5 ms·

So if Wikipedia is the web's encyclopedia, where is the web's user's manual?

11 points by davewiner 16y ago

mishmash 16y ago
One scoop per cup is the golden rule. ;)
yycom 16y ago
wikihow
gojomo 16y ago
http://www.wikihow.com http://www.wikihow.com
- TobinCurry 16y ago
  Yes, wikiHow is it. From wikiHow's about us page, http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:About-wikiHow http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:About-wikiHow: "wikiHow is a collaborative effort to build and share the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Like Wikipedia, wikiHow is a wiki, in that anyone can write or edit a page on the site. Thousands of people from all over the world have collaboratively written 93,410 how-to articles. Over 25 million people a month read wikiHow, which makes it the 150th most popular website according to Quantcast."
ajaimk 16y ago
"Kick to restart"
zdw 16y ago
"Hi, where can I buy just enough rope to hang myself"? For some things, simple instructions are fine - the coffee example being one of them. Once you get into complex or dangerous things (home improvement, etc.) you need to impart some safety and theory before just giving instructions. There's a reason that they make undergrads go through the "Lab Safety" course before doing work in a science lab...
rds2 16y ago
It's not open, but eHow.com is pretty much a general FAQ for the web.
- ComputerGuru 16y ago
  PLEASE NO. eHow is Demand Media. It's a spam/scam - they generate millions of pages with almost zero content. Contributors are paid pennies to write the bare minimum to get a "PASS." Demand Media is a disease of the web. http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/e-media-tidbits/100146/demand-media-may-be-bad-for-social-media-but-not-for-journalism/ http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/e-media-ti... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/demand_media_is_a_page_view_generating_machine.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/demand_media_is_a_page_... http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/ehowcom-demand-media-c295301.html http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/ehowcom-demand-med...
zachrose 16y ago
Before reading the article, I thought it was going to be about a universal manual for web browsers. Such a thing would be immensely helpful. Say, for instance, that your site asks the user to disable their popup blocker, or install a bookmarklet, or upgrade to a newer version of IE. It would be great if everyone could just use a "how do I do this?" link that goes to a neutral site with instructions. Sort of like whatbrowser.org, but with info on how to actually do stuff.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kissickas 16y ago
It's down- mirror?
- Groxx 16y ago
  Looks like it's back up. Worked for me * shrug * If not: >I was just making a small pot of coffee, just two cups. So I measured out two full cups of water, and guessed how much coffee to put in the basket. The coffee came out great, but could just have easily come out awful. >So if Wikipedia is the web's encyclopedia, where is the web's user's manual? It would be infinitely expandable, aspire to cover everything, and take a practical 1-2-3 approach to doing things we humans do on this planet in the times we live in. and try googling for "cache:url" in the future :)
  - kissickas 16y ago
    Awesome, thanks for the tip! I searched for the url but the results didn't have "Cached" links below them, this is so much faster (and clearly more effective).
    - Groxx 16y ago
      The cached-links seem intermittent at best, cache: finds a lot that aren't linked. Searching also takes you straight to it, which is nice. I only found out about that trick ~ a month ago, from here. It has quickly become my favorite / most-useful Google trick ever.
  - LordLandon 16y ago
    !cache url If duckduckgo is your bag.
mooism2 16y ago
Who would read it? Does anyone read user manuals any more?
dheerosaur 16y ago
The web itself is a user manual. And the index/catalog is called a search engine.

11 points by davewiner 16y ago

mishmash 16y ago

One scoop per cup is the golden rule. ;)

yycom 16y ago

wikihow

gojomo 16y ago

http://www.wikihow.com http://www.wikihow.com

TobinCurry 16y ago
Yes, wikiHow is it. From wikiHow's about us page, http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:About-wikiHow http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:About-wikiHow: "wikiHow is a collaborative effort to build and share the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Like Wikipedia, wikiHow is a wiki, in that anyone can write or edit a page on the site. Thousands of people from all over the world have collaboratively written 93,410 how-to articles. Over 25 million people a month read wikiHow, which makes it the 150th most popular website according to Quantcast."

ajaimk 16y ago

"Kick to restart"

zdw 16y ago

"Hi, where can I buy just enough rope to hang myself"? For some things, simple instructions are fine - the coffee example being one of them. Once you get into complex or dangerous things (home improvement, etc.) you need to impart some safety and theory before just giving instructions. There's a reason that they make undergrads go through the "Lab Safety" course before doing work in a science lab...

rds2 16y ago

It's not open, but eHow.com is pretty much a general FAQ for the web.

ComputerGuru 16y ago
PLEASE NO. eHow is Demand Media. It's a spam/scam - they generate millions of pages with almost zero content. Contributors are paid pennies to write the bare minimum to get a "PASS." Demand Media is a disease of the web. http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/e-media-tidbits/100146/demand-media-may-be-bad-for-social-media-but-not-for-journalism/ http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/e-media-ti... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/demand_media_is_a_page_view_generating_machine.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/demand_media_is_a_page_... http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/ehowcom-demand-media-c295301.html http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/ehowcom-demand-med...

zachrose 16y ago

Before reading the article, I thought it was going to be about a universal manual for web browsers. Such a thing would be immensely helpful. Say, for instance, that your site asks the user to disable their popup blocker, or install a bookmarklet, or upgrade to a newer version of IE. It would be great if everyone could just use a "how do I do this?" link that goes to a neutral site with instructions. Sort of like whatbrowser.org, but with info on how to actually do stuff.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

kissickas 16y ago

It's down- mirror?

Groxx 16y ago
Looks like it's back up. Worked for me * shrug * If not: >I was just making a small pot of coffee, just two cups. So I measured out two full cups of water, and guessed how much coffee to put in the basket. The coffee came out great, but could just have easily come out awful. >So if Wikipedia is the web's encyclopedia, where is the web's user's manual? It would be infinitely expandable, aspire to cover everything, and take a practical 1-2-3 approach to doing things we humans do on this planet in the times we live in. and try googling for "cache:url" in the future :)
- kissickas 16y ago
  Awesome, thanks for the tip! I searched for the url but the results didn't have "Cached" links below them, this is so much faster (and clearly more effective).
  - Groxx 16y ago
    The cached-links seem intermittent at best, cache: finds a lot that aren't linked. Searching also takes you straight to it, which is nice. I only found out about that trick ~ a month ago, from here. It has quickly become my favorite / most-useful Google trick ever.
- LordLandon 16y ago
  !cache url If duckduckgo is your bag.

mooism2 16y ago

Who would read it? Does anyone read user manuals any more?

dheerosaur 16y ago

The web itself is a user manual. And the index/catalog is called a search engine.