Ok, I've seen a few posts that mention a few other posts about not using SP wikis because they suck.
Since we are looking at doing our wiki in SP, I need to know why we shouldn't do it for a group of 6 automation-developers to document the steps in various automated processes and the changes that have to be made from time to time.
Thanks.
The default wiki included with Sharepoint doesn't support common wiki features well at all. There is no way to edit a single section of a page, and no way to link directly to a particular section on another page. The backend is in HTML so you lose the ability to edit in plaintext using simple syntax. The diff feature can't span multiple versions. Poor cross browser support of WYSIWYG editing. No way to auto-insert a table of contents...
There are, however, other wiki add-ins for Sharepoint which I can't categorically dismiss, for instance Confluence makes an add-in for Sharepoint. I haven't evaluated this software myself, and Confluence is somewhat expensive ($1,200 for 25 user license) although if you are already on Sharepoint I sense large corporate coffers :P. There also appear to be some free add-ins like CKS Enhanced Wiki but that appears to have a lot of the same problems mentioned above.
My company rolled out sharepoint recently, and I have to say my user experience was Very Bad. And I'm not just saying I was apprehensive to using it: I went in with an open mind and tried it, and many things just felt like they didn't really work right.
The reasons Luke mentioned more or less cover it.
Why wouldn't you consider using something else like Screwturn Wiki which Jeff donated to a short while ago? I haven't used Screwturn myself, but it is free and open source, and may be a faster lightweight solution for what you need.
For a group of 6 people that will be making "every now and then" edits, the built-in wiki will be fine.
Here are some caveats I came across that will vanish if you use a wiki other than Sharepoint.
Sharepoint lets you create tons of separate wikis, but I'd recommend having one big wiki for everything. My company made a bunch of little wikis for each project/feature, but only admins can create the individual wikis, so if I want to write about something that isn't doesn't match one of the predefined categories, I have to find a manager to create the wiki first.
Secondly, if you use Sharepoint make sure everyone on your staff only uses IE, since Firefox doesn't support the WYSIWIG editor. This is a good thing for most wikis, but makes collaborating difficult in Sharepoint. Imagine editing auto-generated HTML in a tiny little box all day.
Third, try to write up your project documentation in the wiki and resist the temptation to upload Word docs to the Sharepoint library. No point in writing up all your docs twice and watching things get more and more out of sync.
Finally, image support in Sharepoint wikis is terrible. You have to add a file to a document library somewhere and type in the URL. My images were forever getting deleted because they don't seem to make much sense out of context.
The Sharepoint Wiki is essentially a list of Static HTML Pages, with the only Wiki-feature being [[article]] links. No Templates, No Categories, nothing.
We ended up having a separate MediaWiki and only use the Sharepoint wiki for text-based content that does not need much layout.
I've played very briefly with SharePoint Wiki Plus. It's a third-party extension that adds features to the SharePoint Wiki. For serious wiki users then you probably need something more than the SharePoint provided Wiki - either via an extension or a dedicated Wiki product.
We looked at Sharepoint for a department wiki a few months ago. Even though we're primarily an MS shop, we went with DokuWiki. Open-source, so easy to keep up to date, great plugins, and a file-based back end.
We run into this topic all the time, and the first question I have taken to asking people is "Why do you need a wiki"? Almost always the answers are things "ease of editing", "multiple contributors", and "Word is to heavyweight". Very rarely have we seen anyone ask for what I consider to be uniquely wiki-like features (special "magic" markup, fine grained version history showing changes, etc). Also, they usually want some kind of categorization of things, not just completely free-form pages.
In the SharePoint world these things should scream "list" at you if you've been working with the tool for a while. There is basically no particular reason to use a wiki for these knowledge base-style applications, especially since "ease of editing" usually directly conflicts with the idea of learning a special markup language for most user. Through a couple of rich-text columns in there, and you're all set. If you really don't like the built-in rich-text editor (yes the image uploading process is clunky and it doesn't work in Firefox), have someone in your organization go drop the 8 Benjamins and go get the RadEditor for SharePoint. It should pretty much handle those concerns.
