To get started in Tasks, you'll first need an account with Mahalo. Just click the "Join" button in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen and create a profile. It just requires an e-mail address (though if you want to add an avatar, it'll help us recognize you!).

What is a Rush Week? It's a time when we post a lot of How To's into the system and allow anyone who wants to make How To's to claim one (and only one). These pages are easy to find, as they are all labeled HOW TO RUSH WEEK.

When you see a How To Rush Week task that interests you, click on it, claim it and make the page really, really great. Each Wednesday, we look at all the approved pages from that week, and pick out our favorites. Chosen writers are then invited to join the How To Team, and will be able to start making a lot more How To pages, all the time, and may even start suggesting some topics of their own!

We'll also pick out our four favorite Rush Week submissions and award the writer an additional M$25 prize for doing such a great job. It's just our way of saying thanks for your hard work, and recognizing the people who go above and beyond to submit the best-quality How To pages possible.

When you first load up the page for your Task, you will see a box filled with instructions and advice for completing the page. Please read through it thoroughly, then click the button marked "Claim This Task"

You can work directly on that page, filling in the appropriate boxes and including all the sources you used to find the information. Your How To Task will require the following sections to be completed before you submit:

Basic Overview

Write a few sentences describing the project your page will be walking people through. Focus on a very general discussion of the subject of the page and what you intend to teach people about it. Give a little background on the subject. You may also want to mention the source for your information, if you have done research and located specific instructions somewhere else.

Introduction

Here's where you should talk about the actual items that will be needed to complete the project, and answer some basic questions about the process: How long will it take? Are there are pre-requisite skills you need to have before starting? Is there something else that should be read or thought about before beginning?

Steps 1, 2 and 3

Walk people through the entire process, beginning to end, in as step-by-step a fashion as possible. A user should be able to print out your How To Page and complete the project simply by following all of your instructions. Be sure to name each of your steps, to make it very clear what material will be covered by that step, and where readers should be by the time they finish all of the processes described in that step.

If you need to add more than just the basic 3 steps, just click the "Add Another Step" button at the bottom of the Task page, and it will add another box for you.

Related Mahalo Pages

This is where you should list other pages on Mahalo that have similar or related information to your topic. Think about what kinds of other pages might interest a reader who had stumbled on to your How To. For example, if you were making the page How To Make Blueberry Muffins, good choices for related pages might be Blueberries, Muffins and How to Make Blueberry Pancakes.

You can find related pages either by searching around inside Mahalo or by doing a Google site search. To do this, just type in a word or two from your subject (in this case, let's try "muffins") into Google followed by the term site:mahalo.com

Once you have your related pages picked out, just list them in the Related section with double brackets around them, like this:

Tips

Tips should be short, brief little ideas on ways to make the project better, easier, faster or more effective. Try to come up with at least 3-5 helpful tips to assist people in completing the activity described in the page. Click the "Add New Item" button to add more spaces for extra tips.

By clicking "Submit," your work will automatically be saved and sent to Mahalo's Quality Control (QC) team. They will then evaluate your work for accuracy, originality, grammar/spelling, citation of sources and general adherence to Mahalo's high standards for content. They will either approve the task or send it back and allow you to try again. Either way, you may receive feedback and advice for future Tasks.

Once you submit your work to Mahalo, we will perform what we call a Quality Check (or "QC"). Mostly, we're looking for "stop errors" -- problems with the writing or facts that would cause a person to stop reading and question the content. These could include difficult-to-read sentences, particularly incorrect spelling/grammar, factual errors or a failure to cite sources for information.

If the guide approves of your task, you will be awarded the tip and 10 points towards your next belt level. Don't worry about moving your information onto the Mahalo page itself -- this will be done automatically when your submission is approved.

NOT ALL USERS WHO HAVE HOW TO PAGES ACCEPTED DURING RUSH WEEK WILL MAKE THE TEAM

We will only be taking the best writers and accepting them to the team. However, if you don't make the team on your first try, we'd invite you to try again the following week. Please only claim ONE Rush Week Task per week, as we will only evaluate the first submission we receive as your application for the How To Team.

