1

I noticed that a nice, succinct article of 3,300 bytes and having a helpfulness rating of 86% over a period of two years was recently expanded to 11,100 bytes. To me, the current version of the article is less useful to a reader and much harder to follow. I have seen this trend and am concerned that simple, easily followed instructions in many of the articles are being obfuscated.

The old, simple, and easy to use version:  https://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Care-for-an-Elderly-Rabbit&oldid=19317517

The new article seems to require a lot of filtering by the reader and a lot of guessing as to what is actually important:  https://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Care-for-an-Elderly-Rabbit&oldid=20140910

I am also wondering why the helpfulness stats were not reset after this drastic change to the character of the article.

2

The helpfulness stats weren’t cleared yet because this is still a work in progress. It’s still waiting for a second review (copyediting/writing style/sourcing, etc), and then it’s lined up for more input/tweaks by a vet. Once it’s good to go from the vet’s professional point of view, that helpfulness will be reset, and Carrie will be monitoring the helpfulness from there. 

In general, getting detailed input from professionals has proven to be very helpful to readers on many titles, but as always, nothing is set in stone - if readers don’t end up finding the more detailed and vet-reviewed version more helpful, we can always undo the edit down the line:slight_smile:

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Thank you for the details on the editing process planned for this article. 

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I agree, and I think there a few fundamental problems here. First, why was it decided that editing fellow resources would be put into overhauling an article with such a high helpfulness rating? We have so many more pages with low ratings that should be a priority, and we’re always told how the ratings are used to determine this or that or what gets done or what’s good and what’s bad. So why?

Second, it is disingenuous to leave the helpfulness rating and not clear it when such a drastic rewrite has occurred. We are claiming the article is helpful, yet this version has not yet been proven to be. How many others are sporting a false helpfulness rating?

A trend I’ve noticed is one of having one step with 6 or 7 substeps written underneath it. Really? Many of those substeps could be standalone steps, organized within a subsection or method or part. What is the philosophy behind having these long, bullet pointed steps that are hard to follow? Is there some expert research that proves this is what readers want, or that it’s “easier” to follow (it’s not)? Also, try looking at it on mobile. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Oops, lost my place. What step am I on again?

Thanks for bringing this up, Ron. 

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In terms of the substep thing, I’m guessing it happens with writers who aren’t thinking much about how difficult it might be to read. Maybe it collects over time, or some editors err on the side of wordiness. I don’t think it’s done on purpose.

I usually break up and pare down these things when I see them. After all, we want this site to be clear and easy to read (including for our young readers, and readers with disabilities). Losing one’s place definitely doesn’t help that!

6

Between being challenged with how much I can actually read (very little, as my vision declines), and a low tolerance of watching pages expanded far beyond the topic described in the title, this is why I simply don’t patrol the wikiHaus sanctioned edits most of the time. I use an Android device to see what’s going on from time to time, and can tell you that viewing long, drawn out content is impossible, as Jeff pointed out.  I am sure that more practice would make a difference, but the frustration level doesn’t encourage more practice, so it ain’t going to get there. Want another example of how a simple, straight-forward page seems to have grown beyond what is actually needed to do the task described in the title? Look here  http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Find-Waldo&diff=20143001&oldid=19292174 .

Nevertheless, as long as wikiHaus is convinced that content that exceeds the need of completing the task as described in the title is better for the reader (or keeps the reader on the page longer?), pages will continue to be filled with extraneous information, AKA wikiBloat.

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I agree with Bob, and this is a symptom of a larger problem. I’m sure wikiHaus has heard this contention many times by now, so sorry to beat a dead horse, but there’s simply no accountability with these accounts. I would immediately view their edits in a more positive light if they would create an account and integrate themselves into the community, so we can get used to their language use, syntax, etc. 

I speak as both a longtime member and someone with an outsider’s perspective. Much of SE and WRM’s works feel too much like packaged commercial products and less like art that organically flourishes. 

With regards to the “wikiBloat,” one of the things that makes a good author is his/her awareness of the audience. That hasn’t been happening with SE and others. You don’t find people marketing PBS Kids cartoons to young adult viewers. An 11 year old is not interested in sifting through what would amount to a 5 page essay just to get some advice on finding Waldo. 

