I would like to note that we discussed this matter in February, and although perhaps no consensus was formed on policy, I continue to stand by my statements on the topic, particularly that how-tos, recipes, and similar didactic texts are inherently POV and don't belong on Wikipedia proper.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-February/010873.html http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-February/010883.html
Note, however, that information about this kind of content is decidedly NPOV.
For examples of articles about culturally-important dishes that are not ridiculous strawmen, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guacamole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paella
There was a small edit war/debate about what ingredients are permitted in Paella (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Paella). One can only imagine what kind of chaos that debate would have engendered if there had been a recipe. And who knows if the resulting recipe would have even been edible! :-)
In any case, the point is that there is no such thing as a neutral recipe, only a neutral "meta-recipe".
- David
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
NOT a rhetorical question.
I've been very puzzled by an apparent consensus or policy--one with which I obviously do not agree--that recipes in particular, and didactic or "how-to" articles in general, do not belong in Wikipedia. I can give cogent-to-me reasons for not agreeing with this. But I don't want to discuss that now.
Here's what I want to know. Is this an example of a difficult, carefully-threshed-out consensus that newer Wikipedians, having not participated in that consensus, may be unaware of?
(And if so why isn't it documented on any of the policy pages I've been able to find?)
-- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith@verizon.net alternate: dpbsmith@alum.mit.edu "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
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