How-to Wiki
This is a cool idea.
WikiHow is aiming to do to the How-to manual what Wikipedia has done to the encyclopedia. Very Cool indeed. I've got several past projects I'd like to write up. Not sure if I'll find the time, but we'll see.
It looks like Wikihow, or at least the sister site, eHow, is making ad revenue. If they could figure out a way to give a stipend back to contributors, they'd really turbocharge the rate of contribution, but I doubt we'll see them do that. sigh.
1 comment:
Thanks for appreciating the wikiHow idea. While I'm clearly biased, I also happen to think it is a cool idea and anticipate that over time it will be a very useful resource.
As for the idea about paying a stipend to contributors, we have thought about that but so far rejected the idea because it would be logistically very difficult (Mailing out thousands of very small checks is too difficult for this hobby business with just 2 employees .) In addition, I think it would probably create the wrong incentives as it would attract a crowd of people just trying to make money rather than build an accurate, helpful how-to manual. Those skewed incentives might conflict with the ethos of our existing community.
That said we do intend to start giving a large portion of any potential wikiHow profits to charity. We have done a little so far and have plans to increase this over time as ad revenue begins to exceed our costs. You can read more about our history here:
http://wiki.ehow.com/History-of-eHow-and-wikiHow
I like your blog. I hope to see you on wikiHow too!
Best,
Jack H.
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