Is it a good idea if the main Author or the major contributor to an article is named particularly,as in “Article written by XYZ and modified or edited by abc” Like for My article its been written as last modified by RASHMI KURMATI based on the work by Terssa,Senrendep etc,whee actually they have made little editing. What I mean to say is though all of us know wikihow is a collabrative forum with many people contributing in one article some authors who work completely on there work or few others who make an effort complete an article should be given there credit.
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Short version: I don’t like this idea at all. Long version: wikiHow is a collaborative effort. Once you submit an article to wikihow, it is part of wikihow, and doesn’t belong to you anymore, since it is cc licensed. If you read the text under the edit box, you will notice that it clearly mentions that other editors will improve and build upon what you submit. Let’s say person X created an article on how to do xyz. His article is a poor and shabby effort, but then editor Y comes along and improves by leaps and bounds. Then editor z comes along, improves it further and so on and so forth until the article is the best guide on how to do xyz there is. Crediting person x specially would be well, unfair to the other editors, who did most of the work. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario either. It happens every single day on wikihow. Just look at some of our most popular articles, and compare the original draft to the final article. You will be amazed at the difference. No article is ever perfect. there is always room for improvement. That said,the author of an article IS credited more than others. The article is displayed on his user page stat box, and he gets most of the credit if the article is to be featured on the main page. ( I don’t agree with this, but I’m okay with it). Credit is given. It is given in abundance. Every week, great new articles are mentioned in the community achievements forum thread, along with great editors, great edits, and so on. There is also a thumbs up system, an abundance of Thanks templates, medals, barnstars, talk page messages… well, you get the idea. Every bit of ‘little editing’ counts. Tiny drops make an ocean. Editors who have made major edits to improve the article are recognized with what I mentioned above. Abhishek
In short: When you decided to share your articles with wikiHow, credit will be given to all of those who take part in improving them, not only you.
