subject: [Wikipedia-l] recipes

body:
Recipies "lacking a home" is not a problem here, plenty of recipies
exist in Wikibooks and many of those deleted on en.wikipedia are
actually /moved/ to Wikibooks.

Mark

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:27:51 -0500, ilooy <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Salut Anthere,
> I regret to hear that the recipies have been
> deleted. Obviously someone put the effort
> in collecting the information and posting it.
>
> There are other places on Wikimedia's
> sister projects where the information would
> be welcome. For example, wiktionary, where
> if I were to visit 'gazpacho' I would hope there'd
> be a simple recipe I could find, because it
> describes the dish by giving its way of
> making the soup. Also Wikibooks would
> be a great resource, a Wikirecipe Book
> would be an excellent solution. Or Wikisource
> where a text or collection of texts could be
> posted on step-by-step recipies for dishes.
>
> But all these solutions aside, the first step
> would be to talk this out before anyone gets
> delete-finger happy. Watching out for abuse
> and misuse is entirely understandable, but
> deleting recipies without discussion and
> a call for solutions seems contrary to
> wikietiquette. At least in my point of view.
>
> Let the recipies find a home!
>
> Since,
> Jay B.
>
>
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 20:58:23 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I discovered today that recipes are now legally deleted from the english
> > wikipedia where they are not welcome any more.
> >
> > Still, I had the memory there was no clear agreement on doing so, and
> > for months, there was a sort of balance with removing all those of minor
> > dishes, while keeping those from typical ones.
> >
> > When I tried to make a policy on the topic, clearly, there was no
> > agreement. Neither to keep, neither to delete. Mostly two factions.
> >
> > Today, I realised all had been deleted. I restored one and was
> > immediately reverted by Gentgeen (of course, he is the one who deleted
> > them) and he pointed to me a policy on "what Wikipedia is not".
> >
> > On this page, it is written that recipes should not be kept in
> > Wikipedia. So, now, Gentgeen has a argument to revert me, and possibly
> > even the right to block me if I restore a recipe.
> >
> > My question :
> >
> > * why is it so that rules are written in the big book (what wikipedia is
> > not) which makes reference, while these rules are not widely agreed on
> > the project ? If not agreed but by a couple of bold people, should they
> > be used to revert the others ?
> >
> > I realised the recipes were not welcome any more at all today, because a
> > couple of french people wish to delete them as well on the french
> > wikipedia. And one of their arguments is that the english wikipedia
> > decided to delete them (and so, they must be right !).
> >
> > I removed the rule as is now, and asked the editor who initially added
> > it to show me where this was supported initially.
> >
> > Ant
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> --
> ilooy.gaon at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal : wikimaps

body:
Daniel Mayer schrieb:

>--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>
>>I hereby request this as a new project (we already do have wikimaps.org,
>>right?).
>>
>>
>
>I think this is a bit premature. Wikimaps should be as human editable as
>possible and I can't really figure out how to do that with the implementation
>you presented (and I work as a full time GIS specialist).
>
>
I'll write up a documentation. Chances are, it is too simple for you;
used to GIS software, you'd think "it *has* to be more complicated than
that!" :-)

>Much more time is needed to develop something workable, IMO. Did you contact
>the person I mentioned in one of previous posts on this?
>
>
But it *is* workable, at least for our purposes. That doesn't mean the
software is finished and ready to go "as is"; there's probably a whole
army of bugs waiting in the wings.

The one you mentioned (yeah, names...) is, IIRC, the one who presented
his own mapping software at the developers conference at 21C3. It was
that very presentation which inspired me to write my own. (Not that the
maps were that bad; the implementation was /makes gagging sound/, and I
couldn't see a wiki interface to enter data anywhere)

>There is also a lot that goes into forming a new project. One cannot just ask
>and have it happen anymore.
>
>
Well, if I don't ask, nothing's gonna happen at all, right? Right?? How
many of my (and other peoples) projects keep rotting in CVS and other
unspeakable places, because they didn't get the necessary push? I
stopped counting.

