http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:WikiMyths
Hey folks. As was touched on in this thread ( http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/4462/ideas-for-greater-engaging-our-readers-and-facebook-fans/#Item_19
) I’ve set up a page for various “wikiMyths”. These can be misconceptions that people would have about wikis in general and/or wikiHow itself. I wrote a few to start things off, but please edit the page above and add to our list of myths! We hope to be able to put this up on the wikiHow Facebook page at some point, hopefully helping to add some new contributors to the community.
Just to recap some of the discussion in the thread that led up to this: we have a huge amount of readers, and fans on Facebook (well over a million), but a relatively small community of active editors (especially compared to other sites our size). A lot of that could very well be because people don’t understand wikis and wikiHow, or because they have misconceptions. People may think they don’t have the time to edit, that editing and writing articles is useless, that wikis are inaccurate, etc. etc. Distributing these wikiMyths may not make a huge change in the way the greater world perceives wikis, but if we got even 1 new active editor from them, I’d call the effort a success.
No way they gave you detention for viewing Wikipedia, unless it’s like some weird religious school or something.
Awesome - I patrolled some of those edits, and put a few facts on. =) June Days
¿ Awesome. Can’t wait to see the new contributors acquire some confidence.
I saw it. It’s awesome. I added a fact to where it was blank.
What do you not understand? Maybe we can help! =) June Days
Steve5
10
Now I do, I went back over it again I reliezed I got a few letters confused as other letters.
What, did you think this was wikiMoths, about preconceptions of people in wikis that have generals in wikiHow itself?
I totally agree with this post! I can releate to this, because at my school, all of the teachers are veryanti-wiki (mostly anti-wikipedia, though, but that’s because wikipedia is more popular). They say that all
wikis are inaccurate because anyone can go in and edit them, and they stress to absolutely NEVER use a wiki because wikis are so “horrible”. I’m glad that it’s not just me who is furied by this wikiMyths stuff! What if we *made the public aware* of the accuracy of wikiHow (ie the recent changes patrollers, NFD policies, etc.)? That could help! I could also “accidently stumble upon” the wikiMyths page and show it to a teacher, and then show how it was written by administrators of the site, or something like it if I was adventurous enough
I’ve been trying to recruit people to wikiHow, but the person who stayed the longest, @MewQueen
, hasn’t been on in forever. But I think that if we recruit as many people as we can, we’ll get an active editor or two out of our efforts
Steve5
15
The teachers at the school I go to get so mad at me when they see me on wikiHow or wikipedia. I would be reading an article about frogs or somethign like that and they go turn the computer off I’m using for no reason.
That’s wrong. Pure wrong.
Steve5
17
You try telling them that.
No, YOU try telling them that. Tell them that educational freedom is important to you, inform them that you weren’t goofing off, and make it clear that you will take legal action if they threaten you further.
Ron Burgundy (aka Will Ferrell)
what an awesome reference.
