RodeWorks

We’ve been considering the use of a WIKI for a documentation project, and this slide show from Eweek raises some good thoughts — don’t over think the implementation, keep the technology simple, focus on collaboration, tolerate less-useful posts in favor of increased participation, and have a Wiki advocate.  My main concern with the more lightweight collaborative technologies is what happens to their content, and how easy is it to get out.  It our case we’re talking about putting a lot of staff time and knowledge into whatever system we choose.  My question is will we still be able to get at it 5 years from now.

Even for limited-time project team work, what happens when you try to recover the project documents 3 years in the future?  Three years is like a life-time in web 2.0 terms — will that server still be running, will the wiki software still be running?  Or did it fall prey to some security vulnerability, or got forgotten in a server upgrade and is no longer around?  I hate to say it, being a big open-source advocate, but for this project I’ve been pushing Microsoft Sharepoint.  It ain’t cheap, but I have higher confidence in the portability of Word documents, especially the new XML format, as well as the longevity of the software.  And the new Sharepoint supports Wikis and blogs.  I haven’t convinced the group yet — that free wiki stuff still looks pretty attractive — but I think we’re getting close. 

25 Tips for a Better Wiki Deployment

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