How to run a personal wiki

A personal wiki is a private or semi-public set of linked pages where one person keeps ideas, projects, and notes, and running one well takes a simple tool, a light structure, and small daily habits. This page explains how to start one, how to keep it alive, and how to turn good private notes into public pages. IdeaWaza itself runs on MediaWiki, and the advice here comes from years of wanting wikis that individuals can own and share on their own terms.

Why keep a personal wiki

A notebook holds notes in order. A wiki holds notes in relation. That difference matters more as the collection grows.

Ideas link to each other. A page about a project can point to the people, sources, and older ideas behind it, and those pages point back.
Nothing gets lost. Every note has a page name, a search box, and a list of pages that link to it.
Public pages can grow from private notes. A rough note today can become a polished article next month.
You own your knowledge. When the files live on your own machine or server, no outside service decides what happens to them.

Choosing a tool

The best tool is the one you will open every day. Start simple, and pick something you can export from later.

Tool	Type	Good for	Notes
MediaWiki	Self-hosted wiki software (PHP with a database)	Large wikis, public pages, templates, and categories	Powerful and the engine behind Wikipedia, but it needs a server and some upkeep.
DokuWiki	Self-hosted wiki using flat text files	Small to medium wikis with easy backups	Open source and does not require a database, so pages are plain files on disk.
TiddlyWiki	A single HTML file	Portable notes that open in any browser	The whole wiki lives in one file you can copy, email to yourself, or keep on a USB drive.
Obsidian	Desktop and mobile app over local Markdown files	Private notes with wiki style links	Proprietary app. Its license page currently says it is free for all purposes, including personal use. Check the current terms before relying on it.
Logseq	Open source outliner (AGPL license)	Daily journals and linked bullet points	Stores notes as local files and encourages a daily page.
Git repository of Markdown files	Plain text files under version control	Developers and anyone who wants full history	Works with any editor. Hosting services can render Markdown files as readable pages.

If you want a public wiki later, MediaWiki or DokuWiki make that step easy. If you want total privacy and portability, a folder of Markdown files or a single TiddlyWiki file is a strong choice.

A simple starting structure

Begin with a handful of pages. Add more only when you feel the need.

Home is the front door, with links to every other starter page.
Inbox is where quick notes land before they get a proper home.
Projects lists active work, with one page per project.
Ideas collects possibilities you are not yet working on.
People and sources records who and what shaped your thinking.
Daily log holds short dated entries about what you did and learned.
Archive keeps finished or abandoned pages out of the way but still searchable.

Daily and weekly habits

A wiki stays useful through small, steady actions. Big cleanups rarely happen, so make the small ones automatic.

Capture to the Inbox. When a thought arrives, write it down in the Inbox right away. Speed matters more than polish.
Link each new page to at least two pages. One link should go up to a broader page, such as a project. Another should go sideways to a related idea.
Do a weekly review. Once a week, empty the Inbox. Move each note to a real page, merge it into an existing page, or delete it.
Promote good notes. During the review, mark notes that could help other people. These are candidates for public pages.

Ten minutes a day and thirty minutes a week is enough for most people.

Linking well

Links are the main reason to use a wiki at all. A few habits make them stronger.

Use clear, literal page titles, so links read naturally in a sentence.
Link the first mention of a topic on a page, and leave later mentions plain.
Create a link even when the target page does not exist yet. A red link is a reminder to write it.
Check the list of pages that link to a page. It often shows connections you missed.
Prefer links over categories when the relation is specific.

Backups and mirrors

A personal wiki can hold years of thinking, so protect it. See Local-first wiki and Git mirrors for a fuller treatment.

Export regularly. MediaWiki has an export page and database dump tools. DokuWiki and Markdown setups are already plain files you can copy.
Use Git. Keeping text files in a Git repository gives you a full history of every change and an easy way to push copies to more than one place.
Keep an offline copy. Store a recent backup on a drive you control, apart from your main computer.
Verify your copies. Restoring a backup once in a while proves that it works. Content hashes can confirm that a copy matches the original; see How content hashing works.

From private notes to public pages

Sharing your notes can help others and sharpen your own thinking. Before a page goes public, run through a short checklist. The page Publish gates before permanence explains why a pause before publishing is worth it.

Remove private details, such as names, addresses, health notes, and money matters.
Check every fact against a reliable source, and add links to those sources.
Write a clear, literal title that says what the page is about.
Open with a sentence that states the main idea.
Replace private shorthand with plain words a stranger can follow.
Read the page once more the next day, with fresh eyes.

Common mistakes

Most personal wikis fail from habits, not from tools.

Over-organizing. Building an elaborate system before writing any notes wastes energy. Structure should grow from real pages.
Too many categories. Dozens of categories with one page each add clutter. A few broad categories plus good links work better.
Never reviewing. An Inbox that is never emptied becomes a junk drawer. The weekly review is what keeps the wiki alive.
Switching tools too often. Each move costs time and can break links. Pick a tool with good export and stay with it.
Writing only for yourself forever. Some notes deserve readers. Promoting a page now and then keeps the writing clear.

External links