Making my wiki sticky...

To me a Wiki page is another type of webpage, which should be created using the same rules of good web design and therefore the planning stage is crucial. It needs to be sticky, to attract colleagues and keep them interested.

So how do I design a sticky wiki?

I feel that I have three challenges. First, my topic isn't as cool as some of the technologies we are investigating, pfft ...Ebooks? Who cares! Second, the technology constraints of Knowledge Garden makes it more difficult to create a visually appealing site. Third, how many of my colleagues have an ebook reader, use ebooks or will have the expertise to comment?

What does the research says about making my wiki sticky?

1. My wiki should have a purpose that other people care about. I shall consider ways to make people care about ebooks!

2. Most wikis should have one or two levels. Not everything should be listed on the first page, it's confusing. I will have to use other tools, like boxes, bold, spaces to highlight important things and break up the information into manageable chunks.

3. I need to lose anonymity and introduce myself so people feel comfortable contributing. I need to give people something to 'do' or to feel free to play. I need to add easy explanations on how to contribute.

4. "Wiki loves itself. Link to as many other Wiki articles as you can, within reason. Also, search for other articles to find places where it makes sense to link to your article. Your article becomes stickier with each link to and from it" (10 Ways to Make Your Wiki Sticky)

5. My front page should have a short explanation of the purpose of the wiki and links to appropriate pages, not one long scrolling page (Best practices for getting others to contribute to your wiki). This is going to be more difficult in Knowledge Garden, put I will try to use content menus.