A wiki how-to, wikiHow is an extension of eHow, a website featuring how-to articles on various subjects. As a source of information on how to do something, wikiHow comes up lacking. You are better off searching eHow first, and the web as a whole second, and then wikiHow only if you couldn't find the information anywhere else.
wikiHow - Pros and Cons
- How-to articles on a large number of subjects
- Easy-to-use editing and adding page interface
- Advertisements on the site aren't intrusive
- Many articles have poor quality and questionable instructions.
Guide Review - wikiHow
The wikiHow is powered by a customized version of Mediawiki, a popular wiki engine. Like other wikis, wikiHow will let you search for articles, edit articles, and add your own articles. The site is well-designed and easy to use. And while wikiHow is supported by advertisements, the ads are not intrusive, so you won't be too annoyed by them.
Editing an article or adding your own how-to article is a breeze. You will first need to register a login with the site, but wikiHow does support OpenID, so if you have an OpenID account all you will need to do is choose a username. Once you have logged in, you can edit any article by clicking on the edit button, or create your own how-to article by clicking on "Create a Page" at the top right of the website.
The interface for adding articles and editing existing articles is very clean and simple to use. In the main article, any line with a hash mark (#) in front of it will be considered a step and include the appropriate step number beside it. Tips and warnings use a similar feature by having an asterisk in front of a line denote the tips or warning having its own bullet point.
Taking the How-to Out of wikiHow
As easy as wikiHow is to use, the site itself is not very useful. Of the random searches I did on a variety of subjects, only a few articles contained good information, while the rest were somewhat questionable.
For example, an article explaining how to type a web address into the toolbar of a browser suggests that, if you don't know of a website to type in, you can use Google to search for good websites to type into the address bar. Personally, I'm of the opinion that anyone who has the Google results up on their screen should probably just go ahead and click on the link provided.
Another interesting example was the how-to article on how to bake cookies. It boiled down to: (1) find a recipe, (2) gather supplies needed for recipe, (3) follow recipe instructions and (4) let cookies cool. The only actually useful piece of information in the article was a tip on sticking a toothpick into the cookie to test if they were done.
While wikiHow's wiki engine is sophisticated enough to allow people to create strong articles, and some of the articles found on wikiHow are pretty good, I wouldn't recommend using it as your first source of information. My how-to on finding a how-to article would be: (1) go to Google, (2) type in "how to" followed by what you are trying to do and (3) hit search.
The Bright Side of wikiHow
On a positive note, if you are looking to explore the world of wiki and are looking for a wiki to join, you could do a lot worse.
Whether you just want to go through editing articles, or you have a lot of ideas for how-to articles, the interface at wikiHow is clean and simple-to-use.
