Wikis and Widgets and Web, oh my!

Wikis and Widgets and Web, oh my!

Everyone knows about Wikipedia: the online database created by users to inform the world about every and any person, place, or thing imaginable. But how many people know how about the other sites that are part of the wiki platform? Before delving into the world of WikiHow and creating a tutorial, I wasn’t very familiar with the platform, but it has been quite the learning experience to go through the process of forming an idea, picking a topic, drafting outlines, coding my tutorial, editing pictures, and finally publishing it to the Web. The WikiHow platform is really interesting, informative, and useful because it provides step-by-step instructions to teach users of the Web on a multitude of topics!

In the advent of Web 2.0, the Web became very focused on user interaction and creative inclusivity. People everywhere began to experiment with the Web. And therein lies the creation of the Wiki: users across the globe have shared access to this site to collaborate and explore new materials and topics each and every day.

WikiHow has evolved a lot over time, and even now its interface is constantly changing. A criticism of the site that is present  in many users is that WiikiHow is incredibly unstable in the editing mode and platform. This can make it difficult when drafting your article because of the threat that you will lose all of your hard work.

If you’re interested in making a WikiHow, here are some things to keep in mind! When coding your WikiHow, it is necessary to constantly be backing up your coding in an outside document. Backing up your data is always important, but when using WikiHow it is especially pertinent because it’s very easy to lose all of the work that you’ve put into your tutorial simply by accidentally clicking on the wrong thing.

Many WikiHows use pictures to get across their point in their tutorial in order to communicate in more than one way. If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine how much easier it will be for someone reading your tutorial to get the gist of what you’re saying based on a well placed, and excellently composed picture that gets your point across effectively. Many people learn by reading and absorb material very efficiently that way; others are visual learners and need to see it happen in front of them. This is why it is extremely beneficial to include pictures if you are creating a WikiHow.

When creating your WikiHow, it also is helpful to your future reader to reference other articles within your own article. That way, if your article doesn’t specifically address what they need to know about, they can find other article that might easily, therefore making your article more useful and interactive to as many people as possible.

The best advice out there is to create a WikiHow on a topic that you have personal experience in. Your experiences as an individual are unique to you, and therefore you will be able to bring a lens to your Wiki that nobody else has. Original content is essential to creating a WikiHow because the WikiHow admins want to avoid redundancy in their articles. This avoidance of redundancy is also good for the quality of the content that is posted onto the site. They don’t want to have shoddy articles on their site because it would detract from the quality ones that are present already. The high standards of the WikiHow community works to combat the amateurization of the Web that Web 2.0 promoted. While it is good that more and more people were able to share their experiences and teach others new things, sometimes the amateurization would cause lots of inaccurate information to be spread. WikiHow’s interface is reliant on a network of admins to filter the content of the site in order to make sure that the information and tutorials are reliable, useful, and of the highest caliber of quality.

Even in learning to make a WikiHow, you will likely learn things while teaching others. For example, you could be teaching someone how to make a lei, but you yourself could be learning how to code basic website things for the first time! Or perhaps you are learning about the best way to write a tutorial. Either way, walking away from publishing your first WikiHow article you have gained a few things. Firstly, the fact that you published your own article on the Web that will help others! Secondly, that you worked through problems with your article, whether it be making sure everything was finally numbered correctly, formatting that picture just-so, or getting the subject line to make sense. And lastly, a sense of accomplishment in completing a project.

Happy Wiki-ing!