Guide Ownership

This guide explains how guide ownership works on iFixit. Occasionally, hear from authors who don’t realize that iFixit is a wiki-style platform, where anyone can contribute and improve guides over time.

Some authors are surprised when other Community members add information to their guide, they are especially outraged when an admin (who is an iFixit employee) approves their guide and is then listed as a contributor. Right now, this is just how the system is designed—more on that later.

Ultimately, this wiki is for anyone who wants to better understand how guide authorship and ownership work on iFixit.

At iFixit, our mission is to create the most comprehensive, high-quality repair guides possible. Repair knowledge thrives on collaboration and community contributions—no single person owns a guide exclusively. Instead, guides continuously evolve through input from multiple users, ensuring they remain accurate, up-to-date, and easy to follow for everyone who needs them.

When you create a guide, you are credited as the original author, but other contributors may be added as well. Here’s how authorship is defined:

• Original Author – The user who creates the guide is always credited as the primary author—this will never change, no matter how many edits are made by others. If you were the first to write the guide, you will always hold that distinction. However, as other users contribute—whether by adding content, making improvements, or refining details—the percentage of authorship shifts to reflect their contributions. While edits may give additional contributors a share of authorship, they do not replace the original author designation.

• Admin Review & Approval – Admins (iFixit staff) play a key role in maintaining quality, accuracy, and usability across iFixit's repair guides. Their contributions help ensure that all guides meet Community standards and remain valuable resources for future fixers. When an Admin approves a guide, they receive a small percentage of authorship. This is because Admins curate, refine, and ensure the guide meets iFixit’s quality standards.

• Community Edits & Contributions – Over time, other users can improve and edit a guide. If their contributions are significant, they will receive a percentage of authorship based on the changes they make. The guide will also display a history of all edits and contributors, showing who made changes and how much of the guide they own after their contributions. This transparency ensures that every contribution is recognized and that repair knowledge remains up to date and accessible to everyone.
• Since iFixit is a wiki-based platform, this system is necessary to ensure repair information is always evolving and available to a global audience. The ability for multiple contributors to refine and expand guides is what makes iFixit a valuable resource for fixers everywhere.

1. Quality Control – Admins ensure that guides meet iFixit’s formatting, clarity, and accuracy standards before they go live.
2. Curation & Refinement – Many community-submitted guides require edits, restructuring, or additional information to be more user-friendly.
3. Maintaining Accuracy – Guides are living documents, and admin involvement helps keep them relevant and useful to a wider audience.

No—once you publish a guide or a wiki on iFixit, it becomes part of the community-driven repair ecosystem. Since anyone can contribute, no one can be the sole author of a guide or wiki. As soon as someone else adds information, whether it's a small edit or a major improvement, they become a contributor and receive a share of authorship. This ensures that repair knowledge is always evolving and improving through collaboration, rather than being locked to a single perspective or source.

Repair knowledge is meant to be shared, improved, and built upon over time. Sole authorship isn’t possible because guides are community resources, not personal projects.

While your contributions are always recognized, iFixit’s approach ensures that guides remain accurate, collaborative, and continuously refined.

All content on iFixit—including Guides, Wikis, and Answers—is protected under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

This means that anyone can use, adapt, and share the content as long as they provide proper attribution, do not use it for commercial purposes, and share any modifications under the same license.

You can read more about Creative Commons licensing here: Creative Commons License and on our own iFixit Licensing Page.

This system helps keep repair knowledge free and accessible, ensuring that information is always available to those who need it.

If you want to retain a higher percentage of authorship, here are some best practices:

• Submit well-structured, complete guides – The more polished your guide is, the fewer changes an admin will need to make.
• Follow iFixit’s style and formatting guidelines – Ensuring your guide meets our standards upfront reduces the need for admin intervention.
• Stay engaged with your guide – If you continuously improve your guide, your authorship percentage remains strong.

iFixit values every contributor’s work, and our goal is to empower the Community while maintaining high-quality repair information. While Admins play a role in curating guides, the heart of iFixit remains with the community of fixers who share their knowledge to help others repair their devices.

If you have any further questions about guide authorship, feel free to reach out to the community or check out additional iFixit documentation on contributions and editing.