I’ve talked about this idea regarding innovation at wikiHow on the community conference call and in IRC, so now I’d like to discuss it here in the forums. The web is evolving rapidly, but “wiki” sadly is not. Wiki software was innovative in 2001. It’s now 2011. The world’s largest wiki, Wikipedia continues to be a great resource, but they spend more resources maintaining their infrastructure than they do pushing innovation in collaborative knowledge sharing forward. Thus, if we want wikis to keep up to date with the changes in the web, “little” wikiHow itself is going to have to lead this charge. So in the coming years, the wikiHaus is going to be producing lots of new features, ideas, approaches to fulfilling our mission. Here’s the good news: The wikiHaus is going to produce some great new features and new approaches to wiki. Here’s the bad news: The wikiHaus is going produce some terrible things too. Mistakes will be made. It’s impossible to innovate without failing much of the time. #FAIL
is coming, but so is great. And when a new idea or new feature is launched, it can be very difficult to tell the difference! In fact, some of the best changes we have ever made at wikiHow (eg both redesigns) initially were met with significant resistance, but are now widely appreciated as improvements. So here is my request. I’ll call it the 1/1 month guideline: If a change on wikiHow upsets you: * Please wait 1 month from releasedate before making a conclusion that it truly sucks. Even the best changes take time to get used to. * If after 1 month, you and the whole community still think it sucks and want to quit wikiHow. Give the wikiHaus an additional 1 month to make changes.I’m hoping that if we all use this 1/1 month guideline we will be better able to identify features that help move us forward from those that don’t. Does this seem like a sound approach to you? Is so, please let us know here. It seemed to be well received in IRC and on the conference call. So give a shout out and let your opinion be known.
system
2
Besides RCPatrol Easter Eggs, I think that the new changes will take getting used to before deciding that they are wrong. Thanks for the updates!
Is there any way these changes can come in gradually, without shocking the present users? Possibly. Maybe create a poll when a change is made to see if the people like the changes or not?
@WikiRicardo
has made quite a few (well, 2) polls on the forums. I think that he might be able to help make polls about the new software. Thank you @JackHerrick
for informing us about this. Here are links to @WikiRicardo
’s polls. http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/901
http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/1011
system
5
Sounds good to me! Thanks for the heads-up!
I will try to make polls on the major new features that come out in the future.
I do not find the polls helpful. I think it’s more helpful to have discussions to determine what does and does not work and how to fix things. I don’t think polls should be used to make major decisions here on wikiHow because it goes against the wiki way of consensus building.
First of all, I think this policy does an excellent job of encouraging the kind of innovation required to keep any tech endeavor afloat right now. Every community resists change on some level, and I think the “grace period” of one month seems like the right amount of time for everyone to recover from the initial shock of change and come to a truly informed decision. I agree with @Elocina
about polls. I think long-form discussions (that cover actual opinions rather than just yes/no) create more meaningful feedback for the wikiHaus. They also allow the community to work towards some point of agreement on an issue, while I think that making decisions based on percentage points from a poll can be quite divisive. I can’t wait to see what everyone at the wikiHaus has in store for us!
Oliver
9
I would apply this to NFD’s as well…
I don’t like the idea for the Should This Edit Of Been Patrolled on QC because we will have to deal with stormy skies again.
@Elocina
: I can create an open poll where you type your own answer. Example: twiigs.com - twiigs Resources and Information.
You can also post comments in the comments box below it.
Lojjik
12
I think more profound discussion and consensus occurs on IRC, as it removes some inhibitions.
I will let you know how I feel about this idea in a month.
Posting comments doesn’t exactly encourage discussion. The consensus process is very important to how a wiki works and it involves people working together to improve something as well as brainstorming. I’d rather have more discussions and consensus building as opposed to polls.
Wow, all this talk about innovation is getting me jittery!
Thanks for telling us, @JackHerrick
. Now I’m just left to wonder what sort of changes are to come…
system
17
It’s nothing to get jittery over
I mean think about it, we have people who’ve been here over 4 years. wikiHow has changed dramatically in a lot of ways since then. But at the end of the day we are still just a group of people trying to build an awesome how-to manual together. And on one hand, it can be a little nerve-wracking to face changes, but on the other hand it can be pretty exciting to be part of the most cutting-edge wiki site in the world!
Fine! No polls! (IRC sounds good, but it is hard to recruit many people about decisions) P.S. An embedded poll on the website would give some percentage grounds upon what the normal user likes. Not exactly the decision grounds, but just understanding the difference between the visitor/registered member, and the long-time-volunteer -Sorry I mentioned it, Theburn7
Linus
19
I still wish we could contribute code!
Maybe you could do something similar to what wikipedia did a while back when they redesigned their skin: offer a preview button. It was something they could turn on and off. But ultimately, the choice was taken away and everyone got the new skin.
If the poll is just to get a general idea to inform decision making, that’s fine, but I don’t think decisions should be made just on polls alone. And when I said I don’t find polls helpful I meant the monthly polls like “Have you gotten a Barnstar?”. In terms of an embedded poll on the website, I think that would be a hard sell, because it’s really hard to get new things added to the main page.
