The Struggle of "WikiHowing"

WikiHow is a website, used to teach the world wide Web users to do almost anything. On this website, tutorials anywhere from “How to wash your hair with rice water” down to “How to sing with confidence” can be found. This is everyone’s personal DIY book at their fingertips. Some use this site for herbal cold remedies while others use it for more “fun” instructionals such as “How to Enjoy a Concert”.  

Coding one is a whole other story. Even just finding a topic can be a difficult, yet invigoratingly challenging exercise. Reason being, is it may feel like everything already has a tutorial on this specific website already, so finding something to work on may be difficult. The easiest way to figure out the best topic to create an instructional for, is by the tedious yet efficient, trial and error method. This can be done by simply search for tutorials for your options on the website itself. A good way to keep track of which ones are on the website and which are not, is to write down the options in advance. This way there is a clear path drawn out to the end topic. Now, back to coding, honestly, that may be one of the easiest portions to this wikihow. Luckily, there are maybe millions of other people in the world who are creating for tutorials and/or recipes for the Wikihow website. Therefore, this makes coding a new one rather easy. If the tutorial being prepared is  a recipe, then the best way to code this to find another recipe on the website. This can be a recipe for anything else. To view the coding for such recipe, simply select edit in the far left corner, as if to actually edit someone else’s tutorial. Here, the coding one will need to code their own recipe can be found. Simply copy what was done in the published tutorial into the one being made.

Structurally, it only made sense to start with the portion of creating a Wikihow page that was the easiest. That way no one panics about actually doing the entire process. Now, to contradict that, here’s the portion that some may describe as the most difficult. Photoshop is a skill set may can put on their resume and employers will rave about. Creating a Wikihow page or tutorial can be viewed as between a beginner and intermediate web user task. Ironically, photoshop, which is typically used by people of a higher skill set, can be a critical part of creating an efficient Wikihow. A Wikihow page needs pictures for every step. These pictures have to be in landscape format, clear, and with preferably no logos, symbols or brand names. No matter, how great one if with a camera, odds are, there will have to be some editing done to the photo to make it Wikihow page worthy. If photoshop is a fairly new skill set, video such as these can be found to help figure out how to create the best looking photos that Wikihow has ever seen. Some people learning better from reading instructions rather than watching a video. To benefit that, here are some tips gained from going through the process:

1. Make sure the photo being worked on is not being edited in its original form. This means, there needs to be an added layer to the photograph.
2. When preparing to blur out a symbol or logo, make sure the lasso tool makes a full and completed circle about the item chosen to blur. The lasso tool needs to connect back to where it first started.
3. When fixing the level in the picture, make sure the darkest point of the picture hits the darkest it could get, while the lightest point hits the lightest that it can get.

Collaboration is a big part of this project. The best outcomes can come from the environment. For example, for the Grenadian Macaroni and Cheese Tutorial, assistance from the professor as well as classmates helped come to the decision that the more caribbean spices in the dish, the more “Grenadian” it is. Collaboration can come from parents even helping to simplify the steps. For instance, having others read the steps, before they are posted, can open the writers eyes as to what the outside world and the internet sees.

• "It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed." – Napolean Hill

To view an already made page that uses all of these steps click here.