Wiki Wiki Alternatives

Some say this wiki sucks because it appears disorganized. However, what are the alternatives? Where are they?

WikiPedia?

As an encyclopedia of formal or published terms, perhaps. But it lacks the debate and water-cooler aspects of WikiWiki.

WikiPedia forces a divide between DocumentMode and ThreadMode (which is good) but all the ThreadMode of WardsWiki and more is there if you want it under the Talk/Discussion tab.

Long discussions under "talk" are generally frowned upon and often deleted. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not. Also floating around concepts that have no formal name (yet) is difficult on WP. It emphasizes "published" flattened dead-wood documents as a reference. I suppose one could consider WP the formal side of software engineering and WW the exploration side.

In terms of Wikis, yes. There are other fora, Wiki or otherwise, that on a per-topic basis are as exploratory, but this Wiki is perhaps the most generally exploratory Wiki that is relatively well-known.

In that case, can anyone recommend wiki's or discussion groups on more specific topics, such as ExtremeProgramming, OOP, databases, cloud computing, AI, etc? UseNet and Google's mirror of it used to serve this function, but it's been moth-chewed by relentless spam.

See: BlameTheRightThing, PressOn, TimeOut

CategoryWikiTopics, CategoryWiki