Strengths and weaknesses in using a wiki

Strengths in using wikis

- Planning - Coordination - Information and Knowledge sharing - Programme management - Knowledge Management - Organisational management

User friendly
Easy to update (access, language, formatting)
Easy to organise and manage (pages just loosely associated, no hard structures of hierarchies),
Easy to work on simultaneously (collaborative feature), fast, can manage different languages, accepts attachments
Simple and obvious to navigate pages
simple to edit
simple to capture and convert pages into word processable files.
Wikis have as few extra features as possible - i.e. wiki only, no instant messaging, blogging, alternatve formats etc..
Accessible design (graphically and technically)

Challenges in using wikis

Connectivity issues; Wikis require constant and stable internet connection, for instance when updating a wiki page and connectivity is not best, you risk loosing info
Wikis are online tools; training oofline communities is difficulty
Easy to forget passwords
Loose information because time allowed to update a page is set to too fast
Unclear codes and computing languages for formatting not straight-forward for some wikis like Tiki wiki
In some cases, language can be seen as a barrier in using wikis. Most wiki platforms are in English thus there is no localized option of wikis for users who are not able to read and write English.
It can be complicated to implement different levels of access for different pages on a wiki.
Difficulty in deciding when it is time to create a new wiki and when to simply create a new section on the existing wiki since there are many users
It can take a while to get newbies comfortable with the wiki way of working
Spam on open wiki pages is increasingly becoming a problem
Different wiki syntaxes for different types of wikis is a bit irritating
People's time and attention is so stretched, it can be hard to move a project forward.
Unclear expectations
Control issues, difficulty to decide on who to control which pages
Sprawling and disorganization over time
Style issues (some people just don't like the emergent nature of wikis!)