8

Nicely worded, @Atheia .

My thoughts keep coming back to the possibility that there could be different versions of articles hosted simultaneously by wikiHow. I am not sure what the logistics of maintaining two or more versions might be, but do think that the capability exists to do such a thing. 

To me, it seems a shame to completely overwrite (wipe out) content that is completely serviceable and being used (and being judged as highly helpful) by a segment of the readership. This massive overwriting initiative is stripping diversity from the site and that diversity is at the heart of what makes wikiHow great and widely read. Essentially, the overwriting process is cutting the heart out of wikiHow.

Using the Care for an Elderly Rabbit  article as an example, the older, basic version serves kids well and also serve those who want easy-to-understand basics for helping the rabbit to end of life. The new version is heavily slanted to current thinking by the vet community. The thing is: Many individuals do not believe that an animal who has been adopted into a household and provided with superior living conditions and an extended life expectancy, necessarily justifies the cash outlay associated with the care regimen specified in the newer version. Some do not have the wherewithal to implement the many steps, vet visits, and diet regimens laid out in the newer version and would have to opt out of the family taking in a rabbit. Some individuals are of the view that a wild/domesticated pet does not justify potential spending of thousands of dollars over a ten year lifetime. Where is the room for personal choice in the newer version? Only the high care, high cost method is provided.

I think that careful consideration to enabling both approaches should be given.

Anyway, what I see, more and more, is that the common sense approaches built into many of the articles by individuals who share the lifetime wisdom gained through real experiences are being supplanted by comprehensive, academic treaties that are extraordinarily long. The newer content requires culling, analysis, and decisions on the part of the reader (which looks good on paper, but not in practice). The readers are presented with myriad suggestions to try and are required to do some guessing as to the efficacy of each of those suggestions. Quite a few readers do not want to work that hard. They would prefer simple, concrete steps to follow which give the result implied in the title.

There has been research that shows that there is often too much information and are too many choices in today’s world. Sometimes, that piling on of masses of indiscriminate information cripples the reader and results in inaction. As a result, there is a large body of short blurbs—easy-to-underdstand and implement life hacks.

In view of this, I would like to solicit suggestions for ways to provide diverse, succinct content that is more useful to more readers.

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Here is another article that went from helpful (88.9% from 18 votes) with accurate images to completely bloated:  http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Eat-Soup&diff=20142994&oldid=19295570

Note that in the history of this article, it underwent not one, not two, not three, but FOUR “major expansions and revisions” in the last 2 months alone. 

Now the article even includes a section on how to make soups! 

By the way, I completely agree with @Atheia (I remember you from the General days, nice to see you around again) about these contributions lacking an organic feel and tone. The beauty of wikiHow used to be that people would submit articles based on their experience and knowledge. Now most articles are heavily researched and written by someone who has, at best, a tangential and quasi-academic (Google-level) familiarity with the topic. The soup article has over 25 source citations!

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^+1

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Some really good points here on things that could make wikiHow better.  Carrie (wikiHaus editor) and I have also noticed that some steps get way too long and hard to read.  I know Carrie has been trying to train her team to do less of that. And even when expert or medically verified content gets added to the page, we should figure out a way to also continue displaying the “unverified home remedies” in a context that makes sense. There is obviously room for improvement in everything in wikiHow :).  wikiHow will never be a finished product. 

On the subject of whether we should avoid editing articles because they are already “good enough”, I  think that we can and should always try to edit the page to do better.  Our goal is to have every topic on wikiHow be the single best resource available anywhere.  We should *not* be satisfied that a 4 step article on caring for a rabbit is good enough.  It’s not!  We must be willing to be bold and try to improve even the articles that have high helpfulness scores if we think we can make the article better.  Realistically, we should not be satisfied till an article is clearly the most helpful information available on that topic anywhere. That’s a VERY high bar and that is why wikiHow will never be done improving.   