I invested quite some brain-power into this one; and as far as I can
judge my own 'ware objectively, it strikes me as both very useful and
thought-through, despite the (relatively!) short time I've been working
on it. But since presentation and persistance (read: creation of Klingon
wikipedia and the like) have become, as you imply yourself, more
important than writing code, I'm now bugging everyone as much as I can,
in the vague hope something good comes out of it this time, and my work
will not be in vain yet again.

And I am not suggesting some weird far-fetched project out of the blue
sky here. We actually have a *reserved domain* for this! I'm just the
first one to come up with a real implementation, one that's actually
working!
The software is there, examples are there, and I'm adding new (alas very
rough) data as we speak (sorry: mail) . What else do you expect? Me to
finish the whole world data set before I get approval? :-)

>>IMHO a separate, single server would be best suited for this. With a lot
>>of data, map generation will slow down, and it should not slow down
>>other projects in turn. Also, due to the speed of the wikimedia projects
>>(or the lack thereof), I propose waiting for the next batch of servers
>>to be installed before doing this.
>>
>>
>
>We have very serious server/performance issues to deal with first.
>
>
Yes, I know. That's *the whole point* of the paragraph you quoted! Sorry
if I wasn't clear, here it goes again, in keywords:
1. Wait for new servers
2. Wikipedia faaaaaast!
3. Wikimaps
4. Profit! (oh, wait...)

>So we must live within the world that is presented to us and wait for the day
>when that world attains some sanity. Until then we need to protect our work
>through the use of a copyleft license.
>
>
Agreed; we might have to wait a *very* long time for that, though :-(

Magnus

P.S.: Glancing over this mail again, I might annoy someone or the other
with it. Sorry!


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
I'm not sure that's a good idea, either.

We should define what bread is by how it is made, but we should not go
so far as to give recipies.

Thus, "Bread usually includes a powdery substance of one sort or
another, a smaller amount of insects, and either copper, lead,
uranium, mercury, or nitric acid." (not realistic obviously). If the
way it is cooked or the order you mix the ingredients make it
different from another kind of food, then it should be included - "the
powdery substance is put in first, if it is put in second it will
instead be gread and if it is put in third it will be sread" or "it
must be burnt, if it is baked it is yread, if it is fried it is mread,
and if it is boiled in molten aluminium it is fread".

This is very easily done without giving a recipie, and already some
articles on foods link to the Wikibooks recepie (or in some cases,
multiple recipies) for that food for somebody who wants to make it.

Mark

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:41:47 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:05:46 +0900, Guillaume Blanchard
> > I would like to make a proposal for Wikipedia:
> >
> > - A dish's article can contain one recipe (the minimal requirements to
> > make a dish what is it)
> > - Each ingredient is express in range of proportion (to be
> > representative of variations)
> > - Non essential information (like flavors, decoration, etc.) is
> > explained into the article's text (this must be a representative
> > variation, not a personal taste).
> > - Dish's recipe alone is a stub that must be enhanced.
> > - If it's obvious that there is no intention to improve the stub (recipe
> > alone), it can be proposed at VfD.
>
> I like this.  With the additional note that an article can contain
> multiple recipes as long as each one represents a 'major' variation;
> imagine a bread article with a single recipe for bread!
>
> > (for example Japanese Kuri are very far from Indian one).
>
> Another good example.
>
> --
> +sj+
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Should we go into read-only mode during peak
	periods to de...

body:
Anthere schrieb:

> I fear that these projects takes too little of our resources to really
> make a difference Danny.
>
> The other point I would make is that one really "feel" the difference
> when USA is waking up :-(
> During mornings here, wikipedia is perfectly editable.
>
> Rather than making all sites unavailable at peak hours, would it be
> possible to imagine turns ?
>
> Other ideas ?

We get most edits from logged-in users, right? And generation of
logged-in user pages takes more time than just dumping pages from the
squids for anons, right?

So, how about multi-level miser mode! Go through the steps until the
site is workable:
1. Everyone gets anon pages; except logged-in users get logged-in edit pages
2. Anons and a randomly chosen user set are prohibited from editing for,
say, one hour (includes newly generated accounts to prevent spontaneous
edit-sock-puppet-generation)
3. Read-only-mode for everyone

Alternatively, we could in turn put en&de (for example) and all projects
*except* those in read-only. Or is that what you meant with "turns"?

