Wiki Guideline Changes

Today’s Wiki Wednesday Feature: Guidelines

You might have noticed that we have a new wiki landing page, which we hope will give you an easier way to find what you’re looking for. In addition to the landing page, we have also created new guidelines for the Wiki.

With the wiki, we are working toward creating the most comprehensive real estate knowledge base possible. This includes complete thoughts and resources about all aspects of real estate. We realize this won’t happen overnight –- but we will slowly get there.

In order to do this, we have thought long and hard about current content in the wiki, and the direction we want that content to continue to grow.  And in our many conversations, we have had a bit of a philosophy shift. We’ve come to the realization that we don’t think a wiki needs a method of public attribution to succeed. We think complete, useful content will come from those who are interested in creating content for the greater good — and that being recognized for these contributions is less important than we originally thought.

When we first launched the wiki back in December, we started off by accepting wiki contributor content that we no longer feel is appropriate — specifically biased content that appears to be advertising. We’ve received some excellent feedback from both consumers and real estate professionals on this subject, which contributed a great deal to this decision. Many felt that too much of the wiki content being created was not useful in the long run to those visiting the site looking for information on a specific real estate topic. We believe the new guidelines regarding acceptable contributor conduct will lead to a higher level of content being created. When contributing, please think about the consumer who will be viewing the page and ask yourself — "Will readers find this useful?"  A great example of this can be found on the content created on the topic of real estate blogging.

We do think there is value to participants’ contact details (and a way to drive traffic to their site) being placed in the wiki, but it should be in the appropriate place with the appropriate context. One of these places is the Directory of Real Estate Professionals. Another is a directory of places to find real estate for sale online. Both of these resources are far from complete, but we are aiming to make them more findable from the main landing page. We welcome any suggestions as to where else you think is appropriate for contact details.

The  wiki is a community effort and we want to get you involved — we would love to get your feedback on the new guidelines. Are they too strict? Too general? Are there certain guidelines you disagree with? We’re eager to hear what you think.