Beware… Fun/silly post ahead. Not to be taken too seriously, so skip over it if you’re not in a whimsical mood
@TheArtsPerson
and I got talking about Harry Potter the other day, and they asked me what house I’m in (Hufflepuff, obvi)… It got me looking at the traits of those houses and thinking about where various friends fit in. Inevitably, I then started thinking about my wikiFriends and how different people here gravitate towards different main wiki activities… We touched on that when we talked about our favorite tools
the other day.
In our case, I think it’s probably more about interests and hobbies than personality traits, buuuut it’s kind of fun to think about. Here’s the breakdown I came up with… based totally on anecdotal experiences and musings, not even a teensy bit scientific
wikiHow’s “Houses”:
Guardians of the Wiki - these are the protectors of all we hold dear on the wiki. Patrolling Recent Changes is the most obvious tool they use, but many also help out with other ‘quality guarding’ tools like QG, Category Guardian, Picture Patrol, Tech Feedback, and more. Some also handle less fun but necessary tasks like page protections and blocks. As a guardian, you help review, curate, and filter new ideas on the wiki, making sure any addition helps us move the mission forward. Without you, readers would be confused and misled by spammers and vandals, and wouldn’t trust what we do here.
Counts of Content - these are the article starters and bold editors and de-stubbers. Many, but not all, have a particular topic niche they love to work in to share their knowledge and experience with the world. If you’re a Content Count or Countess, you probably hang out on the Create Page or in Article Requests, the Topic Greenhouse, or even deep within the category tree, shining up your favorite category areas. Without you, readers wouldn’t have new articles to read or good advice to absorb.
Ambassadors of the Realm - these people are wikiHow’s friendly face, but their commitment and contribution goes deeper than just saying “hey” to new folks. They help newbie readers and editors on the Help Team Page, Article Review Page, and through tools like RCP and NAB. If this is you, you probably spend a lot of time answering wiki-related questions to help others wikiHowians along, and perhaps editing to help save good contributions from reverts or demotions when they need a little wiki tweaking but contain some super advice. Through these actions, you not only save helpful additions but teach and empower new editors to share their know-how effectively and widely. Without you, our community wouldn’t grow and thrive.
Wiki Wizards - these are the people who do the little things that might go unnoticed when they’re taken care of… but would hit us all like a ton of bricks if they weren’t! Being a Wiki Wizard often goes hand in hand with the wikiGnome mentality. As a Wizard, you fix broken links and broken images, correct template and wikiText errors, and go deeper by formatting, cleaning up, and merging pages. You handle the ‘behind the scenes’ magic, and without you, readers would soon find our wiki to be a big ol’ mess of broken links and poorly worded articles and duplicated or missing content.
What do you guys think? Do you fit anywhere in one of these houses or teams? Or a mix? Got another “Team” you see yourself on that I haven’t dreamt up here?
