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

Sat May 15 06:14:15 UTC 2004

Ray Saintonge a écrit:
> 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

I *deeply* agree with this.