[WikiEN-l] HOWTOs/Recipes/Instructions and other imperativecontent

[Daniel Mayer]

Delirium wrote:
>I just really don't like the condescending tone of "this 
>is how you do this".  Just *describe* things.  We are 
>in no position to give instructions, because we just 
>report on what other people say; we don't  do original 
>research and come up with our own tutorials, because 
>that's well outside our mission (which explicitly states 
>"no original research"). 

Exactly. The goal of Wikibooks is to instruct, the goal of Wikipedia, at least
the English Wikipedia, is to inform. We can still inform readers how some
people instruct others, but we should *not* be the ones doing the instructing.
To do so would be a violation of our NPOV policy as practiced in the context of
Wikipedia. 

This was one of the main reasons why I proposed a different neutrality policy
for Wikibooks. The compromise was to use NPOV but to limit the focus of
textbooks so that they are still useful in instruction. 

But different cultures will have different ideas about what is appropriate to
include in an encyclopedia or textbook, so I don't pretend to extend this
concept to the other language Wikipedias (where instructional material may very
well be appropriate to have in an encyclopedia for their culture). 

Wikipedia is already a run-away success. Let's not impoverish Wikibooks by
duplicating that project's content and mission. 

-- mav

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