Generally once we've gotten over the "but it needs to be a wiki" dogma, we've had pretty good customer reception to just using lists. In some cases, where a little more of a page templating facility was required we turned to using the WCM features of MOSS, which requires a little more up-front thought about templates, but also has a better out of the box experience for things like content snippets and image handling.
Don't forget the Community Kit for Sharepoint - Enhanced Wiki Edition. This adds some features to the out of the box version.
I have a much more positive view of Microsoft's Sharepoint Wiki. In many ways it reminds me of FrontPage 98 -- and that was an unfairly maligned product.
The comment about using a list is misguided. Sharepoint Wikis ARE Sharepoint lists, in which each page is a list item with an HTML attachment.
It's true that you can't link into a page, but if the pages are short I don't see that as a problem. SP Wiki makes it very easy to have short pages.
You can manipulate the Wiki attributes from access 2008 if you wish, and you can add attributes to the wiki list items as desired. For example -- do you want categories? Just add them by editing the list. Want specific views? of list items. Create them too.
There's real genius in the way Microsoft built their Wiki framework atop Sharepoint lists -- which are undeniablly well done.
The TRUE drawback of Sharepoint Wiki was mentioned by famerchris. The approach to image management is surprisingly awful. It's such a serious problem that you should consider other Wikis for this reason alone.
There is a convoluted workaround that I use. It takes advantage of the superb Sharepoint support and image editing integrated with Windows Live Writer.
This takes suprisingly little time, far less than any other option I've read of. I admit, it is convoluted.
Other than the image problems I'm pleased and impressed with the product. If only Microsoft had thought harder about images ... if only ...
I'm the PM at Microsoft responsible for SharePoint wikis. I'm looking for feedback on our next version. You can follow me on twitter (spwiki).
I would also temper the ratings of the OOB wiki and its lack of functionality with the technical level of the authors here.
I agree that the SP wiki might qualify in name only - certainly when compared to some more robust offerings - but remember as an admin - your primary success is determined by end user adoption. In short - for every feature that a wiki like Confluence adds, it also adds user education, syntax, etc.
While I would love SP wiki to have more "wiki-like" - there is a certain, undescribable satisfaction you can take when your CIO adds an entry in the company wiki - or you are recognized by a group of administrative assistants who find the new wiki "revolutionary".
In short - the built in functionality may be lacking to the jaded eyes of us tech professionals, but to the technologically naive, its pretty easy to train on, and can expose them to a technology they may have heard of but could never (before this) understand or imagine using.
Because the default implementation is not a wiki, it is an HTML editor.
If you've used a wiki before you'll know the difference. Just look at "Your answer" at the bottom of this page to see the difference. You use markup in a wiki, which is relatively easy to read and edit. Formatted HTML completely obscures what is written.
I think SharePoint Wiki is not so popular as other SharePoint features. I do not have solid evidence to prove that, but I still believe there are many things need to be done. Regarding to enhance it, there are also not so many tools as other SharePoint functionality have. As far as I know there are only several such tools, mostly SharePoint Wiki Redirect and SharePoint Wiki Plus(mentioned above).
Maybe try http://wordtosharepoint.codeplex.com/ for migrating your Word content to SharePoint? It takes care of linking images and most other things.
Visitors can read the SharePoint Glossary at: http://www.etechplanet.com/post/2009/11/24/SharePoint-Glossary.aspx
Screwturn is wicked awesome - and it is C# / .Net.
Sharepoint 2010 is supposed to have better wiki features, and there is always the community kit of sharepoint. If you are able to leave the Sharepoint Wiki behind - you could always head over to the http://www.wikimatrix.org to find the wiki that works for you.
Go open source - MindTouch has an open source wiki that is called a leading alternative to MindTouch. Easy wiki, with some document management capabilities to boot.