4 ms·

I really enjoyed HowStuffWorks back in the day. But it kind of failed to keep up. Discovery wanted to use it to extend their pseudo-educational, but actually en

I really enjoyed HowStuffWorks back in the day. But it kind of failed to keep up. Discovery wanted to use it to extend their pseudo-educational, but actually entertainment, brand. I think that HSW would have been better suited to work towards education and not towards entertainment.

michaelt 12y ago
Yeah, if you look at the type of content they were putting out in 2003: https://web.archive.org/web/20030404162012/http://auto.howstuffworks.com/four-wheel-drive1.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20030404162012/http://auto.howst... and the type of content they're putting out in 2014: http://www.howstuffworks.com/ http://www.howstuffworks.com/ Pretty stark difference.
- silverbax88 12y ago
  Wow, yeah that's a good find for juxtaposition. 2003: "How 4 Wheel Drive Works"...2014: "World's Most Beautiful Skylines"
- shrikant 12y ago
  I was going to complain that you aren't being entirely fair by comparing an article page to the main landing page, then I saw the actual article page as it stands currently. http://www.howstuffworks.com/four-wheel-drive.htm http://www.howstuffworks.com/four-wheel-drive.htm What. A. Mess. The pagination above and below the article content is mismatched, the helpful "table of contents" style pagination is replaced with useless numbers that only display the section title on hover (which I discovered only by accident), and there's just SO much more distracting visual cruft. And as an added bonus, the "More stuff to explore" section highlights Buzzfeed/Upworthy-style article like "10 People You Probably Didn't Know Were Black", and "5 Ways to Prevent Wrinkles". The latter is veering into Cosmo territory...
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  Oh god. I had no idea it turned into clickbait bullshit :( "10 Trade Secrets We Wish We Knew" "10 Most Stressful Jobs in America" "Who is the most famous person of all time?" "10 Science Questions You Should Really Know How to Answer" "10 Bizarre Ways to Die" "Is there a real way to lose belly fat?"
ryanklee 12y ago
> better suited to work towards education and not towards entertainment HSW's podcasts aside, which I think have their own separate entertainment value, whether the site itself serves a non-redundant purpose is questionable. My wife and I were listening (for the first time in many months) the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and we started talking about the HSW site itself. Who is it for? I can't think of one reason any search-literate adult would ever use it. (Except incidentally, in the way that one finds themselves suddenly on about.com every 6 months or so and thinks, "Wtf? Am I lost? Why am I on about.com? Ok, might as click through a few pages before bouncing, regrouping, and heading to a destination worth my time.") HSW is a compilation of quickly researched articles mainly based off secondary sources. It's more or less an edge-case content farm. Lots of topics. Lots of links. Quickly produced. All of it disposable. It's not trash, of course. But it's not good entertainment (again, arguably excluding the podcasts), and it's not good educational material. For anyone. Even kids. I quickly pulled up http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/death-by-hanging.htm http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dy... This particular article is about how hanging works. You can cite this article. There's a button beneath the infinite scroll that gives you a citation slug. The implication here is that the material on How Stuff Works is worth citing. It's not. The article itself cites three sources. The links to two are broken, and the third is to an ABC News journalism piece that, in connection with the hanging of Saddam Hussein, spends a few paragraphs talking about the physics of hanging. This is a news piece and, as such, doesn't cite any sources itself. So is what this how stuff works article about how hanging works really how hanging works? Fucked if I know. Now that I've read the article and checked the sources (or really, the one non-defunct, non-source), I still have to do the leg work to go track down more authoritative, primary sources. That means (instinctively), going to wikipedia (which I could have done initially, skipping the whole HSW excursion) and tracking down sources there. Or doing whatever else that has proven reliable in the past. Encyclopedias. Journals. Whatever. This is true about HSW for kids, as well -- though I'm not sure whether to a slightly lesser extent, or to a much greater extent. The question there being one of pedagogy: is teaching how citations work and what they imply important (or not) early on? Yes, my wife and I (infrequently) enjoyed the Stuff You Should Know and Stuff Mom Never Told You podcasts... but I always found it odd that the podcasts were tertiary to the whole HSW content thing, and what the hell is the deal with that? /off-the-cuff ramble

michaelt 12y ago

Yeah, if you look at the type of content they were putting out in 2003: https://web.archive.org/web/20030404162012/http://auto.howstuffworks.com/four-wheel-drive1.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20030404162012/http://auto.howst... and the type of content they're putting out in 2014: http://www.howstuffworks.com/ http://www.howstuffworks.com/ Pretty stark difference.

