Wiki Patterns

The Lunch Menu pattern encourages you to put time-sensitive content on the wiki. If there is content you know will be updated regularly, like a weekly cafeteria menu, put it on the wiki rather than sending it out on the email distribution list.

By centralizing the dynamic content and never emailing it, the team always knows where to look, and never runs the risk of finding out-dated information.

Identify content that changes frequently and build wiki pages around it. You can make useful, always current pages about many topics:

• Weekly sales figures
• Staff schedules or on-call rotations
• Software build and test results

The classic business-development “deal list” is a great candidate for the Lunch Menu pattern. In the pre-wiki-world, business development folks usually kept a spreadsheet detailing the current status of all their leads. They'd email that sheet out to their team-members to keep them up to date on the status. By putting that time-sensitive content on the wiki, the team can go straight to where they know the most up-to-date content will be.

• Magnet - the magnet pattern emphasizes putting content exclusively on the wiki to attract people. Regularly updated, time-sensitive content is a perfect candidate for this.
• Poker - this pattern encourages putting informal content on the wiki to give people further reason to visit and contribute to it.

• Wiki: Time Sensitive and Location Sensitive