On Feb 26, 2004, at 4:04 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Peter Jaros wrote:
On Feb 25, 2004, at 7:13 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I do get a little hot over these deletion issues. :-)
I understand. I'm very much against deletion of recipes (and most valid information), I just think we need to define the right place for them.
The expression that I found most patronizing was "it might merit its own section". I suspect that the subtleties between descriptive and prescriptive or between imperatiuve and indicative might not be meningful to the casual reader who wants to find out about a food and/or how to make it. The technical detailsof chocolate cakes are not inherently controversial. If different ways exist for making such a cake, the results of which is better can be entirely subjective.
My point was not about controversy or POV, just about appropriateness. A drink recipe generally describes the drink, while a chocolate cake recipe does not describe chocolate cake. If a particular cake recipe is famous and generally significant, I would say it warrants its own section or article (regarding its significance, history, etc.). There the recipe *would* describe the topic (being the topic itself).
I get the impression now that you blindly walked into an old war, only to realise that bullets were flying in every direction. The Battle of Recipes was only one episode. :-)
Indeed. Perhaps I have a new perspective.
The war is between two competing visions of Wikipedia. One side, the "deletionists", believes in deleting material which they consider to be diminishing the reputation and authoritative quality of Wikipedia. The other side, the "inclusionists", believes that the purposes of Wikipedia are better served by having articles in an ever expanding sphere of knowledge defined in the broadest terms, even if it is in subjects that others may find trivial. I am clearly in the latter camp.
I suppose I am in my own camp, or perhaps a deletionist sympathizer in the inclusionist camp. To stretch the word "sympathizer" a bit.
I am in favor "an ever expanding sphere of knowledge defined in the broadest terms". What I am wary of is becoming the Unedited Guide at h2g2. This is the body of entries not in the Edited Guide, encompassing works-in-progress, community pages, and random junk. Random junk is fine in a system with an Edited distinction, but here everything is in the main product.
I support the hosting of recipes, but I support the encyclopedic "look and feel" first and foremost. If that means removing some recipes, they ought to be moved to Wikibooks and not blindly deleted, but I think many recipes have a home in the encyclopedic format. It make take a bit of moving, but it shouldn't require *re*moving.
If a duplicate os a recipe remains o Wikipedia, no harm is done, and perhaps when the cookbook in Wikibooks is recognized as a serious project people won't mind replacing the chocolate cake recipe in Wikipedia with a statement like, "For a chocolate cake recipe see [[Wikibooks:Chocolate cake]]", but until then attempts to remove them will only cause arguments.
Sounds good to me. Then this is one of the next steps.
Peter
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