WikiHow site is crafty indeed
Lois Wade, a Spangle school librarian, has a knack for looking at something and knowing exactly how to put it together. “My aunts say I got that from my grandmother. People would say to her, ‘Is there anything you can’t sew?’ ” said Wade.
On the Web, Wade’s crafty side and her ability to write smart how-to articles spurred online readers at the popular site wikiHow to elect her last week as a site administrator.
WikiHow is a free Web service where people create detailed and simple guides for doing things. New articles posted this week include guides to building an adobe wall and how to reduce green tea caffeine.
The site has about 40 volunteer administrators chosen by other members; they serve as site monitors and editors.
Since joining wikiHow about a year ago Wade has written more than 30 how-to articles on the site. One article, how to make a cloth baseball, has been viewed more than 24,000 times.
She became a regular after showing her 15-year-old son a quirky wikiHow article on making a wallet from duct tape. Keith Wade, a sophomore at Upper Columbia Academy, asked his mom to make one. After a 20-minute project, Wade was hooked on wikiHow.
Other how-to articles she’s written include “How to Make a Felt Rosebud Pincushion” and “How to Make a 3-D Stuffed Giraffe.”
Wade, 41, moved to Spangle from Michigan last year. Her husband, Mel Wade, took the job of network administrator for privately run Upper Columbia Academy. Wade became the school librarian.
WikiHow and a growing crop of “make your own” Web sites follow the premise that each person is an expert on something. The nearest equivalent online to wikiHow is eHow, a for-profit venture that does the same thing: Visitors post questions or requests for how to do something.
At eHow, some users can be paid for answering difficult topics; at wikiHow the effort is voluntary and gratis. WikiHow has no connection with Wikipedia, though both use the same software that allows easy editing and collaboration.
As an administrator and user, Wade spends between 12 to 15 hours per week on her computer. Her motivation is simple: “I do it because it’s fun. I also do it because I have friends there,” she said.
Her admin job includes helping decide which user requests for how-to articles in the arts and crafts category should be written. A while back she wanted to delete a user request for a how-to on building a pontoon boat that people could sleep on.
But she first ran the idea past other users, and one wikiHow regular said he could do that.
“That guy is in construction and said he knew how to build one. So he went ahead and did a great article on how to build one out of PVC pipe and two-by-fours.”