Magnus


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Michael Snow (wikipedia at earthlink.net) [050121 14:33]:
>
>
>>Also, the way we traditionally handle certain types of POV - one of the
>>main complaints about recipes - is by attributing that POV to a credible
>>source (not by removing it entirely). A recipe from a standard cookbook
>>for a given style of cuisine, or from a noteworthy cook (not your Aunt
>>Tillie, in other words), can satisfy this angle too.
>>
>>
>I think I am about to go wild with my (precioussssss) Bee Nilson.
>
>
Who in the world is Bee Nilson, and why isn't there a Wikipedia article
about her when I want to look her up?

Sorry, playing the ignorant American for a bit there. But this just
illustrates how woefully undercovered cooking topics are, along with
almost all other traditionally "domestic" subjects, which is partly why
we're having this whole debate over recipes for the nth time now. If we
had decent encyclopedia articles about these things, which is almost
never the case, then it would be less of an issue. I think a lot of the
visceral objection to recipes is based on the fact that they frequently
overwhelm the remaining content of the article, especially if the
instructions are given in significant detail.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal - Wikibuilder

body:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 10:26:59 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Anything that wants to get started on wikicities would gladly be moved
> to Wikimedia if the communities both wanted it that way.  That is,
> anything which fits with the Wikimedia charitble public purpose
> mission which gets started at wikicities will not be held there.
<snip>

i remember you saying on several occasions that you wanted to keep
your stuff (bormis, wikia, wikicites, <anything else i might not know
about>) and wikimedia seperate. I also remember you saying that you
did not think that it would be appropriate for other wikis started
elsewhere to merge with, or become part of the wikimedia family.

I dont mean to nitpick or anything but a) have you really thought this
offer thru; and b) did i misinterpret what you said (wrote)
previously.

Again i dont mean to nitpick, and im certainly not trying to critisise
you (i think hosting trial projects at wikicities may well be a good
idea), im just curious and also dont wont to give any more fodder to
the cabal myth.

humbily,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Recipe

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

> 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.

> 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?

> 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 ?

For one thing, they are not stated as examples. For another, they go
well beyond what is necessary to give the example. I don't like your
example either - this kind of thing usually is done when people start
making a case rather than describing it, that is, go beyond NPOV.

But even without looking at that, the way they are presented, they are
not examples. They are descriptions, and often rather forcibly so
("you should do this-and-that"). My objections would be much less _if
they were indeed given as examples_. 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.

> 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.

> 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?

> 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.

Andre Engels


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thankyou to all the developers.

body:
The following are two emails from the wikitech-l list. Every time you
edit, say a little prayer of thanks for the devs who make it all
possible.

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:38:25 +1100, Tim Starling
<t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> I said on the village pump that I thought we are doing a great job, but
> I don't think any of the developers I was aiming that comment at read
> it. Let me take this opportunity to thank everyone and recognise what we
> have acheived.
>
> We've been working in adverse circumstances. During peak times, the site
> has been extremely heavily loaded and unstable. Any slight error in
> misconfiguration, or inaction at a particular time when action should
> have been taken, causes the site to crash. I've lost count of how many
> problems we've identified and fixed just over the last few weeks.
>
> Many users say "the developers are doing a great job", or "we all know
> that the developers are very busy", but the fact is that 99% of users
> don't have a clue what we are doing. They don't know what our
> achievements have been and they don't know the challenges we face.
> Gerard's comments are certainly refreshing in this regard, but I think I
> can add to them. Assume I am speaking on behalf of the users, since I'm
> sure every user would agree with me if they only knew who to thank.
>
> Big thanks go to JamesDay, who almost single-handedly administers 8
> database servers, a task requiring constant monitoring and work on the
> order of hours per day. James's advice to the MediaWiki developers and
> other system administrators is invaluable.
>
> Also on the topic of database administration, Kate's servmon and
> WikiServices bots which have kept the site running when otherwise it
> would have been choked with long-running queries.
>
> Thanks to Med and Submarine for their work in network and hardware
> administration of the Paris squids. Well done Mark and Kate for getting
> PowerDNS up and running and thus getting the Paris squids into service.
>
> Domas's setproctitle() patch is amazing and we all know it. Of course
> his other system administration and development work is greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks to Brion, JeLuF and Hashar for their tireless and usually
> unrecognised work in fixing MediaWiki bugs.
>
> Thanks to Kate for setting up Pen and Perlbal. This is the third time
> I'm thanking Kate and that's no coincidence - if she left us we'd be
> left with a dozen pieces of software that no-one else knows how to use.
>
> I know you're all stressed, all we seem to get is complaints despite
> what we've acheived. I decided after Caroline Ewen's post on wikipedia-l
> that I can't afford to answer every single question asking "why is the
> site slow" or every report of "I'm getting backtrace errors!" The fact
> is that the site has grown to such a size that every time something goes
> wrong, we can expect a flood of complaints and queries. My advice would
> be to answer only some of them, and let alert users distribute the
> information to everyone who asks. Or just ignore them -- remember your
> time is valuable. Think of what you could have achieved in the time it
> took you to put a single user out of their ignorance.
>
> When the public forums are too noisy with uninformed speculation, let's
> organise what we need to make the site better in less visible, more
> constructive forums, and work with the Board to make it happen.
>
> -- Tim Starling

