discussion-all-in-one-page to everyone’s advantage. On a wiki, rather than thinking in terms of writing a draft, think of moving from a set of loosely connected notes towards a more formal document. In WikiTerms, drafting is moving from ThreadMode to DocumentMode.
ThreadMode is a dialogue: It is open-ended, collective, dynamic, and informal; it can develop as a page or develop on a page, but it develops organically, without knowing where it’s going.
ThreadMode is tentative rather than absolute; opinionated but not seeking closure; exploratory and so seeking light rather than winning ground. ThreadMode writing is grounded in specifics to make sense of abstractions. Its end is to help others understand and create, not to win. It’s an attitude.
The tone of ThreadMode is not off-the-cuff, sermonic, or preachy. ThreadMode may be informal but it is public thinking: designed, considered, and polite. ThreadMode presents a position, a way of understanding, and presents it clearly and persuasively.
Rather than replying to a discussion entry, the writer can refactor the page to incorporate the suggested change, then delete the comment. ThreadMode slips delicately into DocumentMode.
If you’re collaborating with others, keep ThreadMode going by phrasing contributions in first-person (using I) and signing them. Place comments and additions near the material they address rather than simply placing them at the end of the exchange.
Contribute in ThreadMode by
- Adding a comment furthering the conversation.
- Editing older comments to improve the flow or to re-open a discussion that has become closed. It’s ok to trim ThreadMode redundancies to open the discussion, but be respectful to maintain meaning.
- Editing ThreadMode entries to create WikiWords.
- Splitting conversations by moving them to a new page. Develop each further.
- Capturing the ideas of the thread in a paragraph that suggests a pattern for the DocumentMode.
Caption to Image II (image of AnArcy page being edited): A failrly new WikiPage being edited in ThreadMode. Contributors are adding ideas in a bullet list below the DoubleLine and are signing their contributions. As the ThreadMode discussion develops, writers will start to refactor the exchange into DocumentMode.
DocumentMode
DocumentMode is more formal, more like an end point. It’s expository, essayistic. It’s a semi-formal synthesis of the ideas brought out in ThreadMode. To develop in DocumentMode, draw on ThreadMode material. Arrange it, summarize it, counter-point ideas, edit the sentences for clarity and tone. That is, refactor ThreadMode material.
If you’re working with others, develop the DocumentMode text in third-person and remove the names of contributors. (Place the names of all the contributors at the bottom of the section.) Add WikiWords to the text where concepts seem to open to new pages. Cut material you’ve used (it’s recoverable if necessary), and move material that still needs to be incorporated to a place on the page for notes, below the DoubleLine.
Contribute to DocumentMode by
- Reorganizing the page to reveal a latent pattern in the threads and discussions.
- Adding headings.
- Adding examples.
- Qualifying the argument.
- Editing the text.
- Creating new topics by fusing words into WikiWords.
The DoubleLine
Use a DoubleLine to distinguish between the stuff in ThreadMode and the stuff in DocumentMode. You could use formatting, sidebars, a suggestion and approval area, but all of that slows things down. In keeping with the WikiWay—quick and simple—wiki writers use a DoubleLine near the bottom of the page, typically created by typing two sets of hyphens to create a horizontal rule. Material above the DoubleLine is in DocumentMode; material below is in ThreadMode. This doesn’t mean Finished/Unfinished. It’s more like palette and canvas, or raw material (ThreadMode) and developing work (DocumentMode). It means placing material that is more fully formed and ready for further work above the line, while adding notes, roughs, jottings, headings without content, fragments of lists . . . below the line.
Caption to Image III (image of AnArchy page in reading mode): The AnArchy page in ThreadMode. The DoubleLine is visibile when the page is being read. One contributor, Aaron, has added a new WIkiWord to extend the page laterally to a related topic, CoOperation.
In either mode, use WikiWords to indicate further options for development. Add a new WikiWord, or combine a few words already in the text to create one as a way to signal, “This is an alternative direction.”
Use headings and lists in either mode to help you organize stuff as you work. Know that everything will change as you move from ThreadMode to DocumentMode.
Refactoring
Refactoring is how wiki writers move from ThreadMode to DocumentMode. They refactor. The term comes from computer programming, where it specifies re-working code to be more efficient and effective. Programmers will often rough out a procedure on the fly, without much planning, just to get something working, and to get a sense of what the procedure will entail. Later, as they work though the rest of the program, they return to the procedure to rethink it, make it more efficient, faster, requiring less processing power and less cognitive overhead for other programmers to understand, while retaining the same functionality. By refactoring, complex steps can become one or two elegant steps. A long chunk of documentation explaining the procedure becomes a single line. The procedure itself becomes modular, reusable elsewhere.