I don’t have a rabbit, I have a dog.  I love him.  Because seeing him makes me smile, I’m sharing a photo of him here ::slight_smile:

He’s very lovable. Isn’t he?  OK back to my post…If he was getting old and needed care to extend his life and I could only choose one article to give me the medical advice he needs, I wouldn’t want to read a 4 step article with 1 tip and no warnings like this one:

https://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Care-for-an-Elderly-Rabbit&oldid=19317517

I’d want to read an article edited by a trained veterinarian. I’d want that article to feel complete. I’d want the article to contain medically verified advice and accurate tips from the common man.  I’d want images. I’d want a video.  I’d want a way to ask questions and get help.  In short, I’d want a lot of things that wikiHow (or any site on web) doesn’t currently deliver.  We aren’t there today.  Yet, we owe it to the world to try to produce a resource this good though! When an article gets a good edit, whether it’s from Seymour Edits, a longstanding community member, or a well informed newbie - it moves towards this optimal state. Is each edit perfect? Of course not. Do the balance of all these edits together make wikiHow better?  YES! YES! We must not shy away from trying to continually improve wikiHow in all the ways we can!    

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I agree with @JackHerrick with the part that when my rabbit gets old I want a more detailed article showing me what to do. And, I agree with @Isorythmic that sub-steps should be steps in articles.

One of my articles (how to keep rabbits cool in the summer) had a step that I had put down as a main step, but my article got a “makeover” and the step was almost completely left out so I ended up putting it back in, in the next step. (It’s here:  wikihow.com/index.php?title=Keep-Pet-Rabbits-Cool&diff=19765658&oldid=19388477 ).

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I agree. I think the Seymour Edits team needs more training on our guidelines and policies if they’re going to remain a team on our site. This is nothing against them, but this is a way they could improve.

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^Yeah. They do add great information to the articles, but like I said, less substeps and more steps. Sometimes I’ve found that I’ll briefly look at the main steps and follow that (depending on what it’s for) when sometimes the substeps have great info for main steps.

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+1 Can’t agree more. 

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Hello!  I’m new here and trying to get oriented.  After reading this discussion in combination with my interest and knowledge I have an article from the other end of the spectrum:

This has been around forever, evolved significantly and is now a treatise on the allergy topic.

Prior to 9 months ago the primary gist of this article was seasonal allergies and various self treatments, then a major revision was made (coincidentally by seymour edits) to be a comprehensive allergy document, and it is, with more specifics about medications and medical information referenced from mayo clinic. But does it try to do too much and span too great of a range? (hence my reason for posting in this forum thread about bloat.)

If this document is representative of the wikihow mission, then shouldn’t other articles on allergy be merged in or deleted? Or in other words does ‘bloat’ refer to only a single article or an entire category, topic or group of articles? 

Personally, I’ve decided to try to learn about wikihow by writing and editing about anaphylaxis.  I was surprised to find this article with its not-very-descriptive title only after I crafted up what I thought was a nice contribution. My concern is rather general in that : 1) I’m new, 2) tried to help, only to find 3) I’ve duplicated material already there (of course I think my version is better:slight_smile:but who doesn’t)

I’m sure you have your plate full with the upcoming meetup, and a read about the changes in the categorization strategy, but perhaps this could be a datapoint in your discussions.  

  • Breadth versus depth of an article
  • Breadth versus depth of a category or group of topics

In the past I wasn’t a big fan of wikihow, I thought the information was too shallow for me as a reader, but after reading the mission I realize I am not the target audience. I’m more suited to be a contributor rather than a reader. (maybe)  

The other thing I’d like to mention is that the search engine companies have morphed into targeted advertising companies, and it’s going to get worse over time.  The wikihow concept and mission was way ahead of it’s time.  Most content is created by for profit companies for example there is so much information out there supporting the use of EpiPen that is paid for by Mylan, the maker of EpiPen. Yikes! I’m curious to hear about the plans forward for categories. I think there is risk on relying on commercial search companies to continue to be benificent… anyway, this is getting too long. 

* I do have a concern specifically about the article and this wikibloat topic probably isn’t exactly the right forum to voice it on, but I still haven’t figured out the best place, so here goes. 

