How to keep a wiki from going stale

The method, step by step

1. Single-source every fact. If a number, endpoint or policy appears in three pages, two of them are already wrong. Put it on one page and @mention that page from the others.
2. Give every page an owner. A named owner at the top of the page. Unowned documentation is nobody's job, and nobody's job is the definition of stale.
3. Use backlinks as a change list. When a fact changes, open its page and read the Links panel — every page that depends on it is listed. That is your update checklist, generated for free.
4. Let renames propagate. Reference pages with @mention chips rather than pasted URLs. Chip labels re-resolve from live titles, so renaming a page fixes every reference at once instead of breaking them.
5. Audit with the activity stream. Monthly, list pages untouched in 90 days that people still open. That intersection — high traffic, no edits — is where staleness actually hurts.
6. Delete without ceremony. Trash keeps deletions restorable, so removing a doubtful page is a cheap, reversible act. A smaller wiki people trust beats a large one they do not.

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