Discover

'wikiHow' is a wiki-based community with a database of how-to guides. All of the site's content is licensed under Creative Commons (by-nc-sa); and the site uses a modified version of MediaWiki 1.9.3. The site started as an extension of the already existing eHow website, and has evolved to host over 24,000 how-to articles. wikiHow's mission is to build the world's largest how-to manual and help it grow. In May 2007, wikiHow had 5.39 million unique readers. ^[1]

Contents

History

Teams and Projects

Finances

Criticisms

Usefulness of information

Censorship

References

See also

External links

History

In January 2005, the two owners of eHow, Jack Herrick and Josh Hannah, started wikiHow—a collaborative writing project striving to build the world's largest how-to manual. While eHow already contained instructions on how to do thousands of things, wikiHow allowed a community of volunteer contributors to build something even bigger and better. On April 28, 2006, eHow was sold and wikiHow was launched as an independent site on its own www.wikihow.com domain.^[2]
As of July 2007, the number of registered wikiHow users stood at slightly more than 57,000.^[3]
so here is 1 little boring story = ))
wikiHow is a wiki, which (similarly to wikipedia) is a website that anyone can edit. wikiHow operates on open source software and an open content licensing model allowing free use and community ownership of the content.
Any visitor to wikiHow can create a new page and write about how to do something. Articles posted to wikiHow follow a standard format consisting of a summary, followed by steps to complete the activity, along with required items, warnings, tips, ingredients, and sometimes links to related how-to articles. Pictures may be added to the articles to illustrate important points or concepts. Once the page is submitted, other visitors can edit, improve, or change the page. Anonymous contributors and the wikiHow user community work together to improve the quality of information provided on the site, fix or remove incorrect instructions and revert vandalism. thanks all u 4 ur attention :))

Teams and Projects

wikiHow has several teams and projects.

Some examples of teams are:

★ The 'Welcome Team', welcomes new users with an information packed message about how to participate on the wikiHow site.

★ The 'Help Team', helps people learn the ropes and find their way around.^[4]


Some example projects are:


★ The 'Behavior Saviors project', which works to save the many articles about teen sub-cultures such as Goth, Emo, Gangster, Scene and Prep.

★ The 'Weekly Improvement project', which selects one article per week for the community to enhance to Featured Article quality.^[5]

★ The 'Relateds project', which tries to add Related wikiHows to Dead-End pages, to make it a cohesive How-to manual.

Finances

The site's initial start-up costs were to some extent financed from Herrick's sale of eHow. It is now funded from advertising on its pages, on the grounds that ''"...tasteful advertising is the most unobtrusive way to fund our operations."''^[6] It does not seek contributions, asserting that solicitations are annoying.^[7]
wikiHow has been set up as a for-profit company, but is not making a profit.^[7]

Criticisms

Usefulness of information

wikiHow does contain a wealth of information. Examples of widely circulated articles include:
:How to Do an Indian Head Massage
:How to Use English Punctuation Correctly
:How to Caulk a Bath Tub
But some criticize the validity and usefulness of a number of these how-to articles. Examples of questionable articles include:
:How to Stop Cutting Yourself^[9]
:How to Taste Dark Chocolate^[9]
Many critics of WikiHow have focused on what they claim is institutionalised patronism and condescension, trivialising serious issues such as in articles about 'How to be a Hobo' and 'How to Panhandle.'
Andy Rutledge has a post about how social media can be boring and devolve into mediocrity:
''Mediocrity is the only possible result of a wide sampling of opinion or input. The only idea that can survive such a mechanism is one consistent with the lowest common denominator. The mob works to ensure that all other results are weeded out. Now, we might think that it is the highest common denominator that is promoted in this environment, but it's just not so. The "highest" anything is largely held by the masses as being discriminatory and elitist. So only the lowest common denominator wins out. The point is that in this sort of environment excellence does not survive.''^[11]
While the editorial process does work by some objective standards (e.g., censoring hate speech, profanity, and correcting obvious spelling and grammatical errors), critics echo Rutledge's observation by charging that in the absence of traditional "objective" editorial standards, basis and personal preference of the WikiHow community ultimately decides what is published.

Censorship

Critics have attacked wikiHow's staunch censorship policy.^[12][13] Prohibited topics include those that are "sexually charged", illegal activities, drug use, and potentially destructive things (unlike Wikibooks, which has manuals for ). Critics argue that such censorship undermines the very idea behind an educational resource.

References

1. WikiHow Site Traffic Statistics
2. History of eHow and wikiHow
3. wikiHow Statistics
4. http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Help-Team
5. http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Projects
6. http://www.wikihow.com/About-wikiHow
7. http://www.wikihow.com/WikiHow:Is-wikiHow-a-Non-Profit
8. http://www.wikihow.com/WikiHow:Is-wikiHow-a-Non-Profit
9. How to do absolutely everything Addelman, Rebecca
10. How to do absolutely everything Addelman, Rebecca
11. http://www.andyrutledge.com/anti-social-media.php/anti-social-media
12. wikiHow_talk:Deletion Policy
13. wikiHow Deletion Policy

See also

★ Wikibooks

★ Wikitravel

★ Wikipedia

External links

★ wikiHow.com

★
★ wikiHow Language Project

★
★ wikiHow on MySpace

★ wikiHow to Open Content

★ How to do absolutely everything