It’s January 15th, 2017 - wikiHow’s 12th birthday. On this day 12 years ago, we went live with a ludicrously audacious plan to give everyone on the planet a free how-to manual. It seemed crazy at the time. It actually still does. Yet 12 years later, this audacious goal is is shared by more people and is closer to reality than it’s ever been.
Not too long after launch, something wonderful happened: Incredible people started joining wikiHow and offering to help. Amazing people like @Davecrosby
, @Zack
, @Flickety
and @Loiswade42
joined. People who, even in those early days, believed in our mission
to provide a free, practical how-to education to people all around the world. People who believed in the power of the wiki and the heights we could reach through collaboration
. People who embraced contributing and editing, each for their own reasons
. Over the years, many other awesome community members have caught the wiki bug. If I start trying to list you all, I’m going to end up losing my train of thought, but I hope you know who you are. Whether you’ve been around years or just joined in 2016, whether you’ve been to many meet-ups or just connected with us online, whether you’ve made thousands of edits or just signed up today…. You’re a wikiHowian, and I hope you know it.
We all share one mission - a lofty, long-term one that’ll take many more years. But despite this shared goal, one of the things that has always stood out to me is what a diverse community we are. I was struck by this again when I looked around the room at our Portland meetup
this year. We have diverse backgrounds, diverse ages, diverse interests, diverse ways of participating on the wiki, and diverse reasons for being part of this community. I really value that, and I’m grateful for it. I think it makes us a better resource for our diverse readers, and I think we grow stronger every day because of it.
Over the years, wikiHow has grown in many ways: most obviously, in community members and diversity, in pages, and in the number of features we offer. But we’ve also grown in the sense of maturing. Our standards are higher than ever before, and therefore our advice is stronger than ever before. Our best articles combine the knowledge of dozens or even hundreds of people, from the original authors, to the bold editors, to the boosters and patrollers, to the expert reviewers and community quality testers, to the wikiGnomes, to the folks both on staff and in the community who add their artwork to our pages. What’s the outcome of all that collaboration? Readers who are better helped than ever before. That progress is something I am so proud of, and you should be, too.
How have you felt wikiHow’s impact on readers this year? If anyone wants to share their favorite example from 2016, please do… and most importantly, remember the impact you had in making it possible!