and

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:41:15 +0000, Neil Harris
<usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Just to take this a bit further. I thought I'd compare Wikipedia with
> one of the "well-run sites" that we are supposed to be competing with.
> Google is a good direct comparison, because of its dynamic content, with
> cachable frequent queries.
>
> Looking at the difference in traffic between Google and Wikipedia on
> Alexa shows that:
> * Wikipedia has 300 page views per million
> * Google has 16,000 page views per million
> Thus, Google serves roughly 53 times the number of page views compared
> to Wikipedia.
>
> However,
> * Wikipedia currently has 39 servers
> * Google has an estimated 50,000 - 100,000 servers in its worldwide farm
> of clusters
> Thus, Google has roughly 1250 - 2500 times as many servers as Wikipedia
>  [Source: http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/How_many_Google_machines for an
> estimate for April last year, and allowing for more recent expenditure]
>
> Thus, we might regard Wikipedia as being roughly 24 to 48 times more
> "efficient" in its use of hardware than Google. Given that Google has
> spent over $250M on hardware, to obtain reasonable parity for our
> developers to be expected to compete with Google at our current traffic
> we should have around 1000 - 2000 high-performance servers, at a cost of
> several million US$.
>
> So, a reasonable answer to critics seems to be:
> * the developers are already doing very well indeed coping with the
> combination of extremely high demand and very limited resources
> * they already know there are big growth and capacity problems, and are
> working hard on scalability and reliability
> * send money, rather than complaining
>
> -- Neil

Remember boys and girls there would be no Wikimedia without Mediawiki.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Sj

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:05:46 +0900, Guillaume Blanchard
> I would like to make a proposal for Wikipedia:
>
> - A dish's article can contain one recipe (the minimal requirements to
> make a dish what is it)
> - Each ingredient is express in range of proportion (to be
> representative of variations)
> - Non essential information (like flavors, decoration, etc.) is
> explained into the article's text (this must be a representative
> variation, not a personal taste).
> - Dish's recipe alone is a stub that must be enhanced.
> - If it's obvious that there is no intention to improve the stub (recipe
> alone), it can be proposed at VfD.

I like this.  With the additional note that an article can contain
multiple recipes as long as each one represents a 'major' variation;
imagine a bread article with a single recipe for bread!

> (for example Japanese Kuri are very far from Indian one).

Another good example.

--
+sj+


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:03:06 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote
> * Many arguments about why we should NOT have arguments do not cut it as
> we have plenty of room. Hard disks are cheap nowadays
Decisions to remove articles or content from articles are not based on
a (nonexistant) lack of disk space; they're motivated by a desire to
keep Wikipedia neutral, easily readable, and free of extraneous
information.

> The suggestion of using wikibooks has some merits except that we do not
> have our interproject links yet. Without these we will get the old
> quarrel of no outside references again. My personal opinion is that you
> want at least one recipy that is typical for the dish. Variations can
> then be in wikibooks.
Wouldn't having only one recipe in Wikipedia imply some sort of bias
towards that particular preparation?

