How-to and FAQ wiki

The idea of creating a question-and-answer wiki has been suggested more than once. It has also been suggested that it include how-to information, or that a dedicated how-to wiki be created.

Wikibooks now serves this purpose! See the how-tos bookshelf.

Wikipedia:Reference desk

en:Wikipedia:Reference desk is a place to ask questions that Wikipedia should be able to answer. This does not necessarily include how-to knowledge.

Wikipedia:Savoir-faire

en:Wikipedia:Savoir-faire is an attempt to put how-to knowledge into Wikipedia.

HowDoesItWorkWiki

How Stuff Works| is a web site that explains the inner workings of daily objects and is a great resource of information. However, some articles expose tough explanations that makes you wonder and look up more information on the subject to get it. The web site is edited. A wikified version (written from scratch, we don't need to rip how stuff works, but can fill up gaps left open by them) may present an information resource in similarity to wikipedia, but with a more engineering look upon the real world.

FYI: There's a similar project, called How stuff is made AdamRetchless

Wiki How do I? / Wikianswers

A wiki where people can ask any "How do I?" question and get answers or alternatively.. more generally any question and get answers. --Hemanshu

I'd love to see a free wiki Google Answers-alike, is that the kind of thing you're thinking of?

Yes

Anyone can come and ask a new question, which would create a new wiki page with the question (should the question be editable?) and allow anyone to contribute to answering it.

Question should not be edited except for correcting spelling or the like.

I'm not sure what would happen if there was more than one answer though, would the idea be to discuss solutions to come up with one answer? Or provide differing solutions?

More than 1 answer is fine, isn't it? It doesn't have to be 1 answer --Hemanshu 23:12, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

More possible names whilst bored: Wikiask, WikiQA/WikQA, Wikiquery/Wikquery/Wikuery, Wikiquestions. --Tom- 19:49, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How about Wikiuestions? Kinda wierd looking, it's true... :) --Spikey 05:38, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Or Wikitorials -- kind of a different angle, but I assume most of the answers would be how-to, i.e. tutorial, type answers, rather than just short facts (Wikifacts or Wikipedia for that). Zach 14:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. Especially since I really need to know how to iron those shirts...

Check out the Know-How Wiki. Looks like they have a good start in developing this idea, although they probably should update their wiki software and do a good deal more work with regards to organization. -- Stevietheman 14:26, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've been growing a site called FAQ Farm http://www.FAQfarm.com/ for a couple years. It's a "question and answer co-op" that does basically what we're talking about here. Here's the mission statement. Unfortunately, the software is really limited right now. It doesn't enable users to improve upon existing answers. It should have been a wiki from the start; I just didn't know that. Now I'm working with a programmer to convert the MediaWiki code for FAQ Farm and make it Wiki FAQs. We'll be Beta testing this soon. -- Cwhitten 15:57, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've been wondering about this from a different angle. How about WikiAdvice. It's sort of a proactive advice center, i.e. give advice on stopping a crying baby, how to set up metrics for managing people, how to get control of all your files, how to uncolg a drain, what to do when you've got a migraine, etc etc. So there's a lot of how to type elements, but it's easier to organize and grow if it's presented as Advice. User:frogcat 10 Nov 2004

I think this is just about the most exciting wiki project that could be developed. Just imagine: Ultimately, a "how to do everything" manual. As powerful as the Wikipedia has been, this new project would be even more powerful. Stevietheman 05:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

i too think it is a very good idea... the only thing that came to my mind is if the answer is editable or not. Also it may be some changes of the software - e.g more a forum-like QA part and a wikipedia collection of QA part --83.64.122.86 19:03, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just wrote up a proposal related to this on one of my user pages and I call it the WikiLifeGuide. For now, it's a work in progress, but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to place them on the proposal's talk page. Thanks! Stevietheman 20:52, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There's a Wikianswers at Wikicities but it has practically no edits. The modified version of MediaWiki used by faqfarm.com seems much better suited to this type of wiki than a standard MediaWiki installation. Angela 02:23, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Question/Answer Wiki

How about a question/answer Wiki? --Alien4 (de.wikipedia) 20:23, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This was suggested above. See #HowDoesItWorkWiki. Angela

There is a new wiki I set up called Answer Wiki. I am currently doing some work on it, but it should be fully operational in a few days. It is a place where anyone can post an question which can be answered by anyone else. I am open to suggestions as to how it should operate.