[Wikipedia-l] Recipe

Thu Jan 20 12:44:27 UTC 2005

>Stan
>Hear hear. I'm just waiting for someone to complain that articles
>shouldn't mention specific examples of a general concept, because
>picking an example makes it seem more important than the unmentioned
>examples, and we can't have pictures, because it's "POV" to only
>depict one object and not any of the others...

>NPOV is a technique to cope with intractable disputes, not some
>kind of weirdo Wikipedian-only quasi-religion. :-)

>Stan

I really agree with Stan.

Two of the arguments given to remove recipes from Wikipedia are
* but these are only examples and are primary research type
* but these are not NPOV

Well, using example is a top mean to have someone understand what a dish is.
Saying that a tagela is made with wheat flour and water... does not explain where the difference is between a tagela and the bread I eat in France.

The ingredients alone do not make a dish, but also the amount of each ingredient, the way they are mixed together, and in which order they are mixed, and how they are cooked.
And this is what is a "recipe".

Explaining a dish without explaining how the dish is done is just cruely forgetting information.

All along our articles, we give "examples". Except we do not call them examples, we call them "citing a source to support an argument".
We say "There is a general sentiment against this country. In her speech of the dd/mm/yyy, Secretary X. mentionned that this country would be forgiven, this one would be ignored while that one would be punished". In most articles, this is a citation. Well, in a dish article, this is a recipe.
We do that all the time. This is citing sources, examples.
Why is it different for recipes ?

An argument could be "yes, but Secretary X is a famous person, while your recipe could just be your own creation. This would be personal research and Wikipedia does not welcome personal research".

But here, we must rely on the logic and education of Wikipedians. If the dish looks like "just a creation from any one", the recipe will be removed. If the dish is famous and recipe is approved by those reading the article, and is basically the recipe mentionned in most famous cookbook, could not that be enough to accept it ?

Would mentioning a cookbook in which the recipe is mentionned enough to satisfy those hungry for "credentials" ?

In all cases, any decent cook will know very well there are as many recipes as there are cooks and days. If one does the job well, he will do the small improvement that makes his recipe unique. And all readers of cookbooks know this and satisfy themselves with general directions for a dish and manage to do it as they feel is best.

Each time I bake a bread, I follow the recipe of a "bread" and it's different. But to start the first one, I needed information on how to do it. And this is also part of human knowledge.

The other point is NPOV. The argument given is that "recipes varies and accepting one would be being pov". YES, I agree. It is ONE recipe amont others.
Now, NPOV was created to prevent the project being filled up with personal rants. To avoid it to become just another forum of discussion. Not to become a wall against valid information reporting. We should take NPOV seriously, but not more than what it should be. A useful tool, but not a divine word. 

In 3 years now, I have NEVER seen an edit war on a recipe. I have seen people adding that "though beef was usually used for the recipe, pork was also used as well". And I never saw anyone complain with this.

Anthere

http://fr.wikipedia.org
http://anthere.shaihome.net/

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