@KnowItSome
Yes, just days after I joined I went to irc with my concerns about bad articles. I discussed this with a couple of admins who were great and I was even directed to the post you quoted, and this one as well http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/11604/increasing-the-quality-standards-via-stubbing/p1
This convinced me that I wouldn’t be wasting my time here because things are seriously changing and wikiHow is committed to raising the bar on quality. So I stuck around. There are some great people here, and the amount of information in the knowledge base is staggering. These initiatives are wonderful! The values and general thinking they represent are moving wikiHow in the direction of a much higher standard regarding accuracy and ethics. But they really don’t address the problem of articles that were already in place before this change. I see many how-to articles that are just plain bad, but they stay because they aren’t exactly like another and they are in the correct format. I think it’s counter-productive to give these articles a special status of being grandfathered in. @Bobbyfrank
said: “Projects targeting specific categories of pages are often launched with a large effort by good numbers of community members, but these quickly become passe or overwhelm the people working on them. I have all the respect in the world for Annie, but do not believe for a second that even with absolute attention to the articles she mentioned, it would take months to successfully clean up the pages she mentioned, especially without a functioning tool to reduce the continuous flow of these pages onto the site.” I’m not surprised to hear that this has been tried without success. My question’s are, has there been an initiative that failed AFTER the bold move toward quality over quantity? And so what if it would take months to achieve? wikiHow has gotten where it is on the backs of good people working for 10 years to make a superior resource. Compared to that, a few months or even a year is a drop in the bucket if the end result is in wikiHow being perceived as a good resource across the Internet, and maybe even achieving status as an authority site. @Nikephoros
Baris wrote: “WikiHow’s reputation isn’t very good on the parts of the internet I pay attention to. I don’t think it’s deserved but there are some pretty bad articles.” For years, I’ve had a bad perception of wikiHow. I can’t honestly say why I came here, curiosity maybe? It took me days of looking around and discussion with admin in irc before I decided to stick around. I stayed because I was told wikiHow is taking it up a few notches. Perhaps a new template so older articles can be put into the hatchery? A nfd designation for opinion if an article is both bad and based on opinion without citation? A special nfd for ethics to be used only on articles targeted to children unless they have good citation? I understand that wikiHow is global and therefore an article that’s not acceptable for the United States could be just fine for those in another country. On the surface, I can see the logic in that. However, wikiHow servers are based in San Francisco which makes anything on this site subject to US law. If a kid does something stupid based on something he read on wikiHow and the parents decide to file suit, US jurisdiction leaves not only wikiHow open to liability, but also those contributors who worked on the article. The terms of service state: “You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless wikiHow and its subsidiaries, agents, licensors, managers, and other affiliated companies, and their employees, contractors, agents, officers and directors, from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney’s fees) arising from:” and section 5 states “(v) any claim or damages that arise as a result of any of your User Content or any that is submitted via your account” “ANY OF YOUR USER CONTENT” Uh oh… say I improve an article telling children how to do something that they really shouldn’t do, my name is on that article. Perhaps the article was fine when I left it, then someone added to it or rolled it back. Maybe I rewrote it so the body of the article is actually telling a child why they shouldn’t. That content can easily be edited to include steps to do what the title says and the additions would be valid. My name is still on the article and liability is on me in part. Say a child gets into some serious trouble and it comes out that wikiHow is one of the places that inspired him to do what he did, maybe even gave him some tips which he then expanded on. Perhaps he decided to http://www.wikihow.com/Drink-Urine-(Urophagia)
and contracted some disease like hepatitis. Maybe he read that people do it for pleasure and sometimes sexual pleasure and he wants to experiment. Maybe he just wants to whiten his teeth. Granted, the article says “be sure that the urine isn’t coming from a person with a dirty or infected urethra” but is it reasonable to think a kid is going to first get a urine sample to take to a doctor for analysis? Does he even know what a urethra is? The parent sues. Terms of service says this must be arbitrated rather that decided in court. Okay, but arbitration isn’t the end. When arbitration can’t resolve the issue to both parties satisfaction, it goes to court. So wikiHow hires lawyers to handle it, but contributors have agreed to hold wikiHow harmless in such a situation. So, each person named will be responsible for their own representation. Now, lets assume that the child in question is under 18. It doesn’t matter one bit what the terms of use say. A person under the age of 18 is legally unable to give consent or enter into a contract. Terms of use won’t apply. The parent wasn’t the one who used wikiHow, the child did it. I’m not stating any of this as fact. I’m just sharing my concerns as a newbie going forward now that I understand a bit more about this site. Maybe wikiHow does protect it’s contributors in some way but I just haven’t seen it. If this is the case, great, please point me to it. So I have legal concerns, ethical concerns, moral concerns, and personal concerns. By personal concerns, I mean I don’t want to be associated with a project that embarrasses me. I thought I had a user name to hide behind, but articles are showing my real name. I believe the 2 threads referenced spell out the spirit of wikiHow’s new direction very clearly. So far I haven’t seen a solution for dealing with the bad articles that already exist. My purpose in creating this thread is to try to find a way to apply the new initiative to these older articles. Perhaps a special place for kiddie articles needing work could be implemented? I won’t pretend to know the solution, I haven’t been here long enough. I just want to throw some ideas out there. I realize there are problems in more than just the kids articles. But these are the ones that really alarm me. Adults have the maturity to disregard silly articles. Kids do not. On a personal note, there are a few areas that just plain make me mad. Number 1 pet peeve: Special Education. All these articles further the stereotypical stigma of the child being either what we used to call ‘retarded’ or having some sort of emotional or mental disability like ADHD. I feel like marking them all del/acc but I know that won’t fly. Special Education is not synonymous with intellectually challenged. Two of my grandchildren are in special education programs and both are extremely smart. The 11 year old is deaf and gets excellent grades. The 16 year old is intellectually gifted; he’s in college earning both college and high school credits simultaneously under the special education program. Why have articles based on stereotypes unless they address the problem of using stereotypes? I apologize for the length of this. I’m looking for reasons to stay.
