Martin Menu commented on my milk-themed post to tell me that François Nonnenmacher is on the milk and wikis theme too, with a metaphor to compare web sites and wikis:

Traditional web sites are like whole milk, they taste great but can be fatty. Wikis are like skimmed milk, they taste like water but contain all the nutriments without the fat.

He goes on to explain the delicate balance that’s needed to build good content on a wiki, and make it appealing to people, without going to one extreme or the other:

More seriously, it’s a fact that an empty wiki rarely looks good out of the box, and that may be discouraging or repelling for a lot of people. At the same time, it’s also easy to fall into the classical trap of focusing primarily on the look, because it’s easier (on the surface only) and funnier than producing and organizing content.

Wikis are, in essence, web sites, so they don’t escape the same design principles about usability, navigability, information architecture, etc. Since not everybody is born a web designer, this explains why wikis are introducing a whole bunch of new roles, like gardners who will let people plant freely and later shape things up to help grow the wiki properly.

The full post is an excellent read, with more good advice on wiki design and the differences between open source and commercial enterprise wikis.

Image Credit: Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com.