–> The article cover a range of allergy medical conditions from nuisance to severe and it has the stamp of “reviewed by an expert”, however, 

  1. the expert is neither an allergist nor an emergency medicine specialist. and 
  2. Anaphylaxis is not only an allergy topic, it is a broad medical emergency. 

Combining the two is like combining heart disease with CPR. …  if that’s what wikiHow wants then I’m fine with that, but as a contributor, I need to know.  I was planning to suggest sub-categories to distinguish between allergy and anaphylaxis, but I see now that’s not an option, so I write here instead.

With best regards and in good faith,

Michael

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I think @Atheia hit the nail on the head with his observation that the articles in wikiHow have, traditionally, targeted different audiences. The recent haus initiatives to provide sourced, comprehensive treaties then have the articles verified does not acknowledge the audience chosen in the current state of the article. Instead, the modus operandi is to massively overwrite an existing title and change the audience. I think there is a way to serve all of the audiences, but am not sure what works logistically on the wikiHow platform. My initial vision on this front is to use labels on the articles, a portion of which could identify the target audience (or various parameters which might be used to characterize the target audience). Then, articles under a title, might lie like index cards, and could be fanned through and the one that corresponds to a specific reader’s need might be selected. This would allow co-existence of content rather than unilaterally overwriting content which has served a portion of the wikiHow reader base in the past and is likely to in the future.

@Mgsporer - Do not hesitate to start a discussion in a fresh forums thread when indicated. The consensus in the forums has been to keep threads on topic rather than rambling onto a series of concerns. Your post fits fine here, but you may want to start another thread which deals specifically with allergies and anaphylaxis. You raise a fair point that the two might fly best under separate titles that are linked as related wikiHows or by internal referencing.

@Mgsporer - I raised the wikibloat issue only thinking of the the inordinate length of individual articles. Your perspective of breadth vs. depth lends focus to the bloat issue. Traditionally, wikiHow articles were fairly narrow and shallow, then, over time, became deeper. Now, the haus initiatives are broadening the range under a particular title and deepening the content. Trying to be comprehensive might be making the particular information that a reader seeks hard to find. Certainly, the content, as it is being created by paid entities, does not resonate with large portions of the historical wikiHow reader base. My vision in this area is that we could, perhaps, have sliders on each article which would expand and contract breadth, expand and contract depth of content, and also control data density that is displayed. Again, this would be more of a tailoring of the article to the individual reader’s needs rather than create massive one-size-fits-all articles that serve a narrow range of reader and resonate with none.

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@Mgsporer

Hi Michael,

Since we haven’t “met” before, welcome!

I’m happy to shed some light on your questions about titles, and how the editors approach a given topic.

We coach the editors to approach every topic by first putting themselves in their prospective readers’ shoes – for example, we ask them to consider things such as the likely reader’s age and depth of knowledge on a given topic – and tailor their edits to that reader. Then we ask them to do some searching on that topic to make sure the information that the reader is likely to want. In the case of articles that are reviewed by experts, the expert will often ask the editor to add additional information as well.

For a very broad topic, such as wikihow.com/Treat-Allergies , it’s not always clear what the reader’s intent is. Does he want help with pet allergies? Is the reader having a strong reaction following a bee sting? And so on. The approach that we have found seems to be most satisfying for articles like this is a multi-method approach that attempts to address the issue broadly. We often need to iterate on topics like this to figure out what is best for our readers. Sometimes it takes some time and experimentation to get right!

Regarding your question about duplication - it’s completely fine if different articles contain some of the same information, as long as the titles are not interchangeable. Your helpful article wikihow.com/Recognize-Anaphylaxis is not a duplicate of “How to Treat Allergies”, even though it shares some information with that topic. Circling back to where I started, we know a lot more about what the reader wants in the case of your article, and so a deeper dive into your much more specific search is appropriate.

If you wanted to do more articles addressing specific causes and methods of caring for/avoiding anaphylaxis, it seems like there is a lot of room to do so. We seem to have only a handful of articles that touch on the issue.

Hope this helps clarify some of your questions - please feel free to message me if I can offer any other help.

Chris