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

Fri May 14 18:18:03 UTC 2004

Delirium wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> 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 see this as more a place for a Wikibook recipes book.  An article 
> that consists of 15 pages listing all the variations on chocolate cake 
> is ridiculous for an encyclopedia.  An encyclopedia isn't the place to 
> get detailed how-to instructions, but to get conceptual information.  
> This is why the article on, say [[C programming language]] describes 
> the language, rather than being an intro to programming in C 
> tutorial---if you want a detailed intro to C, that's what an "intro to 
> programming in C" wikibook would be for.
>
> I don't even see why this is an argument---it's so completely 
> ridiculous to have recipes in an encyclopedia, barring some famous 
> ones, that I'm baffled people are actually seriously defending the idea.

What happens in Wikibooks is a different matter.  My involvement there 
has been so minimal that it would be inappropriate for me to comment 
about what they should or should not accept.  It is an autonomous 
project, and it is not up to the rest of us to dictate their rules.

This is about whether recipes (and other forms of practical knowledge) 
belong in Wikipedia.  An encyclopedia covers all sorts of knowledge, not 
just those forms that a self-appointed elite would allow.  Is there 
really a 15 page article of chocolate cake variations in Wikipedia? I 
doubt it.  This is nothing more than a straw-man argument created for 
the sole purpose of making an opposing argument look ridiculous.  (I 
don't know enough about C-language to be able to say anything about that.)

I'm baffled by people who want to exclude such material.  I agree that 
the mainstream English-language encyclopedias like Britannica have 
traditionally omitted this kind of material, but we are not them, and we 
have no need to restrict ourselves to the academic trappings that they 
chose to adopt for their own purposes.

To take the matter even further afield (I've been reading Ivan Illich) 
we are dealing with an attitude that reflects something that is wrong 
with education in general, and universities in particular.  Wikipedia is 
bound to appeal to a community of autodidacts with an incredible variety 
of backgrounds.  No sphere of knowledge is so inferior that it needs be 
ignored.  Education has become a process of buying into "The System", of 
paying one's dues thereto, and receiving accreditation to elite circles. 
 For the less capable it is intended to insure compliance.  The freeing 
of knowledge thus applies to ALL aspects of knowledge.

The eventual third-world barely literate reader of our encyclopedia is 
not going to open it to read about how the rich and powerful got there, 
or about their complex science for launching astronauts, or about the 
strutting gliterati gazing into the navel of their own foolishness. 
 These only add acuity to their poverty.  For them, simple techniques to 
enable them to bring a few of those things in their lives that we take 
for granted will be greatly appreciated.

Ec