--Slowking Man


body:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:38:31 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why not have a standalone "wikilabs" project for new potential
> > wikimedia projects?
>
> Because Wikimedia is not a free hosting service for just any wiki idea and
> Wikicities already exists to fill that role. Concentrating development energy
> into our existing projects and staying on mission are more important than
> budding-off new projects to the degree suggested,

Why not have a standalone "wikilabs" project for new potential
Wikimedia projects with recognised potential and good plans, which fit
well into our mission of providing a free reference source?

I see this as a way to reduce budding-off, not to increase it.  This
would provide a place for the initial growth of new projects before
deciding certain difficult issues such as 1) how they are licensed, 2)
what standards they will use for naming, namespaces, and
classification, 3) how they will be internationalised.  It would allow
for more structured discussion of the goals and viability of new
projects before they were stamped with a domain-level seal of
approval.

0) Disclaimers about the alpha/beta nature of the projects could be
explained once for the entire site.
1a) Wikilabs could be PD, containing only links to other CC/GFDL
content that would be in the project proper, making transition to a
different license easy.
1b) Discussions about how to license contributions, and how to comply
explicitly with licenses or related content, would be important for
each project.  Reaching consensus on these matters could be expected
before a project forged off on its own (cf. Wikicommons, Wikispecies,
Wikinews).  Legal scholars could visit this single site to weigh in on
these related discussions; discussions about copyright would not die
simply because those interested in a particular new project did not
have the right expertise.
2) Discussion of standardization, how to comply with / interact with /
reference existing standards, and citation, would also be important
for each project.  Comparisons to existing reference works on related
subjects, existing projects with similar goals, and existing
classification methods, could likewise be expected before a project
took on its own domain (cf. Wikispecies, Wikipeople*, Wikibuilder*).
3) Wikilabs could be like meta, multilingual on a single wiki, with
unified discussion of which projects should be how multilingual when.
Initial interest in a new project is often focused in one or two
languages, and the first hundred people interested in the project are
not necessarily interested in such decisions (cf. Wikisource,
Wikispecies, 911-wiki)

> > Wikilabs could also be a good initial test site for new software patches
> > and upgrades, since everything on it will explicitly be in beta.
>
> That is what test.wikipedia.org and any number of other MediaWiki-based sites
> that the developers already use.

...but would soon be larger than any of these sites, and would
certainly have a larger active body of regular users whose use might
trigger sneaky new bugs.

> could this be done within an existing Wikimedia project?

I think it makes conceptual sense to have a separate wikilab for
promising new projects, inasmuch as it makes conceptual sense to
separate any of the Wikimedia projects from one another.  However, in
the absence of a wikilab, Meta seems the best place to expand project
drafts and start creating initial policy and content.

--
+sj+


from_name: ilooy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] recipes

body:
Salut Anthere,
I regret to hear that the recipies have been
deleted. Obviously someone put the effort
in collecting the information and posting it.

There are other places on Wikimedia's
sister projects where the information would
be welcome. For example, wiktionary, where
if I were to visit 'gazpacho' I would hope there'd
be a simple recipe I could find, because it
describes the dish by giving its way of
making the soup. Also Wikibooks would
be a great resource, a Wikirecipe Book
would be an excellent solution. Or Wikisource
where a text or collection of texts could be
posted on step-by-step recipies for dishes.

But all these solutions aside, the first step
would be to talk this out before anyone gets
delete-finger happy. Watching out for abuse
and misuse is entirely understandable, but
deleting recipies without discussion and
a call for solutions seems contrary to
wikietiquette. At least in my point of view.

Let the recipies find a home!

