Assumption of Good Faith

It is difficult not to make broad generalizations. Indeed, American society seems to thrive on placing everyone and everything into a category and assigning them a formula of actions and abilities.

So that is my "disclaimer" of sorts as I dive into a world that might be just a tad too broad and my generalizations a tad too open-ended.

wikiHow has a wonderful community spirit, one that isn't found on many collaborative sites or other wikis. This spirit has been the driving force behind the site for a very long time, making it a truly grass roots effort. As with any good web community, the content must stand on its own two feet. wikiHow's only advertising has been through word of mouth. In fact, a recent effort to publish advertising on a blog about open-source nose dived when community members felt it wasn't worth the expense.

All that to say that, without a doubt, the community at wikiHow is unparalleled. Beyond the sense of collaborative effort, the community has a remarkable ability to forgive. Mistakes are generally viewed in terms of good faith and any situation is easily fixed, if not by one person, than by a few friendly souls.

However, any good-faith balance appears to be tipping in the other direction lately, as assumptions of good faith are not always the first thoughts in editors' minds. This has a tornado affect on the entire community, causing bitter conversations and cynical, snide remarks that drip with sarcasm and even incivility.

Where did the happiness and jolly times go? It's difficult to pinpoint an exact time or event that caused this upbringing of sour emotions. Perhaps it is best defined as some point in the last 6-8 months where the workloads increased, the pressure to perform outpaced the abilities of the editors, and the need to be recognized for any achievement, great or small, outweighed any sense of volunteerism or need to help.

This is in stark contrast to the community spirit I felt only a year or so ago when I joined wikiHow. The site wasn't too technical, it was easy to contribute, and the people were happy to help out at any time. Sure the pages looked like they were from the 90s, but nobody really seemed to care. Project were few, but most issues were being resolved.

Growth pains seemed to stretch the community a little bit, as more admins were brought in, more contributors worked on articles in areas we had never seen. The sheer volume of articles, requests, and edits made the workload increase many times over. Vandalism increased as more pages were out in the "open", and editors were pulled in every direction. The number of projects increased as weak areas were found, identified, and brought before the community. But long-time editors were quick to brush off these projects as unnecessary or, at best, not in their field of effectiveness.

There is no one idea, no one person, no one event, no one activity that contributed to the misuse of good faith. It's sad to think that wikiHow will be just as impersonal and sterile as other wikis, like wikipedia.

The only recourse is to slap the community in the face to wake it from its drunken stupor. To fail in our mission is not an option. Indeed, the only way to move forward is to remember the mission -- to create the world's largest how-to manual that anyone can edit -- and to do so with the same civility and assumption of good faith as ever.