[Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

[Anthere]

Andre Engels a écrit:
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 04:44:27 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Andre

>>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".
> 
> 
> I disagree. Each dish has variations, sometimes wide variations. You
> cannot say that there are certain amounts of each ingredient, because
> the next person will use different amounts, or even different
> ingredients.

So ?
I think that if ingredients are VERY different, then it is not the same 
dish anymore.


>>Explaining a dish without explaining how the dish is done is just cruely forgetting information.
> 
> 
> Stating exactly how the dish is done is overfeeding with too-specific
> information. Should Wikipedia be deciding how long people boil their
> eggs?

Wikipédia is not "deciding" for people.
Actually, people are not even deciding how long an egg takes to be hard.
Nature did.
All we do is to describe it.

And I think we should describe it.

Now, Chinese decide how long to let eggs rot.
This is described very well here : 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermented_egg

I think it is here because many people find this important. Because they 
learn something in reading this. It does not matter really if it is 3 
months and 6 months, by reading the recipe, you get the idea.

I think the information should be there.

And I think it is actually there because MOST westerners have no idea 
what are these 1000 year old eggs, so they think it is relevant.
You know how long it takes to boil an egg, so you may not perceive it as 
relevant ?


...On the Dutch Wikipedia I have
> recently proposed to consider recepies "a kind of image", and add them
> in a separate block as such, not part of the main description.

You mean, like writing a general article and having "sub pages" to 
present each "pov" ?

I do not think Wikipedia should do this.
I really do not.


>>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.
> 
> 
> Which to me is exactly the reason why we should not have them in
> Wikipedia. If recepies were just "general directions", I would not be
> so much against them. But they are not. They give one, specific
> recepy, and take that as the be all and end all.

No, we could have more than one. We could change the recipe over time. 
We could give links to other types of recipes.


>>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.
> 
> 
> It may be part of human knowledge, is it the kind of knowledge that
> should be in Wikipedia? I seriously doubt it. We don't describe in
> detail how to build a table or how to hold family counseling. Why is
> cooking any different?

I think how to make bread is relevant knowledge.
There was a time when human being did not know how to cook bread, and I 
think the civilisation benefitted from them learning it.

I think Wikipedia should not restrict itself.
I see it more as L'encyclopédie des Lumières was.
It also contained the information of the real people, those living in 
small houses, having small fields, not having much education.

It is just the same today. Knowledge in the encyclopedia should not only 
be about Huygens probe; it should also be about what is the daily life 
and problems of people.

Possibly with how to grow a forest and cut wood and shape it so that it 
makes a table.
And possibly about family counselling, something that is nearly none 
existent in the current project.

As if family problems did not existed and no one needed to know anything 
about it.


>>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.
> 
> 
> But what defines "valid information". Is it "valid information" that
> an egg should boil a certain amount of time? Unless we give ourselves
> an amount of authority I'd say we should not even strive for, my
> answer is no.

It exists, so it is valid.
But this is exactly the problem Andre. We do not define what is valid 
the same way, and we do not find interesting the same things. Some 
people here think the way you think. And some have the same opinion I have.
The question I would ask : what do you lose in letting information which 
interest others in the encyclopedia ? What do you fear ? Do you fear it 
will appear a collection of irrelevant things ?  This is what I do not 
understand :-(


> Andre Engels