I have seen a great deal of wiki-phobia, even among so called techies. No matter how many wikis I deploy, this inevitably occurs. Here's my take on the proble

I have seen a great deal of wiki-phobia, even among so called techies. No matter how many wikis I deploy, this inevitably occurs. Here's my take on the problem: - Wikis require a heroic effort to keep organized. Most people, when faced with creating a new category, or even a new page would rather send an e-mail and forget it. The fact that you have to not only post something, but also decide where it belongs makes the job of posting feel much harder. "You mean I have to categorize my content before I post?" - Wikis require more cognitive effort on the part of the poster. With e-mail or a message board, you can essentially dump your brain and hit send. With a wiki, you have to integrate your post, not only into the organization, as I mentioned above, but also into an existing post(s). "You mean I have to read and understand other content before I post?" - Most wiki markup is based on the ideas behind the semantic web and should remain readable and understandable even in markup mode - unfortunately, people don't like to cede control of the way their document looks. I have seen non-techies spend hours jumping through HTML/WYSIWYG hoops simply to achieve a particular look - not realizing the nightmare of editing such a page (think word generated HTML pasted into the page). "You mean I have to sacrifice my format before I post?" - Finally most wiki software doesn't have a easy to use e-mail notification system. Many times you have to manually "watch" a page instead of just watching the whole wiki or a whole category. When you do get an update e-mail - you have to actually go to the wiki - no hitting reply - this again interrupts cognitive flow for a lot of folks. "You mean I have to keep track of all the changes myself?" I love wikis, and certainly think that they can increase productivity - but they require a greater cognitive effort on the part of the poster, and a lot of folks are unable to make the short term sacrifices to achieve the long term gain a wiki can offer.