Assuming that you already know what the word Wiki stands for and what it round about is but you a) either still ask yourself why you should have one for yourself/ company/ project or b) you introduced a Wiki system but it hasn't been put to much use or c) you wonder if there are certain "best practices", then this article is for you.
It is mostly intended for people that try to evangelize for Wikis within their company/ department/ project but can be read by anyone interested in learning more about Wikis.

Introduction: Why on earth a Wiki?
A Wiki system can have different goals. It generally helps with the 1) transfer of knowledge and encourages 2) knowledge sharing among parties and can dramatically increase the information flow between team-members/ business-units/ companies/ etc.

I have seen Wikis that failed and others that were highly successful.

"As with all knowledge management tools, they live from the participation of all. Without such a tool being used by its intended users, it suffices no one."

This may sound simple but to get people to use a Wiki will be your (if you are the person in spearheading the effort) main responsibility and indeed way to measure your success. You will have failed in your change management attempts - because indeed any attempt to introduce a new knowledge-management tool is such - if people will rarely use the Wiki for its intended purpose, will have found other means (of course only "bad" if the alternative is less effective) to communicate and interact and/ or if your users created little information islands (more on that later on). The latter meaning that they input information into the system but fail to link to other bits and pieces within it, therefore creating data islands that fail to create real knowledge.

A good test for a Wiki system that is used for knowledge transfers/ sharing is to simply put someone with no or only slight understanding of what he is about to see in front of it and get back to him at end of day. If he is in a position to ask intelligent questions you will succeeded in creating something truly useful.

Best Practices:

1. Think in Wiki

A Wiki allows one easy editing, you can focus on the more important aspects of the content (what are about to say) instead of its layout (how it will look like). All Wikis allow basic content structuring such as bulleted/ numbered lists,