Composing on a wiki can take advantage of the same working practices. Abandon involved planning. Instead, rough something out that just sort of works. It doesn’t have to be elegant; it doesn’t have to work well; COMMA but it’s enough of a start to refine. It will be wordy, with lots of noise that will have to be cut out. It will wander. But it’s on the page where you and others can refactor it. It may be above the DoubleLine, or below, closer to ThreadMode or DocumentMode.
In refactoring writing, that 250 word proto-paragraph might become a single sentence, even a single clause—something more efficient and effective and elegant than the ThreadMode freewriting and wandering. But that’s what DocumentMode is: Prose refactored to effective high efficiency. Writing with a high signal to noise ratio. Writing that relies on every comma, word, clause, phrase, sentence. Writing that is well-wrought to make reading closely worthwhile.
Caption to Image IV (Image of StyleGuide in reading mode): A well-developed, but still developing, WikiPage being edited. Early contibutions have been refactored under headings and organzied into lists, and related topics have been included as WIkiWords that link to those topics. WikiPages are never completed. Jump In.
Headings and Lists
Wiki pages use headings to signal the organization of the page. Wiki writers use headings and lists to generate and roughly organize material in ThreadMode, and to guide refactoring into DocumentMode
Create headings to suggest where ThreadMode contributors might add ideas and directions they might take. Use headings to reorganize sprawling threads so writers can readily review what’s developing. Use lists to quickly gather brief examples, points, possibilities, comments, ideas that will be developed in refactoring.
For refactoring, use headings to organize the page. Review the threads to discover an emerging pattern for the page. Gather material under the headings and refactor it to suit the head. If a pattern isn’t working, create new headings, try a different pattern. Use alternative patterns to refactor further.
For instance, a ThreadMode might be made up of a set of arguments. As you read through them, some seem to be for the matter at hand and some against. In good refactoring, start with two heads: Pro and Con, or For and Against. Then as you collect the ThreadMode material under the heads, you can refine the headings to suit the developing material. Pro and Con might become Strengths, Weaknesses, Complications, Views to Consider Further. This might be called RefactoringByHeadings.
A proto-paragraph in ThreadMode might be refactored as a heading, saving 250 words for content rather than an unnecessary transition paragraph. Many paragraphs are lists in disguise and can refactored into a bulleted list—one that is then ready for more development. Refactoring will signal whether the points need more development or not.
While headings have not been common in much expository and argumentative writing, they ought to be—for effectiveness and efficiency both in writing and reading. You can use headings as you draft and refactor, and cut them when you submit the final version.
Use external links to sources on the web to document your topics. Use WikiWords to link to related topics and documents elsewhere on the wiki: other topics, alternative pages, revised versions, a variety of lists of topics. Internal linking using WikiWords becomes more valuable over time, as you build an expanding set of topics and notes. The mechanics of linking is handled by the wiki so you can concentrate on making sense. This takes effort over time, but the payoff is worth it.
Collaborating With a Wiki
Wikis were designed to support collaborative work by not getting in the way of collaboration. But the writers – whether one or a thousand—have to incite and manage both the writing and interactions between writers. This is where ThreadMode and DocumentMode come into play to help direct attention and work. If you’re collaborating, here’s how to proceed.
Choose a leader for the project or the page. Everyone starts in ThreadMode. The leader might set the goals or start the page with a note at the top, but everyone is involved sketching out ideas, responses, notes. Talk to each other on the page. Phrase ThreadMode exchanges in first-person.
After you’ve developed a mess of notes and directions, the leader can start drafting those ideas into DocumentMode: summarizing, combining, concatenating, rephrasing, collating. Everyone joins in. Phrase DocumentMode text in third-person. When you incorporate material from the thread, cut what you’ve used. When something needs more development or discussion, add a note to that effect, or move the point below the DoubleLine.
Then continue the ThreadMode discussion. This time, others can start to comment on the evolving DocumentMode text. Even better, others can start to edit, tighten, check, and add directly to the DocumentMode text. Use headings to signal the organization of the page. Signal topics for further and alternative development by creating WikiWords. If you have a point to add, just add it. Others will see it and may develop it further, refine it—or perhaps eliminate it.
