Wiki - Is it right for me?

I had a respondent to another one of my posts ask me a very interesting question.  I had to pause and think about the answer for a couple of minutes.  I guess I had taken for granted my process for explaining when to use one method over another for implenting wiki's.

If you are using SharePoint you realize that you have a couple different ways to implent a Wiki.  You can create a Wiki Library in a site, or you can create a Wiki site.  So what is the difference?  Essentially nothing.  You have the same ability to capture tacit knowledge.  So when should you use one over the other?

Here is the method I use to decide:

First off, if the information that is being captured only is useful to the a sites members or a team I would use a Wiki Library inside of a team site.  Reason being is that it is really specific for only that purpose and usually the content that is being delivered is not of interest outside of that group.  So a great example for this would of course be a Team Project Site that needs to share common information or content.  So things like jargon, buisness concepts, or even requirements can be captured and quickly shared with the rest of the team.

Now when would I use a Wiki site?  Well, this is more of the macro version of the list concept.  I would use this when the content is going to be of interest to anyone that is going to a portal.  To give you a good example, think of a company that is using SharePoint as a intranet.  Departments could use Wiki sites to publish content to the rest of the company that is important to the company as a whole.  So lets assume that Human Resources wants to make it easier to publish Policies and Procedures, an Employee Handbook, or even Company Benefit FAQ's then a wiki site can be created to capture the content. 

Anything inbetween is just a judgement call, but remember if you decide later you should have gone with one over the other you can always migrate the content.

Hopefully this will be helpful to you in the future when you decide to use wiki's.  And Kay (Phoebe), thank you for the idea for the post.

MIchael