>> Wikis seem to work best when they're targeted at a level where people >> get passionate. ... You have to find the level where people really care. > > I think this is a brilliant analysis of what wikis work, and what wikis > don't work.
Agreed. It all comes down to the core question of why people edit. It turns out merely being useful to others is not necessary, or sufficient. People have to *care*. Let's face it: building a wiki is hard work - both for the founder(s), and for those who follow them. Perhaps more so for the latter, because they rarely get any credit for it. With no extrinsic benefit, the wiki has to be its own reward. Once editors care, a founder's job becomes much simpler - they just have to remove barriers to contribution, by providing technical support and guidance. The founder needn't be the biggest expert on the topic - leadership skills are more important - but they must be passionate enough to get things started, and they must communicate that passion to others. Passion also determines content. Consider the Creatures Wiki, whose community has created a variety of expansions to the game. It has hundreds on articles on norn breeds and game addons, because these are the things editors care about. Compare Wookieepedia, where canon works and characters have the lion's share. Then there's WikiFur - serving a group once described as "fans of one another" - which includes almost 5,000 articles on members of the community. Of course, passion only goes so far. When you're talking about wiki achievements, it helps to give the editors concerned credit (unless it was you, in which case it helps to give *everyone* credit). Doing so also makes it easier to devolve power - if everyone knows X is handling Y, they won't come to you for it. This means you can spend more time developing new features. -- Laurence "GreenReaper" Parry http://greenreaper.co.uk/ - http://wikifur.com/ "Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind. Have you drunk your fill?" _______________________________________________ Wikia-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