If a discussion on a point breaks out, move the discussion below the DoubleLine to indicate that it’s active.
Keep up the pace. Have everyone return to the page two or three times a day. Find out what’s changed using the RecentChanges command. The more quickly things move, the more energy you gain to refactor threads into DocumentMode.
Continue until you’ve reached a stopping point. If there is more to develop, leave the notes below the DoubleLine.
Wiki for One
Wikis were originally designed for collaboration, but they famously support one writer writing for multiple courses and projects. The wiki process for composing—ThreadMode to DocumentMode by way of refactoring—works well for one person working because it helps you keep track of where you are in the process: what you’ve done so far, and what you might do next. Use the wiki as a notebook. Keep class notes, ideas, notes for projects, and observations all in one place. They will be there when you want to develop them further. Use the PageIndex and RecentChanges and the search function to find things.
Create an index page for a major project, and keep links to your notes, sources, and drafts, on that page, like a table of contents.
Think of your wiki as a notebook, one you expand, re-organize, and refactor over time.
Finding a Wiki
To get started with a wiki, use one of the free-mium wiki services on the web. You sign up for free or inexpensive access to a dedicated wiki space, which you can make public or keep private. Check the Wikipedia entry for wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wik i, for some consideration of these services.Wiki Matrix, http://www.wikimatrix.org , lets you compare the wikis commonly available. It includes a wiki choice wizard to help you narrow your choice down.
Any of these would be good for student use.
- Wetpaint http://www.wetpaintcentral.com/
- Wikidot http://www.wikidot.com/
- PBWorks http://pbworks.com
An alternative is running your own wiki on your local computer, laptop, or tablet. Search Google for wiki + your platform of choice to get started.
More? Try the WikiWritingHandbook
I’d like to thank the reviewers and editors of writingcommons.org for their feedback and suggestions. M C Morgan
Brevity – Say More with Less
Clarity (in Speech and Writing)
Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing
Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing
Inclusivity – Inclusive Language
The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing
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The wiki guide
How to Create a Wiki
A wiki is your team's knowledge home, and like any home, it needs a good foundation. These quick-start steps will set your team up for long-term wiki success.
Step 1: Identify wiki goals
When you create a wiki, you're solving a problem for your team. Identify what you're trying to solve early on, so you can stay focused as your wiki evolves.
Whether you want to prioritize creating an ongoing professional resource for employees or a tool for employee onboarding, it's important to determine what kind information you want your wiki to contain at the outset.
You may also have existing information that you want to integrate into your new wiki. Be sure to collect that documentation, while reviewing it and editing it as necessary.
Some examples of team wiki goals are:
- Onboard new team members
- Make weekly meetings asynchronous
- Put company info in one place
- Keep a written record of projects
- Communicate team-wide updates
- Prepare written communication for clients
- Standardize 1:1s, performance reviews, and other recurring meetings
- Build your team playbook
Maybe you have one of these goals, or a couple of them, or maybe you have other ideas in mind for your team wiki. But writing out 1-3 goals will help keep your wiki focused and manageable when you're just starting out.
Step 2: Choose a wiki software
There are many different wiki software options out there, which is why it's great to narrow down your goal before choosing a specific one. Some wiki tools offer a lot of complex features and advanced workflow . Others simply organize your Google Docs for you.
The key is to act like Goldilocks, and find the perfect fit for your team needs.
The previous chapter of this guide is a tour of the best wiki software tools on the market. Check it out if you're interested in learning more about the different options available.
Read: The 7 Best Wiki Software Tools to use in 2021-->
Once you've found your perfect fit, you can sign up and invite your team. Many tools offer SSO or Login with Google options, making it easy to bring everyone on board.
Step 3: Identify key contributors
Once your wiki software is up and running, you'll need to figure out where to source all the knowledge you'll be collecting in your wiki.
One of the advantages of a wiki is the ability to act like a collective brain. As they say, two heads are better than one. However, too many knowledge managers can quickly create chaos. It's best to keep things simple when starting out.
- Determine who in your organization has the most specialized knowledge: This will likely be leaders and/or senior contributors from each core team in your company who are experts in their fields.
- Determine who has the most institutional knowledge : This will likely be founders and first key hires. They have the benefit of time spent building the business from the ground up, and have learned what they know through hands-on experience.
Sometimes, you may even want to consult with outside experts, such as investors or people in your network with knowledge of your product and the market. They will give you an outsider's perspective and validate your ideas.