Since,
Jay B.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 20:58:23 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I discovered today that recipes are now legally deleted from the english
> wikipedia where they are not welcome any more.
>
> Still, I had the memory there was no clear agreement on doing so, and
> for months, there was a sort of balance with removing all those of minor
> dishes, while keeping those from typical ones.
>
> When I tried to make a policy on the topic, clearly, there was no
> agreement. Neither to keep, neither to delete. Mostly two factions.
>
> Today, I realised all had been deleted. I restored one and was
> immediately reverted by Gentgeen (of course, he is the one who deleted
> them) and he pointed to me a policy on "what Wikipedia is not".
>
> On this page, it is written that recipes should not be kept in
> Wikipedia. So, now, Gentgeen has a argument to revert me, and possibly
> even the right to block me if I restore a recipe.
>
> My question :
>
> * why is it so that rules are written in the big book (what wikipedia is
> not) which makes reference, while these rules are not widely agreed on
> the project ? If not agreed but by a couple of bold people, should they
> be used to revert the others ?
>
> I realised the recipes were not welcome any more at all today, because a
> couple of french people wish to delete them as well on the french
> wikipedia. And one of their arguments is that the english wikipedia
> decided to delete them (and so, they must be right !).
>
> I removed the rule as is now, and asked the editor who initially added
> it to show me where this was supported initially.
>
> Ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
--
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
Andre Engels a ?crit:
> 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?

Wikip?dia 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'encyclop?die des Lumi?res 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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [In the Press] Wired; science wikibooks; cult status;
	neologisms and recipes;

body:
FHSST, a community building free high-school science textbooks for
schools in Africa, last year got support and encouragement from the
Shuttleworth Foundation to migrate their existing work to Wikibooks.
Their end-of-year update:
   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fhsst-physics/2005-01/msg00000.html

Meanwhile WIRED prepares for Mr. Pink's upcoming feature on WP with a
quick note from Dan Terdiman...
   http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66210,00.html?tw=wn_14culthead

...WP is approaching cult status in Germany, with all the attention
that entails...
   http://www.nzz.ch/2005/01/14/em/page-articleCIOUU.html

...and remains a popular source for neologism descriptions:
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050116GetFolksywithFolksonomies.html

Finally, here's what happens when you take
  .4M pp  Wikipedia
  1 vol  Wikibooks
  17 CC  Weblogging
  3-5 outspoken women
  2 langues
  1 recent wikipedia-l recipe thread
and blend until smooth [in the fall]:

  http://itkitchen.info/2004/10/13/the-wikipedia-for-weblogging/

+sj+


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Kate Turner

subject: [Wikitech-l] Who enabled $wgDebugLogFile on enwiki?

body:
Because you just broke the entire wiki for about an hour without documenting
it anywhere.  Can we please not do this in future?

Thanks,
Kate.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:32:28 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Stating exactly how the dish is done is overfeeding with too-specific
> > information. Should Wikipedia be deciding how long people boil their
> > eggs?
>
> Wikip?dia 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.

I don't. Some think it's this long, and others think it's that long.
It's not to Wikipedia to make that decision.

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

I think this description is quite good, the only thing I would leave
out is the amounts of the various substances. Do people really use
seven pounds? Not six or nine?

> 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.

No, by reading the description you get the idea. Recepies are not
descriptions. They're prescriptions. It's exactly what I have against
recepies. They do not "give the idea". They are stating exact things.
Much more exact than they should.

> 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 ?

Do I? I don't. At least I don't know how long *you* boil your eggs, I
have a good estimate how long *I* do it. But the difference is that I
don't want to write *my* preferences down as *the* way of boiling
eggs.

> ...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" ?

No. Like having an article describing all kinds of dogs, and a picture
of one specific dog.

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

And I don't think Wikipedia should write a general article and add one
"pov" in it. I really do not.

> > 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.

Yes, we could. But I don't see how that improves things. It's not what
Wikipedia is for.

> > 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 :-(

Yes, that's one thing I fear. Another thing that I fear is that it
gives the information it does have in bad ways. Another thing that I
fear is that it shows just one possibility as the general truth.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipes

body:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:37:35 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:

> A well-written recipe is, in my opinion, a very valuable part of a food
> article. When that is said, it is of course essential from a lexicographic
> point of view that:
>
> 1) It is clear that the recipe is a description rather than proscription.
> 2) The provided recipe/s is/are reasonably representative for the tradition
> in question.
> 3) Common variations are listed in the recipe/s.
> 4) It is made clear what the general source for the provided recipe is.
>
> Also, some recipes are very loosely defined, whilst others are by nature
> extremely fine-tuned. The provided examples (recipes)  will, if properly
> written, help make this clear.

