The Duplicate anti-pattern describes the practice of taking content out of the wiki and either putting it into another content management system, or sending it to people by email. This reduces peoples’ ability to rely on a single source of information, and makes it more difficult to keep multiple copies of the information up to date.

How do I notice it?

Look for email, other content management systems or internal websites, or powerpoint files with content that’s been taken from wiki pages but not referenced as such with appropriate URLs.

How do I fix it?

Talk to your team about the importance of keeping content associated with the wiki. Suggest that instead of taking content from the wiki and presenting it in a different forum, people might just email others a link to content on the wiki.

Follow-up any broadcast of wiki-originated information with a message indicating where the information came from, such as, “If you want to have the most up-to-date version of this information, remember to check: [URL]“.