Wiki design Principles

• WikiDesignPrinciples (Ward Cunningham)

  • - Simple - easier to use than abuse. A wiki that reinvents HTML markup ([b]bold[/b], for example) has lost the path! - Open - Should a page be found to be incomplete or poorly organized, any reader can edit it as they see fit. - Incremental - Pages can cite other pages, including pages that have not been written yet. - Organic - The structure and text content of the site are open to editing and evolution. - Tolerant - Interpretable (even if undesirable) behavior is preferred to error messages. - Observable - Activity within the site can be watched and reviewed by any other visitor to the site. - Convergent - Duplication can be discouraged or removed by finding and citing similar or related content.

Principles that guide wikis. (Ward Cunningham)

• - Trust - This is the most important thing in a wiki. Trust the people, trust the process, enable trust-building. Everyone controls and checks the content. Wiki relies on the assumption that most readers have good intentions. But see: AssumeGoodFaithLimitations - Fun - Everybody can contribute; nobody has to. - Sharing and building - of information, knowledge, experience, ideas, views...