1

I just realized one thing:  wikiHow does not understand emoji.  While it may not be something that is of big concern, what if we made wikiHow understand emoji?

For example:  what if we redirected the smiley face emoji to “How to Smile”?  Or the kiss emoji to “How to Kiss”?  Or a computer emoji to the category “Computers and Electronics”?

I have not tried it as it may be controversial, and it may not seem like a viable project, but I am posting it anyway in case it sounds like a good idea (especially to help with mobile traffic where it is easier to type emoji than words).

@Anna is welcome to close this if it seems like a bad idea.

2

Add on to above comment:  Bing and Google also understand emoji, and so does Wikipedia.  Why not wikiHow?

3

I don’t think I fully understand what you mean, but it sounds like it would involve special characters in redirects, which probably aren’t universally supported by the software and don’t serve much of a purpose, since redirects don’t show up to readers or searchers. So while I appreciate the humor of the idea, it’s prob not the best use of your time right now:slight_smile:

4

Are you saying if there was a redirect between:slightly_smiling_face:and “How to Smile”, it won’t make the article show up in search results?

5

PS I figured using HTML codes make emoji work as well:slightly_smiling_face::slightly_smiling_face:so expect some more:joy:and:rofl:

6

No, I’m saying no redirects show up in search results, so the impact would be low. And my hunch is the use of these characters in titles has the potential to mess with other tools and systems.

7

To add to what Anna said, I don’t think people would be plugging emojis into the search bar or URL and expecting serious results. And frankly, emojis really aren’t versatile enough for the majority of our titles or categories. I’ve seen them used in titles so infrequently that I can count the instances on one hand, and they always came alongside other text.

My guess is that wikiHow doesn’t “understand” emoji because frankly, we don’t need it. We use screenshots and I haven’t even seen emojis used in the articles specifically on emoji. We operate completely differently from search engines or other wikis; suggesting changes to the site based on what such-and-such site does isn’t necessarily going to benefit us, and may actually hurt us depending on what it is. 

8

Okay, then any administrator may close or delete this thread.  And @Galactic-Radiance , AFAIK I think we do use emoji in some articles ( example ) but those are only tech articles where you have to press physical buttons that are not keyboard keys.