DRTFM: What goes wrong with Wikihow

David Lee

28.2.2019

Translation: machine translated

Not everything is suitable for a step-by-step guide. Flirting, for example, is not. But Wikihow and its authors don't care about that. A sometimes funny, sometimes gruesome world opens up.

Read the fucking manual, RTFM for short, is good advice for cameras. Everything is in the manual. If you read camera manuals, you learn a lot. With Wikihow, on the other hand: DRTFM - don't read the fucking manual! It's useless.

Writing comprehensible instructions that are useful to someone and that they enjoy reading is difficult. There is even a separate profession for this: technical editor. No special skills are required on Wikihow: Anyone can write instructions for anything. A similar idea to Wikipedia. Only with disastrous results.

The Jekami approach has brought us instructions like

• Being annoying. Unfortunately, my colleagues already know these tips and use them every day.
• Becoming a Pastafarian in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
• Be perfect. Unfortunately meant seriously

• Grow taller by stretching. I wish I'd known that earlier!
• Survive an apocalypse "Build a communication network. Everyone should download Twitter."

These articles are some of the better ones on Wikihow. The problems lie elsewhere.

Problem no. 1: The language

In the German-language version en.wikihow.com, most of the texts are translated from English, and the translation is terrible. Phrases are copied word for word. The result: what sounds reasonably elegant in English comes across as extremely awkward and complicated in German. Or simply wrong.

The ubiquitous imperative, elegant in English and used for all sorts of things ("Let's go!"), seems slightly daft in German. Especially when it's wrong: read instead of read, take instead of take, give instead of give. I'm going off. With two Z's.

Problem no. 2: The pictures

The fact that it all looks so unbearably wooden has a lot to do with the pictures. It couldn't be more wooden. The illustrations remind me of my primary school days in the 1980s. And the textbooks that contained such pictures were already outdated back then. In these books, the boys always played football and the girls always played with dolls.

This is the illustration for "Send her flowers". Well. A close miss is also a miss.

This is the illustration for "Be brave". The woman has to be brave. The guy looks like a monitor lizard about to bite, but she doesn't seem to register it.

This is the illustration for "Talk to girls". For me, this would be more of a fitting illustration for "Bleach your teeth like there's no tomorrow."

Anyway, what are these pictures actually for? They do nothing to make the text easier to understand. Or are the pictures intended for those who can't read? Even then, they don't fulfil the purpose, as they don't accurately reflect what is written.

Problem no. 3: The structure

The structure of Wikihow specifies that each guide consists of at least three parts. Whether it's about piety, pumping up tyres or conquering your dream woman: everything can be divided into numbered parts. And these are divided into individual steps that have to be worked through in exactly this order.

Taking such a bureaucratic approach to flirting probably doesn't go down well. But what do I know; I've never tried it before. Maybe a woman will think it's cute if I'm that awkward. "Hello, my name is (your name). You look like you'd be interesting to talk to. Do you mind if I steal a few minutes of your time?"

I'm not too shy to try this out with my colleague Dominik for research purposes, introducing myself with "Your name" as required. His answer: "Yes." Funny, he's never usually so taciturn.

As a hard-hitting investigative journalist, I also test this on a woman. In the chat. After what felt like an eternity, I finally get the answer: "No, not at all :-)". When I asked how it could be that I could get such a nice answer to such rubbish, she said: "I was wondering if that was a new bot."

Problem no. 4: A woman is not a camera

Okay, calling this a problem is bold. What I'm saying is that if I write a user manual for girls - in the same way that I would write manuals for cameras - then I'm equating the two "things". Then a girl is just a tool where you just have to press in the right places and it works.

And that's exactly what it sounds like:

Problem no. 5: The general validity

When it comes to my photo tips, I have the problem that hardly any tip is always right. Nobody likes to read the constant relativisations such as "often", "usually" or "tend to" in the long run. I accept the fact that the tips are generally correct, as a failed photo is not a misfortune.

When it comes to human relationships, however, I would be a little more cautious. Simply giving advice along the lines of "Try it, it's not my life that might go to the dogs" - well, that's slightly arseholish. Wisdom like this is also not very suitable for promoting trust:

If a statement is actually always true for once, then it's so self-evident that you don't feel taken seriously when you read it.

This is also the problem with all the counselling literature: Either something is clear anyway, in which case it doesn't need to be said, or it just depends and then you can't say anything. If it wasn't like that, we would all have been rich, beautiful and happy long ago. But that would be just as boring as the drawings on Wikihow. <p

David Lee

Senior Editor

David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.ch

My interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.

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