I fired up the quite excellent Visual Studio today to do a little of what I do every day. In this case, as I was waiting for my project to load I noticed a link to “New Updates to the ASP.NET Wiki”. It’s been awhile since I visited the ASP.NET Wiki (likely around its February 2008 release) and this seemed like something I should at least take a look at again.

…and it was almost exactly what I expected. Generic, awful-looking crap — with ads. It couldn’t be any more proto-typically Microsoft if they’d attached a signature 2007 or two-alpha-character suffix. I’m sure someone lobbied for Wiki.NET 2007 NT.

I’m a bit more keen on design aesthetics than most hard-core developers. Just a bit more interested in the user’s perspective and the utility of an application than whether it is using straight ADO.NET, the (dated) Data Access Application Block, nHibernate, or any other ORM to get data to user (and back again). As long as it works, isn’t too messy, and is snappy enough to deal with the load, I’m fine with it.

So, I start digging through and like most of the Microsoft properties, there is some good stuff in here. Much of the content is really solid and functionally, it’s worthy of a passing grade — if I could just see my red pen through the blood pooling in my eyes. I start to feel a bit congested and my blood-pressure starts to rise searching for content. There are navigation elements, and lists of links sprayed all over the page like… have you ever tried that acoustic ceiling spray in a can? If you have, you know what I mean. If you haven’t I beseech you to give it a try (NOTE: heed ALL warnings on the can).

But I digress. Here is a screenshot of the ASP.NET Wiki:

Right off the bat, the ads are both offensive and totally out of place. Maybe it’s me, but any time I see a graphical smiley, in the wild or in an ad, I immediately think I entered the wrong URL into the browser. It’s shocking. The disregard for white space is apparent throughout, but not so much as on the asp.net homepage.

If you’re running your browser at less than 1080 pixels wide, you’re going to see the following start to happen. I initially thought it was me and gratuitous use of the Firefox browser, but no, you’ll see the same thing in IE7. God help you if you’re stuck on that piece of garbage, 1024 x 768 development laptop you’ve been assigned at Super GloboMax Worldwide Incorporated (or Target Corporation).

Again, the content is decent — if you can work your way through the phlegm.

Straight out of MinneRails, er, I mean Minnebar last weekend, I thought to myself, “Self, I wonder what the Rails Wiki looks like.”

It’s as good as the ASP.NET one is bad. Simple, elegant layout. Easy to navigate. The internal pages are even better.

One step further and you see what the actual content looks like.

There is the information I want. The sparseness is wonderful, isn’t it? I want to cuddle with this ad-free, feature-rich, information-packed, easily-navigable, simple wiki — and I don’t do Rails.

I have three things to offer to Microsoft, the team behind the ASP.NET wiki (Scott Hanselman, Telligent), and really anyone trying to build a community around a product they are selling or supporting. First, just because you are a for-profit entity, doesn’t mean you need to monetize every single page of your content with banner ads or the google equivalent. Communities work better and (maybe this is where Microsoft is missing the boat) feel more natural if as a member you’re not constantly being marketed to. Secondly, use the right tool for the job. I know SharePoint and the .NET-based portals are going to be your first choice based on the user base, but are they the best bet? Not by a long shot for something like this. Thirdly, I see (the very google-esque) “beta” in the wiki title. Please consider some serious changes before this becomes “production code”.

Maybe a tool like ScrewTurn Wiki is a better option. At the very least it would be a refreshing change to this nightmare.