Dear Bob ...Do you know of any cases where a large enterprise has used a Wiki for their metadata, allowing most people (after registering) with access to the intranet update the metadata?The problem we are having is that IT does not want to own (seems they did not budget or schedule for it) the metadata, so now we have an entry for every database, schema, table, column, term and concept, but most of the entries Dear Bob …Do you know of any cases where a large enterprise has used a Wiki for their metadata, allowing most people (after registering) with access to the intranet update the metadata?The problem we are having is that IT does not want to own (seems they did not budget or schedule for it) the metadata, so now we have an entry for every database, schema, table, column, term and concept, but most of the entries simply contain the name, data type and when it was created. This was created using automated scripts from the various databases, and is not helping me as a downstream developer. Most of the knowledge has been given out, but in so many PowerPoint slides and e-mails that no one person knows it all. Since the problem is that IT doesn’t have the staff to fill in the metadata I figured we, the users could.– VolunteerDear Volunteer I don’t know of any cases for metadata. My initial reaction is that there would be a significant loss of control. I think of metadata the way I think of the chart of accounts – something to be carefully planned and centrally managed.But maybe I’m just getting old.In any undertaking, when a business chooses an alternative, it’s balancing risks. Compared to the risk of undocumented metadata, it’s entirely possible the risk of having too many incorrect entries might be lower. Or, it might not: Remember the wise words of Mark Twain, who said, “It ain’t what we don’t know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we do know that ain’t so.”– BobPowered by ScribeFire. Technology Industry