While our last few posts have focused on ways to encourage team members to use and contribute to your Wiki, there are also pitfalls to watch out for that may hinder Wiki adoption.  One thing to watch out for is your Wiki evolving into an "expert driven" Wiki. 

When this happens, people feel like they can/should only create and edit information about which they are an expert.  While there are many issues with this type of Wiki, the two main problems are: the lack of new information being added, and the alienation of users who feel that they are not an expert (or enough of an expert) regarding the information covered in your Wiki.

Adding New Information
This issue goes hand in hand with our Something is Better than Nothing post.  If users feel they must be an expert to add information into your Wiki, then content will be rarely added.  While incorrect information is certainly not desirable, incomplete information should be considered okay, since this will encourage other wiki contributors to add to it, thus enhancing the scope of the knowledge covered in your Wiki.  It is obvious that most of the time, people feel like they know enough to contribute to a subject much more often than they feel like they are an expert on a subject.   

Non-Expert Alienation
If your Wiki turns into an "expert driven" Wiki, you also run the risk of completely alienating those users who feel they are not an expert on any topic covered in your Wiki.  Since they do not think they should add to any existing content, usually they will not add any new subjects to the Wiki either.  At this point, you run the risk of those users completely abandoning the Wiki, and if this happens your Wiki will begin to get out of date and useless.  

To avoid the "expert driven" wiki trap, encourage users to add new information and update existing information, even though they do not know everything about the subject.  The more this happens, the more complete your Wiki will become.