One thing I've tried to do is use the template capabilities of mediawiki to create templates for documenting servers, services, websites, etc. This should mean they don't have to think about what to write as much as just fill in all the fields. Unfortunately that still hasn't succeeded in getting people to actually fill in the fields.
I'm not a big fan of hand-writing docs for "stuff" (i.e. the servers, services, websites that you mention). If you can automatically gather data on the "stuff" and put it into a database (or wiki, or whatever) that you can then refer to, that's great. But the amount of effort that goes into writing those docs compared to the amount of value they provide doesn't justify the effort in my experience. I'd rather document processes, procedures, and conventions, and let data be data. If people aren't willing to fill in the templates, is it because they don't see value in doing so? If that's the case, is there value in doing it? If there is, the challenge is to convince them that it's valuable. If there isn't, it's time to cut bait on those docs and figure out what *would* be valuable. -- Christopher Manly Coordinator of Library Systems and Discovery Services Cornell University Library Information Technologies [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 607-255-3344
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