As someone who uses mediawiki for 4 different wikis (<a href="http://www.bloomingpedia.org/" title="bloomingpedia.org">Bloomingpedia</a bloomingpedia.org>, <a href="http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/" title="bloomingtonlinux.org">BLUG Website</a bloomingtonlinux.org>, <a href="http://suso.org/" title="suso.org">suso.org's</a suso.org> internal documentation and <a href="http://www.cookmedical.com/" title="cookmedical.com">Cook Incorporated's</a cookmedical.com> internal documentation wiki) I can say from using it for Cook Inc. that MediaWiki is not really the right tool for corporate wikis. What I've found so far is that it doesn't look like a documentation website to some people and the wiki syntax isn't logical. For instance, using == Section == for the largest section and ==== Minor ==== For the smallest doesn't make much sense. As an example of what does work, <a href="http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki" title="splitbrain.org">DocuWiki's</a splitbrain.org> reverse of using more equal signs for larger sections makes more sense. This is just one example there are many others.
Also, MediaWiki's user management system doesn't lend itself well to the requirements of a large organization where you need to have really good access control. Not that <a href="http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki" title="splitbrain.org">DocuWiki </a splitbrain.org> doesn't have its own faults, but it is generally more targeted at running documentation wikis.
Don't get me wrong, I think MediaWiki is great for many types of wiki applications, but not for all. And I worry that some people will read your article and not bother to check if there is something that would fit them better. For Bloomingpedia it made a lot of sense because I wanted people visiting to experience the same feel that wikipedia has. But for something like the suso internal docs website, I don't care about that as much.
One future wiki that I'm going to setup is a family wiki for my family, detailing relationships between people, etc. I don't think there is any type of family wiki, but it would be neat if there was specialized wiki software that offered features specific to running a family wiki like building family trees from tags that you insert into the documents, sending reminders on birthdays, etc.
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Why? Because its not the right solution for all
Posted by: suso_banderas on May 20, 2006 02:21 AMAs someone who uses mediawiki for 4 different wikis (<a href="http://www.bloomingpedia.org/" title="bloomingpedia.org">Bloomingpedia</a bloomingpedia.org>, <a href="http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/" title="bloomingtonlinux.org">BLUG Website</a bloomingtonlinux.org>, <a href="http://suso.org/" title="suso.org">suso.org's</a suso.org> internal documentation and <a href="http://www.cookmedical.com/" title="cookmedical.com">Cook Incorporated's</a cookmedical.com> internal documentation wiki) I can say from using it for Cook Inc. that MediaWiki is not really the right tool for corporate wikis. What I've found so far is that it doesn't look like a documentation website to some people and the wiki syntax isn't logical. For instance, using == Section == for the largest section and ==== Minor ==== For the smallest doesn't make much sense. As an example of what does work, <a href="http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki" title="splitbrain.org">DocuWiki's</a splitbrain.org> reverse of using more equal signs for larger sections makes more sense. This is just one example there are many others.
Also, MediaWiki's user management system doesn't lend itself well to the requirements of a large organization where you need to have really good access control. Not that <a href="http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki" title="splitbrain.org">DocuWiki </a splitbrain.org> doesn't have its own faults, but it is generally more targeted at running documentation wikis.
Don't get me wrong, I think MediaWiki is great for many types of wiki applications, but not for all. And I worry that some people will read your article and not bother to check if there is something that would fit them better. For Bloomingpedia it made a lot of sense because I wanted people visiting to experience the same feel that wikipedia has. But for something like the suso internal docs website, I don't care about that as much.
One future wiki that I'm going to setup is a family wiki for my family, detailing relationships between people, etc. I don't think there is any type of family wiki, but it would be neat if there was specialized wiki software that offered features specific to running a family wiki like building family trees from tags that you insert into the documents, sending reminders on birthdays, etc.
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