iFixit Celebrates 100,000 Guides!!!

We did it! We reached 100,000 guides!!!

This collective milestone is thanks to the wonderful iFixit Community made up of fixers, moderators, authors, students, and Tech Writers. 

We can’t thank you enough! 

Creating a guide can be a big ask. You have to have access to a device, you have to take clear pictures, and write out detailed technical steps for the repair. On top of that, you need to take all of that magic and compile it into our guide format so that others can use it to fix their thing.

But we know that there are plenty of you out there. Otherwise we wouldn’t be celebrating this momentous occasion today.

I mean, think about all of the fixers you see in the world on a daily basis. Think of mechanic shops, computer repair kiosks, sewing circles, flea markets, thrift stores, repair cafés, the list goes on. 

We knew there were a lot of fixers out there. We saw them everywhere. People wanted to fix their stuff so we made a place for them to come together and share their repair knowledge. 

In short, the problem was twofold.

You have people who can fix but who don’t know where to share their repair information. And then you have people who want to fix but don’t know where to look for help. 

This makes reaching 100,000 guides even more special. Because we knew what we’re up against. 

Our hope is to continue making repair knowledge accessible for everyone, putting us one step closer towards helping everyone fix every thing. 

So, how did we get here?

The short answer is a combination of Community support and our wiki based format. 

But, the longer answer is a little more fun!

Our awesome wiki format means that anyone can start a guide and anyone else can add to it! This means that all the repair guides on the site can be edited by anyone. 

This is a really big deal, especially because it encourages collaboration. We can all chip-in to fill out information. We do it this way, because we don’t expect one person to know how to do everything. Having a wiki-based site allows us to crowdsource repair information so that all the available repair guides contain the most accurate information on the web. 

Plus, being a wiki means that all guides, no matter how old they are, can always be updated.

Kudos to us for creating it this way. 

But a wiki needs people. And that’s where the true hero of this journey comes in. The Community. 

The iFixit Community consists of regular members, moderators, authors, students, and Technical Writers. 

So let’s give a little shout out to each pocket of the Community that keeps the wheels of repair turning. 

First, let’s start out with our fixers, the group of Community members that make up the bulk of the almost three million users that we have on the site. 

Fixers are scrappy and tend to create solutions for hard problems. You’ll find fixers all over the site answering questions, writing guides, editing wikis, and generally just being helpful. Without this vast Community of fixers there’s no way we could have amassed this large repository of repair guides. 

Authors and Moderators are our next group of contributors that are the helping hands of iFixit. Without them we wouldn’t be able to successfully foster such an amazing community. On top of scouring the site for lost fixers, ousting spammers, and answering questions, this group of privileged users also make time to write guides. In fact, being an author grants you the special power of being able to publish your guide without internal iFixit review (that’s how good they are). 

You might not know this, but we have an Education team here at iFixit. This special team partners with universities across the US and Canada to teach repair and technical writing. Yes, technical writing, no matter how easy our software makes it seem, still requires a little bit of know-how. So far, 97 universities have adopted the hands-on projects developed by our education team, resulting in thousands of student-contributed guides published each year.

And last, but certainly not least are the iFixit Tech Writers. Our in-house technical writing team produces those beautifully composed, high-quality photos that you see of devices. Our pristine white backgrounds and perfectly manicured nails make it look easy, but it takes the team significant time and focus to make sure we get the guides accurately documented before publishing. This team is responsible for publishing hundreds of guides per year.  

No matter where in the iFixit Community you fall into, we thank you for helping us reach this milestone!

We are privileged to share this moment with you! 

Here’s to 100,000 more and 100,000 after, and not stopping until we have a guide for every thing.