I kinda got inspired a bit by a post made by Adelaide almost a few years ago (now @CelesteTu
[an account which they lost access to] and @Ms_Celeste
) to make a post on this. Unfortunately, when my wH account turns 5 in about a month or two, I don’t think I’ll be super active because of university. So I am a few months early. I figure I could be a few months late, but then I may forget and lose that window to post about this as well. I want to use this post to reflect on what I have learned over the past five years.
I remember when initially starting out I was coming from Wikipedia. I was young (15) and did not really understand how wikiHow worked. I thought I could create an article and it would be live right away. Apparently, after page creation, the contents of the page are hidden to all until they are promoted by boosters! I did not understand why nor why the contents were blurred for all to see. One other topic I created got deleted for being too dangerous, and a few posts I made were a bit short-sighted proposals without thinking about whether they actually solved a problem.
However, in no time, I would be on track for making lots of articles. Lots and lots of articles. I was pumping out maybe a few articles a week, with some getting promoted and some getting demoted. I enjoyed creating dozens of technical articles and eventually learned how to better some of my older articles so they were more concise and clear. I got the hang of existing templates and eventually was churning out full-length pages over the course of a few hours, sometimes 30-45 minutes. Before I know it I reached 100 articles, after about a year. I found a few topics of interest I would add pages to (namely TikTok, Windows, and iOS at the time), and reached 200 articles after about a few more months. Over the course of about 3 years I had about 300 articles created covering all sorts of different topics. All these topics do really add up. And then I started getting busy with university.
One of my important goals that I had in the past was becoming a new article booster. In 2018, I applied, failed once, sort of passed part 2 of the trial, and then was told that part 3 would be put off because I was not demonstrating the skills needed to differentiate good articles from bad. That took much longer than I hoped it to take.
I finally passed part 2 of my booster test in February 2020. With this, I set out to help with the promotion of good pages and demotion of a lot of the obvious junk - spam, vandalism, etc. I also did a lot of work on some special pages, including New Pages - wikiHow
and Recent Changes - wikiHow
to show that I was prime for being a booster. I remember running through the entire batch I was permitted in under a few hours! It went from 30 boosts on a given day to 30 boosts in a given week. Give a few more weeks and I was all ready to help out with the boost queue (thanks @JayneG
!).
After five years I have reached 5 million+ page views across 350+ articles, and I have become one of many that has stuck around in this tightly knit community. My passion for wikis has driven me here, and it will continue to get me writing and boosting articles.
@Anna
was actually a big help when I was starting out, she was approachable, friendly, yet professional. I would end up in long threads with her, and she gives helpful feedback via email. I remember her that every time I approach her with a technical idea or suggestion, she puts it aside under “maybe one day”, even though the suggestion would likely never be implemented. I could ask her to make the wiki do a barrel roll and she would put it aside for “maybe one day”! I think her enthusiasm as a community manager and ambassador gave me good reason to stay. Among other users I frequently interacted with included @Eric
, @anon74718567
, @InfernoTerra
, @SarahB
, @JustJoshua
, @RubyRoseRain
, @HelperOnWikihow
, @Artemi7
and many others. I can’t name all of them since I do not remember them all, but I do know the frequent interactions that were friendly, professional, and helpful. I don’t think I would be at this point if it were not for these friendly contributors and more.
I believe that I still have several more years left of interest on this project. I hope to continue helping out where my help is needed (and provide some quirky chat) and to create some more amazing articles that contribute to the quality of wikiHow. Here is to five years of wikiHowing, and here is to five more.
I want to conclude this by giving a few takeaways for new contributors from my experience. Firstly, jump right in! Find an activity on the site that you will enjoy, and keep at it. We won’t bite. We promise.
Secondly, if you have an ambitious dream like becoming a welcomer, booster, or admin, work your way up. I know this may sound obvious, but you need to genuinely show interest in the various activities that pertain to these roles. No one has become a welcomer, booster, or admin overnight. For some, this may take several months but for others it may take several years. Nonetheless, start now.
And lastly, don’t be disappointed if you reached a dead end! We have all been there, done that. I have hit multiple dead ends before; some articles I have written turn out to be a bust. Don’t be afraid to turn around and try something else. If you do not reach your goal, at least you will have made the project better while you were getting there~
