Lol I originally didn’t think it was necessary to respond to this thread since most people wrote what I was going to say. But I’ve found some other points to say.
- I’ve been a bit busy with school (AP testing and early finals/projects are starting in a few weeks) so I haven’t been contributing to the main site so much. I want to contribute, but real life has gotten busy. It’s not related to what I have to say below. I’m not stopping to contribute since I believe the site sucks- that’s untrue!
- I have noticed how commercial wikiHow has gotten. There are several articles mentioning product names (since they are recommending specific products to use) which say they will provide a commission if we used the provided links. However, there is still a rule saying we can’t use the names of specific products in articles since that counts as advertising. I believe this is slightly hypocritical; wikiHow was not meant to advertise or recommend products to viewers. But now those types of articles are all over the site. It’s kind of sad to see that websites have to include advertising to survive nowadays.
- There are also so many non-how to articles being made. The whole purpose of wikiHowwas to “ Learn how todo anything
”. But now, staff are now allowed to make articles that belong more on an entertainment site like Yahoo or Buzzfeed. Some of the articles (like 170+ Best Useless Facts That Sound Like Lies
, 26 Highly Overrated Things
) just seem like random fact articles or opinion articles to me. I remember I saw this article
a few years ago and the only reason it wasn’t deleted was to promote the “Free Guy” movie. I actually wanted to NFD it since it sounded like a joke article, but it continued to be there. I found my post
about that article in the forums lol.
- It’s also not that fair when only staff are allowed to make these articles. I know they are the ones testing out new features for the site, but these articles have been made for a while already. At least make these features more accessible to regular volunteers, since people like us are the main people contributing to the site!
- Articles like Fun & Easy Ways to Celebrate Easter with Loved Ones
are still how-tos; they just don’t start with “How to”. I think those articles are fine. It’s just another way to write a how-to article without using the prefix.
- I don’t mind the quizzes. They’re fun to take and they might increase engagement on wikiHow. Online quizzes are very popular these days, so this feature may make the site more relevant in 2025. I’ve seen people on social media comment on these quizzes and the results they got. This may help wikiHow to be seen by more people (since most young people have social media currently).
So in summary, I am a bit disappointed in some policies wikiHow has implemented. At the same time, I believe some of the new features are fun and engaging.
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