Overall, the process of creating a wikiHow article was enjoyable. The topic was "How to Support your Dancer Girlfriend/Boyfriend." The information from this article came from personal experience, from the insights I have from dating a dancer. The general basis of the article was for someone who has no idea what professional dancing is like and how it affects the dancers.
The first topic was "ask questions," here the reader is encouraged to ask their partner questions about anything pertaining to dance. Dancing can be a confusing world to newcomers, this way they can learn about it as quick as possible. The next topic was "understanding the physical demands of dancing," which entailed how dancing is very harsh on the dancer's bodies. Also that you may have to help patch up their cuts and wounds and being skilled in first aid could help. Following that was "understanding the mental demands of dancing," this section covered how mentally draining dancing is and how dancers need a lot of rest because of the mental strain of dancing. Encouraging the reader to stay in with their significant other instead of going out every now and then. Next was "Understand they are probably close to broke," unfortunately dancers aren't paid a whole lot of money and because of this they are usually on a low budget. As well as college dancers, it is hard for them to work because of the amount of time dancing takes up. In that section it's mentioned how treating them to a sandwich or lunch can go a far way for dancers. After that the topic was "Preparing for your first dance performance," which essentially laid out how to go about attending the first dance performance and what to do following it. That after the performance they might be a little confused and how that is normal for someone watching their first dance performance. The final topic was "be prepared to support them when they are emotional," because dancing is such an emotionally driven lifestyle, the dancers themselves can get emotional. Often times they cry a lot when it comes to dancing, which isn't a bad thing but for someone not use to this the topic gives you tips with how to help them through their dancing tears. Although you could potentially include more topics, these ones seemed the most relevant and would help the reader the most.
The information from this article came from my personal experiences as well as from the help of a dancer girlfriend. The layout and format came from the wikiHow article "3 ways to support your boyfriend." This article was the main reference for coding of the article as well as the basic layout for the article. Although I didn't use any information from that article, it helped by giving a reference on how they organized their information. The article also used pictures to help communicate the topic, each picture was the dancer and the dancer's boyfriend. The pictures were relevant to the topic and helped create a visual representation for each topic in the article. The article was broken into steps, although the steps do not have to be followed in order. It was more so just ways to help an individual who is dating a dancer. The article was written with the mindset of something someone would of liked to see before entering into a relationship with a dancer. The diction was casual enough to where the reader could easily understand it and retain as much information as possible. Yes, the article was written for a very small population and not many people could relate to the article, it was written with the hope that even if the article didn't apply to you, that any reader could find enjoyment and humor out of it.
When the article was published for the first time it was met with objections from the wikiHow admins. They had said the article couldn't be published because they said it was a "joke topic, wikiHow is not intended for joke pages," and they also said that it was "sarcastic, a how to manual is not the place for sarcasm." Yes this article was written with some light hearted humor and jokes, but the majority of the content was very serious and none of it was sarcastic. Even after explaining this to the admins they still said that the article needed to be changed. Although not before contradicting themselves, in one message they explained that they do allow jokes but in a following message said that all the "jokey parts" needed to be taken out. So then after pleading the case that the article wasn't sarcastic, they still denied that the article should be published. After that changes were made to the article and the majority of the jokes were taken out as well as most of the humor. Still this wasn't enough for the wikiHow oligarchy, they had then said that more research had to be done on the topic. This was strange because the "research" came from actual personal experience and not from second hand sources. So then article was edited around three more times and messages were exchanged back and forth on what else needed to be changed, added, and taken away from the article. Eventually after trying to please the oligarch, it became evident that she could not be pleased. It seems wikiHow has a joke ban, similar to how the fictional town of Bomont, Utah has a ban on dancing and rock music. So the article was left as is and the dream of publishing it was lost. But not without some personal satisfaction, the unedited version of the article was shown to the SUNY Fredonia dance department, where the pictured dancer dances, and all the dancers there loved the article and thought it was great and funny. Having approval from dancers seemed better than having approval from wikiHow admins. Although the article couldn't be posted, knowing that actual dancers enjoyed it was fulfilling in its own right.
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