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I’m hesitant to post this simply because as with everything website related, it takes some programming and hard work. Yet I still think it’s worth mentioning, since it would create a nice twist to WikiHow. What I’m thinking of is a new kind of article: Quick tip. You can probably already see why I’m hesitant: it would be a lot of work. That said, let’s examine what I mean. Quick tips: Quick tips would be a 2, 3, 4 or maximum 5 step Howto which would very quickly and concisely help readers do a certain task. This would also be a little harder to follow since it doesn’t have as much detail and wouldn’t have pictures. All knew quick tips that have been boosted would be displayed on the front page. (I’m not sure where, but it would be good to have it somewhere visible). So, why quick tips? So that the reader can quickly glance at a Howto that will tell them what they need. A possibility for quick tips would be that when they have corresponding full articles, you can link them at the bottom and say something along the lines of “Longer version of this tip”. That way if the person is confused he/she can easily access a longer, more detailed version. I think this would add an awesome twist to Wikihow which would allow others to read and benefit quickly. There would be no “Rising Star” for this type of Howto. What I heard about the “Timely topics” intrigues me, and if that works out, then maybe there could be timely topic quick tips. Let me know what you think! ~Zeal

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That’s an interesting idea, and stays within our mission, worth pondering.

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It’s an interesting idea; sounds similar to Howcast’s Quick Tips videos.

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I like it!

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I have a few questions about this, so I understand what you are proposing. I explored a similar idea back in 2007, but was told that it’s okay to have how-tos that are as short as one step as long as there is enough information so someone can complete the task. So, I’m wondering, how would this be different than a really short how-to? Or would the really short, complete, how-tos just be added to a quick how-to category? Secondly, why no pictures? I would think that in some cases, a diagram would help someone get the idea faster than if it’s just text.

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If it wasn’t for pictures, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the origami earrings article. I agree with this - in some cases, it’s faster to learn with diagrams than text.

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Well, what I’m envisioning is a quick how to that is in the side bar or somewhere smaller, so you don’t even have to go to a different page to see it. That’s what I have in my mind: so I guess depending on where it is it could have pictures. If it’s on a side bar, then it wouldn’t. If it’s in the large part of the page somewhere, then it could have pictures. I did not know that you can have one step articles… Aren’t those stubs? If they give enough information needed for the job (unlikely), then it’s fine I guess, but if it’s so easy then there really is no need for a how to on it.

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I like this idea, sounds good. Even if it’s not articles created specifically to be quick tips, pint sized versions of some of our really good articles could be interesting. And yes, in the case where pictures are relevant, they’d be a good idea, I think.

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If you wouldn’t open up a separate article, how would you access these? Would they be embedded somewhere or would they be linked on certain article pages? Would this require major tweaks to wikiHow’s current software? If so, you may need to check in with the engineers to see if this is technically feesible.

You can and a short how-to isn’t necessarily a stub. If you look at how-to books, like the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbooks, a lot of their how-tos are less than 5 steps, which is why I got to thinking about short how-tos to begin with. For example, I took their article about brushing your teeth without a toothbrush to create this very short how-to: How to Brush Your Teeth Without a Toothbrush: 3 Easy Methods Ditto for this article about applying lipstick without a mirror: http://www.wikihow.com/Apply-Lipstick-Without-a-Mirror

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There would be a corresponding page that holds the quick tip, but the full text/maybe pictures will be displayed on the main page. There would be a link to the actual article if for some reason the reader wants to see it. If it also has a corresponding larger article, then that link would also be included. Let me give you an example of a sort of quick tip (not exactly how it would look, but an idea). Image:Print Fast.jpg - wikiHow That image was taken from my blog, www.computopiahacks.blogspot.com . It’s not formatted how a quick tip would be (and there wouldn’t be that image border for it), but you get the idea. If you go to my blog you’ll see how it’s conveniently on the side bar for people to read quickly. That’s the kind of thing I’m thinking about. Truly, with programming, anything is possible. The problem lies in whether it would take too much work or not. (Or maybe I’m completely wrong about the programming behind WikiHow?)

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I like the idea.

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Me too…:smiley:

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This is an interesting idea. It kind of sounds like what you’re proposing is a “simple english” version of wikiHow, like what http://simple.wikipedia.org is to Wikipedia.

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Interesting idea. I’d be most interested in seeing how we can do this without requiring software changes. We might be able to achieve much of this goal, by simply deciding that the standard wikiHow format should not be such a straightjacket for us. While our format is wonderful because it keeps us all on the same page, it is also limiting in several ways. Perhaps this will also bring us back to what Nicole alludes to we decided in 2007. Perhaps we already have this ability.:slight_smile:We just need to be OK with writing shorter articles.

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I don’t at all want to change our standards. Further loosening our standards is not a good idea since we already have quite loose ones. It’s more like a quick how to, not a “simple” how to.

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Bump.

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Could you please define what you mean by simple as opposed to quick? I don’t think that simple is necessarily a bad thing or that it lowers our quality standards. Many magazines have very simple how-tos and yet have a high standard in terms of what they choose to be published.

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Could a quick-start jiffy-tip be attached to a full article rather than stand alone as a miniature article? It would be helpful to some readers if some article introductions contained a condensed summary of the entire article with a link to click-to-read-full-article link. I’m thinking this could show up in the rss feed or the android version of our site.

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I really like this idea, especially because there are many ways to do the same thing and there is often a regular version and a quick version. I don’t know if it would be possible for users to add an extra tab for alternate methods, but I think this may be a great way of implementing some sort of quick tip feature.

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I like this idea. It would have to be at the top, though, and not take much space. It would still be nice if there was a feed for quick tips as well.