A Gardener is a person who performs small edits on a wiki to continually improve its overall quality. Gardeners are important to the success of a wiki because their edits increase the value of everyone else’s content, such as:

• Cosmetic editing to keep the wiki from being overrun with “weeds” (typos, misspellings, poorly structured sentences and paragraphs)
• Add or fix links to make sure relevant content is navigable within the wiki
• Improve the flow and clarity of content improve the readability of the page
• Setting an example for other users of how and when to use the wiki

Usage

Gardeners tend to be self-selecting. They’re people who care about attention to detail, are offended by messiness and will make the small edits that are required to continually improve the quality of your wiki.

So if you can’t select them, how do you increase gardener-like behaviour?

• When you see someone making a small, cosmetic improvement edit – encourage them.
• If someone emails you to tell you about a small mistake – show them how to fix it themselves.
• Make sure that your wiki makes it obvious how to edit a page.
• Ensure that your people understand there are no barriers to anyone editing (improving) any page.

They are the opposite of Trolls, who generally try to get a reaction from the community by posting strongly controversial content or doing disruptive things, like deleting someone else’s edits. This almost never happens in environments where users are not anonymous and are associated with their edits.

Example

Let’s say you’re the Champion in your organization and someone from one of the groups you’ve introduced to the wiki asks:

“Our wiki is used frequently. After a while it gets disorganized and needs a big cleanup – how can I improve this?”

Suggest that team members spend one regular session (perhaps once a week) acting as Gardeners. It might also be useful for the group to look for a volunteer willing to act as a sort of head Gardener or Maintainer who ensures that pages are up to par.