From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikibooks has a How-tos bookshelf and also books on these subjects:

Computer programming First Aid Cookbook Bartending

Individual general-knowledge how-tos are being moved from Wikipedia to Wikibooks, on the How-tos bookshelf. For solution-centered practical how-tos, there is the Wikihowto project (formerly Wikisolutions). For a list of how-tos related to Wikipedia itself, see Wikipedia:Help. There is also a category of Wikipedia articles containing how-to sections that need to be edited.

A how-to or a howto is an informal, often short, description of how to accomplish some specific task. A how-to is generally meant to help non-experts, may leave out details that are only important to experts, and may also be greatly simplified from an overall discussion of the topic. See procedural knowledge for a discussion of what sort of knowledge is imparted, and how far it can be imparted, in how-tos.

The correct way to write it in English is "how-to", but it is common practice to write it as "howto" in the Linux community. A possible reason is that this makes it easier to find a how-to in search engines like Google as searching with the words "to" and "how" does not necessarily deliver in relevant search results.

How-tos have a long history as a way of sharing knowledge on the internet, but are less successful as FAQs, manuals, recipes and guides. How-tos are very successful within Linux communities.

In the beginning, most how-to's on the internet were the result of a linear process in which an author wrote a how-to that readers would read. An example is eHow. This company raised $30 million from venture capitalists including Hummer Winblad, Media Technology Ventures, General Electric and Fingerhut which it used for hiring 200 professional writers ^[1].

After 2001, user added content played a more and more important role on the internet in a trend that is widely referred to as Web 2.0. This had a profound impact on the way in which how-tos are spread on the internet. A number of websites choose the wiki model as a way of sharing knowledge on how-tos. WikiHow was founded by the founders of eHow ^[2] and is currently the largest wiki on howto's. Howtopedia.org is a wiki with how-tos on appropriate technology ^[3]. Wikibooks contains a number of wikis on specific subjects. Howtodude.NET is a website where users can archive and share their own how-tos. It claims that wikis are no proper way for how-tos stating "howto's are fundamentally different from the information that is shared in wiki's" as "Wiki's require that contributors share a certain amount of norms and values" while "a howto is never neutral by definition" ^[4]. A blog style website that allows user to add how-tos on Linux is HowtoForge ^[5].

1. ^ eHow, Wikipedia. Accessed on June 27, 2007
2. ^ History of eHow and wikiHow, wikiHow. Accessed on June 27, 2007.
3. ^ Howtopedia.org
4. ^ Why not a wiki? Howtodude.NET. Accessed on June 27, 2007.
5. ^ How To Forge

• FAQ
• Tutorial
• Knowledge base
• The Linux Documentation Project
• Walkthrough
• Screencast

• wikiHow currently the largest how-to wiki
• How To Write a Good Howto
• How-tos bookshelf on Wikibooks
• Wikihowto aims to become a Wikimedia Foundation project
• eHow was historically the first large how-to site
• MakerWiki.com is a Spanish-language how-to wiki
• Howtopedia.org is a Wiki on appropriate technologies and know-How transfer. (French) (English) (Spanish)
• Howtoforge is a how-to wiki dealing with Linux
• URHowTo allows users to submit articles to editorial staff, but is not a wiki
• Howtodude allows users to archive their own articles, but is not a wiki
• Tipcollection is a wiki-based how-to site with relatively few articles
• Howology is a wiki-based how-to site with few articles
• Wikitut is a wiki-based how-to site which seems to be off-line at the moment
• Gil's Method is a visual how-to website for the rest of us