If your submission is rejected, the Mahalo guide who looked over your work will offer you constructive feedback and, in most cases, will offer you a chance to try again. You will be offered an opportunity to reclaim the task and fix whatever was missing. In some special cases, a guide may choose to open up the task to different users, and it will return to the Mahalo Tasks front page.

Every Wednesday, Mahalo staff posts a new thread in Mahalo Answers naming the new people who will be invited that week to join the How To team and the four pages that will win the M$25 prizes for being the "best of the week." These users should then e-mail Mahalo staff (lonharris@mahalo.com and anne@mahalo.com) that they wish to sign up for the team.

Users are then invited to join the How To Team's e-mail list, will be able to access How To pages that have been specifically set aside for team members, and will be able to request specific How To pages they would like to build. Complete instructions, along with the process for requesting pages, will be sent to you when you are accepted to the How To Team.

Team members receive 7 Mahalo Dollars for each completed How To page that was requested by Mahalo, and will be compensated for the pages they request themselves based on a sliding scale. Mahalo staff determines how much to pay for pages suggested by users based on a number of factors, including:

(1) The estimated amount of time it will take to build the page (2) How urgently the page is needed on Mahalo (3) The potential revenue that will be brought in by the page

Please ensure that you thoroughly search Mahalo BEFORE suggesting a How To term, to make sure we do not already have a page on that or an identical topic.

The added bonus of being on the How To Team is that you get to manage the pages once you've built them. Mahalo page managers split the ad revenue for their pages with Mahalo, getting 50% of the total revenue back in Mahalo Dollars. Because How To pages are among the most popular on all of Mahalo, this can add up to hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars per year.

When you complete a How To Task - whether you are a How To team member or just completing a task for Rush Week - you will automatically become the manager of that page. (Even if you have already claimed the maximum number of pages on your account, you will still get to control pages you build in Mahalo Tasks!)

So what does a page manager do? A few things...

Update the page with recent news

Obviously, this is not as essential to a How To page as it would be on a page that dealt with an ongoing news or entertainment story. Nevertheless, when something changes that alters a project that has been described in a How To, it's the responsibility of that page's manager to come in and make edits to make the instructions and information as up-to-date and accurate as possible.

Enhance and expand the page's content

A How To page that has just been created through Mahalo Tasks is complete, but it usually does not reflect the maximum possible amount of information on the Web about that topic. Once a page has been created, and is being managed, it should be expanded and improved over time. Not every How To on Mahalo has to be as good as How to Play Guitar for Newbies, but that page represents the ideal...The more through and information-dense your page becomes, the better it will rank in search engines, the more blogs and other referring sites will link to it, and the easier time you will have promoting it.

Promote Mahalo pages

A page manager should spent a good amount of his or her time promoting Mahalo pages through social networks, social bookmarking sites, the Mahalo Answers community, blogs, message boards and elsewhere. For a more detailed discussion of promoting Mahalo pages, please see our guide to How to Market a Mahalo Page.

Image Sections

All How To pages should have an Image Section added to them after they are moved over from Mahalo Tasks. To add an image section, simply go to the "Page Builder" in the upper right hand corner of the page, go to the "Add Section to Links" drop-down menu and select "Images."

Then go to the newly created Image section and look for the best image that fits the subject of the page. Move this image to the first slot in the section by using the arrow buttons, and then use the "pin" button to stick this image in place. That will make this first pinned image the default in the page's Guide Note, or for whenever this page is referred to on Mahalo (such as when it gets linked on the front page).

If you can't find any good images in the image search, it might be a good idea to change the term that's being searched, to get better results. To do this, just click "Edit" at the top of the image section and then change the search term to something that will probably produce good results. For example, on the page How to Become an Airline Pilot, the search term "pilot" would probably make for some quality images.

For more thorough instructions on page management, read our Mahalo Page Management Guide