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How to Contribute to wikiHow As a New User or Beginner
New users or beginners on wikiHow often find it difficult to know where - and how - to start on wikiHow. This article contains a series of easy ways to contribute to wikiHow positively and instantly.
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Steps
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1Write a new article. If you have an idea for a new how-to topic, see if there's already an article on that topic. If not, feel free to write the article, following the guidelines in our Writer's Guide.- If you do not have any ideas for what to write about, you could try answering our article requests.
- While writing an article, make sure you don't use first person language, e.g., I, me, my, etc. Don't copy matter from other sites as they may have copyrights. You can however, convert them to your own language and present them in your article, with your sources cited.
- Make sure you do research on the topic and not write anything blindly. Do not spam by writing names or advertisements. Explain your article as much as you can and add images to steps if possible, just make sure that the image is freely licensed.
Ad - If you do not have any ideas for what to write about, you could try answering our article requests.
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2Categorize some of wikiHow's Articles. Here, articles created are sorted and placed into different wikiHow categories, to make them easier to find. -
3Improve an existing article. If there is already an article on your topic, you can still edit it to make it better. We're all about collaboration!
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Copyedit the article. Fix spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation mistakes. You can also use our Copyedit Greenhouse to focus on articles that need copyediting.
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Format the article. By formatting the article, you'll give it a special makeover, if it isn't written in the proper format. You can also use our Format Greenhouse to improve articles that need formatting.
- Use the wikiHow Cleanup Article Greenhouse to do general revisions, editing, and reformatting on articles that need that special attention.
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Copyedit the article. Fix spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation mistakes. You can also use our Copyedit Greenhouse to focus on articles that need copyediting.
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4Use the Spell Checker to fix spelling mistakes. While the system can identify potential misspellings, it needs your keen eye to fix them up. You can also help the system "learn" new words that aren't actual misspellings - keep making wikiHow smarter! -
5Patrol recent changes. Patrolling is a process in which all edits get reviewed by a registered user. This review process is done to ensure zero vandalism and 100% quality for articles on wikiHow.- While patrolling, make sure no one vandalizes articles by emptying the whole article, placing spam on the article, using vulgar language, or doing another form of vandalism. Make sure to roll back these types of changes by clicking on the "Rollback" button.
- If you see an edit you are not sure of, skip it by clicking on the "Skip" button. This will leave it in RC for someone else to review.
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6Develop some short articles in the Stub Greenhouse. Here, articles that are very short and don't have enough information receive the attention they need, and get quality information added to them. -
7Guard the quality of tips and videos with the Quality Guardian tool. Here, newly added tips and videos are checked for approval by voting process. -
8Review videos added to articles with the Video Picker tool. There, you will see recently added videos, which need reviewing to make sure they follow wikiHow's video curation guidelines. If you enjoy watching instructional videos, this is a great way to help out! -
9Edit by topic. Here, you can edit and enhance articles based upon your consolidated interest areas. -
10Use the Method Guardian app. Use it to help sort out articles that have been requested to have alternative methods added from those edits that just having nothing usable to be added. -
11Take some good quality pictures, good quality screenshots, or even draw some good quality illustrations. Make sure your images match the step-by-step listings, and upload them to the articles in the order they are presented. -
12Add a video to an article. Make sure the video meets our video curation guidelines and provides complementing information. -
13Add related wikiHow articles to an article. Doing this will give readers additional articles to look at once they've finished reading an article.- To add related wikiHows, pull up the article in a browser tab and select the Manage Related wikiHows tool from the drop down list that results when you hover over the EDIT tab (in the green wikiHow bar).
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Tips
- Do not remove {{nfd}} tags, as they can only be removed by admins or New Article Boosters. You can discuss your views on deletion by stating your opinion on the discussion page.
- Make sure you read the guidelines of the original applications, such as the ones mentioned in How to Contribute to wikiHow, before using them. The articles on how to use them properly have a greater dimension to the topics.
- If you need any help, feel free to contact any administrator, New Article Booster, or other experienced editor.
- If you want to give somebody a thumbs up for their edits, you can do so during patrolling, guarding quality, or even just browsing the history of an article, wherein a thumbs up icon is present in blue color.
Warnings
- Do not vandalize user pages. If you need to send a message to them, leave a message on their talk page.
- Do not chat about non-wikiHow related things on talk pages. If you chat, you will raise the recent changes count, and may be blocked.
Article Info
Categories: WikiHow User's Manual | Help
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