Ready to give your wiki a shot? Invite your team to Slite-->
Step 3: create a brief outline of your wiki.
Once you've set goals and established first contributors to your wiki, now you can create the basic structure. An outline will establish the beginnings of document hierarchy and provide a preview of what your fully-fleshed-out team wiki will look like.
It doesn't have to be complicated. One example of a simple wiki outline would be to sort it by the departments in your team that will contribute, such as:
- Engineering
- Customer Success
And then think of one key doc for each, based on your discussions with key contributors. The outline above could be expanded to:
- People Ops / Key doc : Onboarding Checklist
- Engineering / Key doc: Development Cycles
- Customer Success / Key doc: Customer Feedback
- Marketing / Key doc: Marketing Plan Template
- Product / Key doc: Product Roadmap
Step 4: Have a kick-off meeting
As much as we love async work, a meeting can be the best way to kickoff a project in the early stages. Holding a kick-off meeting with wiki contributors is helpful because you'll be able to:
- Introduce the wiki software tool to team members and show them how it works.
- Explain the structure, design, and logic behind your wiki.
- Produce valuable meeting minutes and an initial project plan that will outline the framework of your wiki project and keep everyone on track and accountable.
- Bring everyone on board with the new wiki undertaking psychologically.
- Answer any questions or provide clarifications as necessary.
Step 5: Use a template for faster document creation
Let's be honest, creating wiki articles from scratch is an intimidating task. If you currently find yourself in that situation, it will be extremely beneficial for you to get started using a wiki template. This will help you save time and make sure you don't forget anything when taking the first steps in your wiki development.
Slite has a library of over 80 templates for your wiki, including a company handbook template that's ready for you to use right away.
Visit the Slite Template Library-->
Your wiki is ready.
Et voila! You have created your team wiki. Think of this as your Minimum Viable Knowledge Base (MVKB™). Now you're ready to make your wiki look as good as you feel.
Melanie Broder is on the Marketing team at Slite, where she works on all things content. She helps Slite users gain new skills through guides, templates, and videos. She lives in New York City, where she likes to read novels and run loops around Central Park.
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Simple Steps to Make a Free Wiki
Last Updated: February 17, 2024 Tested
wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 20 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 51,895 times. Learn more...
Websites are fun cool to make. Most people like creating wikis, here is how to make a free one without a domain name.
Things You Should Know
- Wikimatrix.org allows you to compare wiki platforms.
- Make sure there isn't a wiki on what you want to create a page about.
- Include clear information about what the wiki is on like using clear pictures, readable text, and good links to articles.
- WikiMatrix.org is a website that lets you easily compare Wiki platforms.
- Choose a color scheme. Sites like Fandom allow you to customize the color for most parts of your wiki.
- Come up with a logo.
Expert Q&A
- Your wiki won't grow unless you keep working on, so continue to add content. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1
- Come up with a creative title. Avoid using the suffix "pedia" since so many wiki titles end in "pedia" now. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1
- Content is king. Having good content is key to getting more traffic. In addition, if you develop a good wiki it may be highlighted on other websites. For example, if you create a wiki on Fandom and has lots of good content, your wiki may be considered to be part of the Fandom spotlight which would advertise your wiki on other Fandom wikis. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
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1. Decide what info to include based on your audience. Are you building a wiki for your entire company, your team, or a specific project? The answer will impact the type of content you include. A company wiki should include important organizational resources, such as: Onboarding info for new employees. Company policies and procedures.
Create an outline Draft your page Format, cite and categorize Prepare to submit for review Adjust and cooperate Monitor your entries Let's kick this off with the dealbreaker. 1. Check your notability The most common reason why Wikipedia pages fail the review process is the lack of notability.
Click Settings and then click Add an app. On the Your Apps page, type Wiki into the search field and click Search . Note: You can also scroll though the apps to find Wiki Page Library. Click Wiki Page Library. In the Name box, type a name for the new wiki page library, such as Wiki Pages. Click Create.
1. Choose Your Technology. Your organization may already have the technology that you need to create a wiki. With SharePoint in Office 365, you can easily set up wikis and make them available to others. And there are add-ons to Google Docs, such as YouNeedAWiki, that let you design and share wikis with your team.
For instance, Slite software favors simplicity over customizability. Ward Cunningham, the creator of the first wiki website, gathered a list of 15 design principles for WikiWikiWeb. Some of these include: simple (a popular one!), open, incremental, and organic. When it comes to our own wiki in Slite, we follow a loose set of best practices.
