I was riding my usually intrepid dromedary Beefsteak through the Moroccan Sahara, waves of sand cascading along the dunes in his wake. We were approaching a dune's crest when Beefsteak's rear left foot lost traction. He panicked and bounded upright over the crest at alarming speed. We careened down the opposite face of the dune in a barely controlled fall. Beefsteak was moving faster now, too fast, beyond the accepted limits of ungulate travel. He kicked up a snake of red dust so long and dense it was visible from Marrakech. The beast needed to be stopped. I foolishly yanked on the reigns, severing the leather straps from their retaining pin. Windblown sand shocking my exposed cheeks, I wrapped my arms around Beefsteak's well-muscled neck. But it was no good. I couldn't hold on. As I tumbled to my grisly demise, I thought, "If only I'd read `How to Regain Control of a Spooked Camel' on wikiHow...'
OK, so maybe you're not interested in the age-old practice of camel husbandry, but surely there is something you wish you knew how to do. Enter wikiHow.com, a Web site dedicated to instructing the world in doing, well, pretty much anything. How-tos on wikiHow range from the geeky ("How to Exercise While Sitting at Your Computer," "How to Convert a Computer ATX Power Supply to a Lab Power Supply"), to the depressing ("How to Stop Cutting Yourself," "How to Have Fun When You Have No Friends"), to the inadvertently metaphysical ("How to Keep Chickens from Eating Their Own Eggs").
wikiHow, as the name suggests, is a wiki -- a technology that allows Web pages to be universally editable. The most popular such site is undoubtedly Wikipedia, which might represent the closest humanity has come to a repository of all knowledge since the Library of Alexandria. Much as any user can create, improve or vandalize a Wikipedia article, anyone can write or edit a how-to on wikiHow.
Wikis, it would seem, operate on the philosophy that enough unqualified dilettantes working collectively can produce information sufficiently accurate to satisfy those who are afraid of books or simply take pleasure in knowing everything in the most cursory way possible. wikiHow continues this tradition with its bizarre m8elange of practicality and ephemera.
In the former category are the sorts of how-tos that address nagging problems, the ones that lodge themselves in your brain and clamp down hard. wikiHow can teach you how to change your car's oil or erase those pesky lingering marks off a dry erase board. And, speaking of lodged in your brain, wikiHow has a guide for getting a stuck song out of your head -- ever proposing novel solutions, it recommends replacing the offending melody with one you enjoy more.
But articles like those are not the ones that have made wikiHow notable. wikiHow's greatest contributions to the activity of man are almost certainly to be found in the drivel. The Internet would not be the festering pustule of fun we've come to know without such guides as "How to Survive," which provides such glorious tips as "understand yourself" and "don't trust anyone." Sadly, it will probably be deleted by press time, its bits sacrificed so that other, more instructive articles like "How to Turn Emo in Ten Seconds" may persist.
Often, the advice on wikiHow is not terribly elucidating or helpful. For instance, the aforementioned "How to Have Fun When You Have No Friends" declares, "the best thing is to have some friends," while "How to Be a Spy Kid" warns, "spying can result in consequences."
Occasionally, wikiHow articles are extensive and replete with illustrative pictures and examples. The article "How To Run Up a Wall and Flip" is one of the most visited on the site thanks to its clear, concise, step-by-step explanation. However, before attempting this acrobatic feat, consider that the guide was written by a 75-year-old Florida retiree who lives with her cat. Perhaps I'll submit a guide on how to pilot the space shuttle.
Most of wikiHow's entries are too general ("How to Plan for a Successful Future"), too specific ("How to Buy IBM's OS/2 Warp 452 Operating System"), or tell us what we already know ("How to Act Like a Moron"). I thought I'd finally come across something I could use at the page "How to Be a Lazy College Student," but the guide is deeply flawed: It doesn't even mention drinking in class.
