WikiPatterns

Via Agile testing blog I knew about Wikipatterns, a repository of patterns and antipatterns about wiki adoption and usage. Very interesting work.

I would highlight some interesting entries:

• Overrun by Camels antipattern: avoid using CamelCaseNames, and use real language phrases (for example, name your node as “Node with contents” instead of “NodeWithContents”. This makes the wiki easier to read, and mainly, easier to search in.
• Poker pattern: put even trivial things in wiki, to show the null barrier to create new content. Trivial things as this: the scores of the frequent, after-hours poker tournaments.
• Magnet pattern: have some content exclusively in the wiki to force people to use it.

In Igalia we’ve been using wikis+mailing lists for internal communication for a long time. In Gnome we’ve got Live wiki. And many other communities have found wikis a powerful resource for communication and documentation. Good reading for all these groups.