Wiki Patterns

Patterns for successful wiki use

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maintainer

Maintainer

Classification
TypePattern
FocusPeople

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

maintainer.txt · Last modified: 2018/11/28 14:43 by splitbrain