5 Year Interviews

This October, we had three people who had wikiHow birthdays. Know how old they are? 5 years! Congrats to them for this major milestone. To honor their wikiBirthdays, I wanted to do a special post for each of them. A little interview (Which they graciously agreed to), and my personal opinion of the three (They are awesome!) Today's interview is for BR.

BR is a five year veteran, an awesome patroller/coacher (for patrolling) and friend!

June: What made you want to join wikiHow, and why have you stuck with it for all of these years?

BR: Nothing really ''made me join'', just like most people I was searching for how to do something, and found my way here, found out how friendly everyone is, and how easy it is to publish nonsense articles, and decided to stick around. So far as ''sticking around'', I enjoy wikiHow, and there is always something new to learn.

June: What changes have you seen wikiHow make? Community Dashboard changes, new tools, wikiHow's overall design scheme, etc..

BR: The dynamics of the site, videos, dynamic elements on pages, and the sheer volume of traffic, not to mention the dramatic increase in article pages. There are always changing personalities, I miss some of the old timers, one who passed away a couple of years ago who mentored me with RC patrolling, some who still drop by from time to time.

June: This month is your five years on wikiHow. What did you gain throughout the time you've been here? What's the difference between the current time, and the time years ago?

BR: I have learned a lot about a wide variety of subjects, and I have learned not to underestimate even the least likely contributor to make a big difference in the quality of the website. I would even say I have learned a bit about navigating the web, although that isn't a particular interest of mine. One of the larger differences is the volume and speed of the website, the number of visitors, the number of edits daily, and the speed of web page downloads and uploads is tremendous with the increase in bandwidth and computer processors, not to mention smart phones, tablets, and other devices (that we provide content to help people use).

June: If you could make changes, improvements or have instructive critisism you'd like to give, what is/are it/they?

BR: I would like to see downsized pages, the dynamic features scrolling around, the side bars in general, and other attachments are great for people wanting the full featured model, but I would like a wikiHow "lite" pageview to speed up loading times and to help my poor old eyes. It would be nice to make some page features optional, especially videos, which are often poor quality anyway. Give a visitor an option of images/no images, videos/no videos, especially with the growing number of visitors using smaller devices. It would be nice to see some serious devotion to coaching, so the above mentioned videos and images could see a general improvement in quality, similar to what wikiPhoto has managed in a limited scope.

And that's the end of BR's interview. Personally speaking, BR is an awesome person who has a pretty awesome sense of humor. On wikiHow, he has patrolled over 500,000 thousand edits and is a wikiHow Admin. He also awarded me the Patrollers Barnstar, and, coming from The patrolling maniac (Good maniac), I was very happy. =)

Here's the BR, an awesome patroller, happy wikiBirthday! =)

December (June)

Recipes - Why Not?

If you're tired of not having any article ideas to write about, why not a recipe? Yes, they're pretty easy to do, but that doesn't mean that the author is lazy either. Is there a certain dish that you love, and you are basically an expert at making it? Perhaps you even have a secret ingredient? Awesome.

So, write a recipe! Recipes are great, and you can even use the same ingredients as in a cookbook- so long as it is in your own writing. :) Want to know what would make doing this even more fun? Invite a friend over on the weekend, and you and he/she can write out the article together, as well as take pictures. Let one person be the chef/baker, and the other the photographer.

Anyway, if there's an awesome recipe you have- go ahead and share it with the world. :)

~ IZ

P.S. - This can also be an easy way to break through that writer's block!