[WikiEN-l] Re: Historian: origin of apparent "policy" re recipes and how-tos?

Fri May 14 05:34:39 UTC 2004

Peter Jaros wrote:

> On May 13, 2004, at 5:37 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> It is completely ridiculous to say that because the verbs in a recipe 
>> are in the imperative mood, they are inherently POV.  The imperative 
>> mood can be instructive by nature, and does not imply an order to do 
>> things that will be enforced by anybody.  If you don't follow the 
>> recipe the meal may be a flop, but the cook proceeds at his own 
>> risk.  We have a general disclaimer which should apply when the 
>> recipe doesn't work.
>
>
> The mood is not, for me, the issue.  Certainly, the imperative mood is 
> useful in such articles.  However, there is a difference between the 
> only way to do it and the "best" way to do it.  If there is a finite 
> number (such as one) of ways to do something (such as replace a bulb 
> in a particular lamp), all of these should be documented or none at 
> all.  Anything else is POV.
>
> Recipes are tricky.  If you provide a recipe for chocolate cake as a 
> "chocolate cake" recipe, that's POV: you're asserting that *this* is 
> chocolate cake.  If you include "Le Grand Pain's famous chocolate cake 
> recipe", that's the only one of *those*.  It's all in the presentation.

Your distortion of NPOV as an excuse for getting rid of something you 
don't like in Wikipedia boggles the imagination!  Deletion is also an 
expression of POV, as been pointed out in the discussion about offensive 
images.  And what could be so offensive about the recipes?

I have no objection to documenting ALL the ways to put in a light bulb. 
(There are more than one ways.)  Just because the first person to post 
on the subject has only presented one way of doing something does not in 
itself make that contribution POV.  If it is the only POV it is 
necessarily neutral.  If there are other POVs, the solution begins with 
others presenting them, not with censoring the one that's already there.

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time suffering fools gladly.

Ec