silverbax88 12y ago
Wow, yeah that's a good find for juxtaposition. 2003: "How 4 Wheel Drive Works"...2014: "World's Most Beautiful Skylines"
shrikant 12y ago
I was going to complain that you aren't being entirely fair by comparing an article page to the main landing page, then I saw the actual article page as it stands currently. http://www.howstuffworks.com/four-wheel-drive.htm http://www.howstuffworks.com/four-wheel-drive.htm What. A. Mess. The pagination above and below the article content is mismatched, the helpful "table of contents" style pagination is replaced with useless numbers that only display the section title on hover (which I discovered only by accident), and there's just SO much more distracting visual cruft. And as an added bonus, the "More stuff to explore" section highlights Buzzfeed/Upworthy-style article like "10 People You Probably Didn't Know Were Black", and "5 Ways to Prevent Wrinkles". The latter is veering into Cosmo territory...
forrestthewoods 12y ago
Oh god. I had no idea it turned into clickbait bullshit :( "10 Trade Secrets We Wish We Knew" "10 Most Stressful Jobs in America" "Who is the most famous person of all time?" "10 Science Questions You Should Really Know How to Answer" "10 Bizarre Ways to Die" "Is there a real way to lose belly fat?"

ryanklee 12y ago

> better suited to work towards education and not towards entertainment HSW's podcasts aside, which I think have their own separate entertainment value, whether the site itself serves a non-redundant purpose is questionable. My wife and I were listening (for the first time in many months) the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and we started talking about the HSW site itself. Who is it for? I can't think of one reason any search-literate adult would ever use it. (Except incidentally, in the way that one finds themselves suddenly on about.com every 6 months or so and thinks, "Wtf? Am I lost? Why am I on about.com? Ok, might as click through a few pages before bouncing, regrouping, and heading to a destination worth my time.") HSW is a compilation of quickly researched articles mainly based off secondary sources. It's more or less an edge-case content farm. Lots of topics. Lots of links. Quickly produced. All of it disposable. It's not trash, of course. But it's not good entertainment (again, arguably excluding the podcasts), and it's not good educational material. For anyone. Even kids. I quickly pulled up http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/death-by-hanging.htm http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dy... This particular article is about how hanging works. You can cite this article. There's a button beneath the infinite scroll that gives you a citation slug. The implication here is that the material on How Stuff Works is worth citing. It's not. The article itself cites three sources. The links to two are broken, and the third is to an ABC News journalism piece that, in connection with the hanging of Saddam Hussein, spends a few paragraphs talking about the physics of hanging. This is a news piece and, as such, doesn't cite any sources itself. So is what this how stuff works article about how hanging works really how hanging works? Fucked if I know. Now that I've read the article and checked the sources (or really, the one non-defunct, non-source), I still have to do the leg work to go track down more authoritative, primary sources. That means (instinctively), going to wikipedia (which I could have done initially, skipping the whole HSW excursion) and tracking down sources there. Or doing whatever else that has proven reliable in the past. Encyclopedias. Journals. Whatever. This is true about HSW for kids, as well -- though I'm not sure whether to a slightly lesser extent, or to a much greater extent. The question there being one of pedagogy: is teaching how citations work and what they imply important (or not) early on? Yes, my wife and I (infrequently) enjoyed the Stuff You Should Know and Stuff Mom Never Told You podcasts... but I always found it odd that the podcasts were tertiary to the whole HSW content thing, and what the hell is the deal with that? /off-the-cuff ramble