Lifecycle: Draft → Review → Publish → Retire
Every article needs a lifecycle. Drafts aren’t public. Reviews have owners. Published articles have expiration dates. Retirement removes stale content.
Ownership per Category
Every knowledge category has an owner. Without ownership, nobody reviews. A 5-year-old article at the top of search results is worse than no article.
Feedback Loops
Enable user feedback on every article (helpful/not helpful, free text). Route negative feedback to the article owner weekly. Articles with 10+ ‘not helpful’ votes get flagged.
Search Analytics
What do users search for that returns nothing? That’s your content gap. Review zero-result searches monthly and commission articles for recurring queries.
Retention Policy
By default, articles live forever. Override that. Set max age per category (e.g. ‘product docs — 2 years’). Auto-expire; require re-certification to publish past expiration.