wikiHow

Jack Herrick · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 3:51 am Post subject: adminship is not a trophy

As we are currently undergoing admin nominations which will be announced soon...I wanted to get up on my soapbox ...and talk about what adminship here is...

Adminship is merely an extra set of responsibiliteis that people williningly undertake to make wikiHow better. To do some extra maintanence on wikiHow...admins have just a few extra powers. Specifically admins can block disruptive users, delete pages, and rename pages. That is pretty much it.

Unfortunately, some people mistakenly think adminship is a reward for good work on wikiHow, or a sign of status, or an ability to have power over other users. It should not be any of these things.

To quote from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_adminship_is_not

Adminship is NOT a trophy

Cem · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:20 am Post subject:

Well said. What is "the three-revert rule"?

Jack Herrick · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:35 am Post subject:

In Wikipedia you are only allowed to revert the same edit 3 times in 24 hours. We have never made such a rule since we (as of yet) have not had huge problems with edit wars over the same edit.

Tom Viren · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:47 pm Post subject:

This all rings true to me. There are certainly contributors out there that have enhanced the quality of articles more than I have and they do it for the love of great wikiHows not to be admins.

Nathan Wong · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:12 pm Post subject:

james_uk · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject:

What are the responsibilities that you mention?

Nathan Wong · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject:

No real officiated set of rules; but generally (in my opinion):
To act consistantly in a way that supports wikiHow's policies and goals
Recognise that your actions reflect more-so on the site and its community as a whole, and act responsibly
Promote wikiHow's central purpose - the creation of the world's largest howto manual is the reason for your being on this site.

Well... that's sort of the idea that I was trying to concieve - but I really can't express it well (tired...)
The point is though, that these are things that any user can do - its just that an admin is expected to do that...

Lucas Halbert · Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:23 am Post subject:

Truth be told....Everyone has made me feel so welcome, and my opinion seems to be valued as much as anyone else that I have always felt line an admin. wikiHow has become a project that I enjoy dedicating my time to.

I have noticed some users look at being an admin as a reward...but I see being an admin as the members of the community who share the goal or vision of wikiHow, and strive to keep that vision a posability.

Actually being an admin is just getting the tools to help with this task. Wink

Nicole Willson · Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:13 pm Post subject:

What I see more of in terms of competition is people who want to get a lot of articles out there or make a ton of edits, users who emphasize quantity over quality. In particular, thre are articles with titles with misspelled or slightly different spellings than existing articles on the same topic and people who campaign to get their article kept on the site (and I've even got emails about this kind of thing from users months back) when it's not in the best interest of wikiHow.

My favorite is when people give themselves kudos for articles they've written or write something praising the article they wrote in the discussion page for that article, as if we can't tell it's the same IP address.

Sometimes, it feels like a contest of who can get the most edits in and I've felt like I couldn't keep up since I have 700-odd edits and some newer users have over a thousand.

wikiHow is a living document, which is great, and it's a democracy. One advantage of being a living document is that it gets to keep up with the times more and current trends, what's going on in different places all over the world as opposed to a published how-to guide. Another great aspect of it is that it is an outlet for people with writing talent who may not get to use said talent otherwise or who (like me) use it for pretty cut and dry things during their day jobs like grant-writing. It just gets kind of irksome when people use wikiHow just for self-promotion, to bring themselves attention etc. instead of for the real purpose which is to get well-written articles out there with solid information. Seriously, I'm tempted to put a grammar link on my userpage to the MLA Handbook, websters dictionary, one of those podcasts about word usage etc. just as a reminder to people to try to write proper sentences. IMHO, it's better to have a few solid articles out there to establish your reputation as opposed to a truckload of poorly written ones.

Bo · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:02 pm Post subject:

I agree with Nicole 100%. While there are many who want to get as many edits as possible, a select few stand out as making FA-style edits instead of many, somewhat-helpful contributions. Embarrassingly, at one point, I was concerned about making as many contributions as possible. And while I think I've overcome this, it wouldn't be bad to help newer users realize this as well.

Nathan Wong · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:19 pm Post subject:

Uber-bump!

But well timed and appropriate uber bump, so thanks Smile

Cipher_nemo · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:42 pm Post subject:

Yes, this thread was bumped from the dead, lol. Still, I'd second that... good find! Smile

Sondra C · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject:

Quite timely.....;}

Eric · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:04 pm Post subject:

Bo · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject:

I didn't even realize that the last comment was a month ago... Razz