Maintainer
Classification |
Type | Pattern |
Focus | People |
A maintainer is a person assigned or self-assigned to a page, space or section of a wiki who accountably takes responsibility for the quality of some of the content. The role may include that of a:
secretary, collecting information from comments and meetings into the wiki
refactorer, collapsing redundancy and inserting organization into a wiki
solicitor, encouraging input from community members
architect, categorizing pages, creating 'project' and 'overview' pages, assigning meanings to labels
Usage
A maintainer understands the overall taxonomy of the wiki and offers suggestions for tags and labels but also offers template guidance and organizational structure to edited or newly contributed pages.
WikiGnome, a similar positive role, but with less
explicit accountability.
Champion, the Wiki Champion often is the same person as its maintainer.
WikiZenMaster, often the WikiZenMaster and its Maintainer are the same person.
If the role of a Maintainer is misunderstood, it leads to
PageOwnership
OverOrganizer - an anti-pattern in which someone re-organizes a lot of content without first seeking consensus for the changes.
Further Reading