Corporate Wiki Organization - Technical Documentation

Question

Corporations have documents describing various aspects of their technical systems, including:

• Custom Applications
• Custom Development Frameworks
• Third Party Applications
  • Accounting
  • Bug Tracking
  • Network Management
• How To Guides
• User Manuals
• Software Tools
  • Web Browsers
  • Development
    • IDEs
  • Graphics
    • GIMP
    • xv
  • Text Editing
  • File Transfer
    • ncFTP
    • WinSCP
• Hardware
  • Servers
    • Web
    • Database
    • Exchange
    • File
  • Network Devices
  • Printers

What other items are missing from the list, and how would you organize it? (For example, would Software Tools make more sense under Third Party Applications?) Try to think about where you, a software developer, would expect to find the information by browsing (not searching).

A few constraints:

• The structure should not go beyond three levels deep.
• Avoid the word "and" in favour of two different categories.
• Keep the structure general: it should appy as broadly as possible.
• Target audience is primarily technical, but could be visible by anyone.

Answer 1

I think if you keep a consistent taxonomy, then as things change, you just change the appropriate level. Case in point: If I set the root level of the tree as Hardware and Software, then under each branch, you could have 'In-house, External, 3rd party'. Inder a 3 level you can then start to create your specifics (printers, office software, SAP, etc). Within that 3rd level you then put your specific documentation (how to's, licences info, etc). Obviously part of this depends on what the target audience is. Is it technical people, just looking for a quick detail, or anybody in a large corporation, that may or may not have a technical background. If you keep the 1st two levels relatively straight forward, then it's still quick for the tech person, but everybody else can still access it also quickly.

Answer 2

Personally I would prefer a search engine and a tagging/folksonomy approach.

Seriously taxonomies can easily become a rabbit hole. I'd keep a track of the most popular documents and bring them right to the top of the navigation and let people search for the rest.

Answer 3

Looks good. it should be organic to your organizations needs so how it develops is purely dependent on need, IMHO.