Wiki or CMS?

Question

How do your store your company's accumulated internal knowledge? Meeting minutes, software specifications, plans, notes about other organisations, documents for discussion and storage, agendas...

We're involved in software development but it's not our primary focus. So our wiki/CMS needs to be able to easily link to files in SVN and Trac tickets. We're using Trac Wiki atm, but it's underfeatured: tedious to reorganise, no "what links here", no revisions of documents.

So: should we use a CMS or a wiki? As I see it:

Advantages of Wiki: easy to grow organically, creating new pages on the fly, good at interlinkages.

Disadvantages: no support for structure/hierarchy so you spend a lot of effort creating and maintaining navigation boxes. No per page/area permissions model. No "workflow" support. Generally inferior attachment support.

Or do many people use both?

Answer 1

You're just using "wrong" Wiki engine. See WikiMatrix.

As for integration, if this is not provided out of the box, all mature Wiki engines allow creation of extensions.

Answer 2

DokuWiki has structure/hierarchy support (namespaces) as well as customizable permissions for these namespaces. Attachments work with no problem.

We're using it successfully.

Answer 3

SharePoint.

I did not bother putting in a fuller answer as I knew I would be voted down either way... everyone hates MS right? If you have a Windows Server 2003 machine then you already have it as SharePoint Services 3.0 is included in the licence.

Here it is then, based on my experience...

Meeting minutes

SPS provides a specific functionality for this; you can create a Meeting Workspace site... http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/sharepointtechnology/HA100656201033.aspx?pid=CH100649471033

software specifications, plans, notes about other organisations, documents for discussion and storage, agendas...

There are 40 different Application Templates available for free, any number of which you can use for these purposes... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb407286.aspx

Some specific ones that might help you are...

Bug Database, Contacts Management, IT Team Workspace, Change Request Management, Knowledge Base, Project Tracking Workspace, Budgeting and Tracking Multiple Projects, Document Library and Review, Help Desk, Discussion Database, Product and Marketing Requirements Planning, Request for Proposal, Team Work Site, Timecard Management, Absence Request and Vacation Schedule Management

easily link to files in SVN and Trac tickets.

I don’t know anything about these, sorry. A link is a link though, right?

Advantages of Wiki: easy to grow organically, creating new pages on the fly, good at interlinkages.

SharePoint has a Wiki template built in to it... it is one of the types of site you can create out of the box.

Disadvantages: no support for structure/hierarchy

Built in to SharePoint

No per page/area permissions model.

Fully granular permissions model is built into SharePoint

No "workflow" support.

Basic workflow is built into SharePoint

Generally inferior attachment support.

Outstanding attachment support is built into SharePoint, including versioning, check in/check out etc.

torbengb | You should definitely use a wiki and not a CMS because in my experience:

1. a wiki is about collaborating rather than broadcasting

SharePoint is ALL about collaborating.

1. a wiki allows edit by anyone

Ditto for SharePoint, if you want, as long as you give them an account first.

1. a wiki features revision history

Ditto for SharePoint.

1. a wiki allows attachments per topic (wiki page) and also keeps revision history for these

Ditto for SharePoint.

Anyway, good luck!

Hokey.

Answer 4

We use pbwiki. It's a nice hosted solution. But for svn access, and bug tracking, we use trac alongside, and link to the trac page from the wiki.

Advantages of pbwiki: Per page access rights can be set, general organisation is easier, has support for templates for task assignment, time tracking etc.

Answer 5

probably neither, if you want to manage documents you'll need a document management system

you may even need some kind of custom intranet - not necessarily some enormous sharepoint behemoth, just something that's tailored to your needs.

do some proper analysis, or get someone in to do it for you... choosing a solution from a set of two predetermined options, with a two paragraph spec, is... not the best way of going about it.

Answer 6

To answer your question: CMS or Wiki? You should definitely use a wiki and not a CMS because in my experience:

1. a wiki is about collaborating rather than broadcasting
2. a wiki allows edit by anyone
3. a wiki features revision history
4. a wiki allows attachments per topic (wiki page) and also keeps revision history for these

In my experience, a CMS is essentially the opposite, and is more suited for maintaining a public website by non-tech people.

Which wiki? I would always recommend Foswiki.org (former TWiki) because of its excellent editing/linking/revision/access features, but I'm not aware whether it can interact well with your other systems. WikiMatrix.org is a good starting point.