So, I had an idea. When you do a large edit on wikiHow, it’s always a good idea to notify the author of the article that you made some major changes so the author can see what you did and let you know what he or she thinks. In fact, on the NAB test, it’s required. However, it’s a pretty big pain in the rump to figure out who the original author is, since wikiHow mixes everybody who contriubted to the article in with the original writer. Could there be a way that the person who first made the article is labelled when you go to that article? On a good chunk of articles, the first person listed as an author is the person who wrote it, but on others, all the contributors are kind of mixed up. Am I missing something? Do you agree? And pardon me if that makes no sense - in short, what I’m saying is that it’d be a good idea to label the person who first made an article when you visit that article’s page, rather than having to check user pages to see who wrote what. Anyways. Thoughts? -MK
All you have to do is check history of the article, and scroll down to the first (earliest) edit. That will tell you who the original author is. However, I do not believe that it is necessary to notify anyone of a major change to an article. For one thing, the article in many cases, has been thoroughly rewritten by someone other than the original author.
Ah, okay. I was not aware of that. Thank you!
And yes, that is true, but I was thinking more along the lines of adding NFD templates or doing major copyediting on a subject you aren’t an expert on. Anyways, thanks again. -MK
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also… If Authors want notifications of changes to an article they started, all they need to do is add that in their user preferences… and they’ll get an email when someone makes an adjustment.
Thank you all for the information! I am new here and I am not to sure about the ins and outs of Wiki.