Creation is simple: upon clicking a red link, you will be transported to a blank page. Once there, enter any text and then click the Publish changes button. That's it; the page should have been created. Many pages are created after a user sees an red link on a page, and then follows these steps.
The easiest way to create a wiki is to use a free site called Fandom (formerly known as Wikia), but depending on your web host, you may also be able to use a more full-featured and self-hosted alternative like MediaWiki or Tiki Wiki. Method 1 Starting a Fandom Wiki Download Article 1 Go to https://fandom.com/ in your computer's web browser.
1. Do some research about Wikipedia. Learning the ins and outs of being a good Wikipedia citizen can help you create pages that are less likely to be deleted or challenged in the official review process review. TIP: Explore Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines before you begin. 2.
Select the "Enter site name" field and enter the name you want displayed on your site. You can set up the basics for the wiki, including navigation, logo, and an announcement banner. Select the gear icon on the top right. Choose an option on the left to customize it on the right.
2. Create a Wikipedia Account. The first step in your journey to creating a Wikipedia page is registering an account on the platform. While starting an account enables you to create pages, it has other benefits, including: access a permanent user page where you can share a brief bio and a few photos.
Step 3: Set up the wiki structure. Once you have found the perfect wiki software and identified the key contributors, it is time to create your wiki! Keep in mind that your wiki will only be used if it contains helpful and up-to-date information and is structured in a way that is easy to navigate.
It helps collect all the information into a centralized repository, thus providing an easily accessible resource for everyone. In this post, we will discuss how to build a company wiki step by step. 1. What Is a Company Wiki. 2. Benefits of an Internal Wiki. 3. Knowledge Base vs. Wiki. 4.
In principle, every registered user is authorized to create or change Wikipedia entries. Seeing as Wikipedia has a uniform format, writers have to consider one or two things. How to write a good Wikipedia article is addressed by Wikipedia itself in the article how to write better articles">"How to write good articles". This article is aimed ...
The Simplest Writing Space Wikis were designed with simplicity in mind: The writing space is minimal—a text field. The controls are pedestrian—Edit and Save. The formatting is fundamental—Type to enter text, hit return twice to create paragraphs.
6 Team Wiki Examples Now that you know what a wiki is, why it's useful, and how to create and design an effective internal wiki for your team, let's look at a few examples. Some companies need only one wiki for the entire organization. Others create specialized wikis for certain departments, then nest those within a larger team wiki.
All you need to do to test these out is to log into your Wikipedia account (or create one), then head to the beta features section to enable the features you want to test. Some, like the...
In principle, every registered user is authorized to create or change Wikipedia entries. Seeing as Wikipedia has a uniform format, writers have to consider one or two things. How to write a good Wikipedia article is addressed by Wikipedia itself in the article how to write better articles">"How to write good articles". This article is aimed ...
Step 1: Identify wiki goals. When you create a wiki, you're solving a problem for your team. Identify what you're trying to solve early on, so you can stay focused as your wiki evolves. Step 1: Write down a list of wiki goals. Whether you want to prioritize creating an ongoing professional resource for employees or a tool for employee ...
The Notability Criteria Maze of Wikipedia It's important to understand and meet the notability standards if you want your brand's Wikipedia page to last. Wikipedia says that a topic is "notable" if it is important or interesting enough that it deserves its own article. Understanding Notability in the Wikipedia World
Mar 5, 2022 • 13 min read 18 English Startups Entrepreneurship Marketing 'Wiki' is one of the most prevalent buzzwords on the Internet, right up there with 'cloud computing' and 'responsive design'. Learn how to use wikis for better online collaboration. Image source: Envato Elements
1. MediaWiki MediaWiki is one of the most popular wiki platforms on the web. It is entirely open source and lets you create a wiki for free. Originally used on Wikipedia, the site now also provides the backend for many other common wiki sites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata.
If you don't have one, you won't be able to create a page. So, after understanding the policies, you can create a Wikipedia account. For that, visit the Wikipedia homepage and click the "create account" button. After you've done that, a form will appear that will ask for your personal details.
4. Create an account. After you create an account it will say create wiki, click that and it will let you pick a format and the title of your wiki. 5. Edit your userpage so people know who you are. 6. Customize the wiki. Make sure it doesn't look like other wikis out there. Choose a color scheme.