And this is where I see the problem. It is my opinion that *almost
all* recepies should be loosely defined on Wikipedia. And a real
recepy is *almost always* extremely fine-tuned.

> >Wikipedia should describe what the world is, what things are. Not be
> >prescriptive in what one should be doing. The article on food products
> >should specify what's in them and how they are made, but a recipe is not a
> >good way to do so. Just like the table article does not specify which
> >length the legs of a table should be,
>
> I beg to differ: It is essential information to mention the difference in
> leg length of a diningroom table as opposed to a sofa table.

I'd say we mention the table heights rather than the leg lengths, but
the more important part is how we tell that. "A kitchen table has a
height such that it reaches approximately an adult's middle (ca. 80
cm)" (don't quote me on the exact number). Not: "If you want to make a
kitchen table, start by getting four pieces of wood of 69x4x4 cm
each."

> >the arancini article should not specify what filling should be in or how
> >long it should be fried.
>
> Maybe not. But that depends on what arancini-like foods one needs to
> distinguish arancini from in a contrastive perspective. It also depends on
> what the actual cultural criteria are for how much variation there can be
> in the preparation before the result is no longer considered to be
> arancini. (Which is not to say that the resulting non-arancini need to be
> inferior in any way. They just happen to be something-else-than-arancini.)

I agree totally. But the piece I reacted to had said itself already
that there is a wide range in fillings. Which means we should specify
the range rather than choose 1 or 2 or 10 from it and give those in
details.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
Andre Engels a ?crit:
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:32:28 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>Stating exactly how the dish is done is overfeeding with too-specific
>>>information. Should Wikipedia be deciding how long people boil their
>>>eggs?
>>
>>Wikip?dia 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.
>
>
> I don't. Some think it's this long, and others think it's that long.
> It's not to Wikipedia to make that decision.

Well, I am sorry, but I just do not think we will be able to reach a
consensus here. None of your arguments are convincing me :-(

However, there is one point which retains my attention in what you write
above.

You said "Should Wikipedia be deciding how long people boil their eggs?"

To which I answered "Wikipedia is not deciding for people but only
describing".

To which you said "It's not to Wikipedia to make that decision"

Possibly you are right here, and possibly only what people are willing
to see in an encyclopedia will matter in the long term.
Only what people come to see and are looking for and are happy to see
will matter. We should not decide for them, but let them the opportunity
to create the encyclopedia they wish to have.

I suspect this means we should create the largest encyclopedia, and
possibly, it is for people to decide that in the encyclopedia, they do
not wish to see or even to see mentionned all the articles which belongs
for example to
* recipes
* how-tos
* high-schools
* little cities
* mangas
* sex and violence

etc...

Perhaps will it be an encyclopedia where you decide which type of
information you want to see ?

The reader will decide then. Not us.
Right now, if he is not interested, he can avoid following links.

But if we remove the information OURSELVES, then it is Wikipedia which
decides what people should see or not see.

Imho.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: exposé par un enfant

body:
Daniel Mayer a ?crit:
> --- Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Best that I get from this text is that you want to
>>create an encyclopedia in which kids can submit their
>>own works, yes?
>>
>>Or is it just an encyclopedia for kids?
>
>
> My understating was that it would just be a set of Wikibooks. Starting a new
> Wikimedia project requires a lot of discussion, a Wikimedia-wide vote, and
> board approval.
>
> -- mav

some french over, some english below

hmmm

En pratique, cela ressemble plus ? la proposition Wikikids qu'? Wikijunior.

Wikijunior est un wikibook (mais pourrait en effet parfaitement ?tre un
site wiki) destin? aux juniors.
Il est ?crit par des adultes, pour un public d'enfant ou d'adolescent.
Il devient une source d'information pour l'enfant, mais l'enfant garde
une attitude passive de lecteur.

Wikikids est une proposition de projet Wikimedia, visant ? faire une
encyclop?die pour les jeunes, mais aussi par les jeunes (de 8 ? 16 ans).
Les auteurs sont aussi les enfants.
Mon exp?rience se rapproche plut?t de Wikikids.

Renseignements pris, mon fils doit faire un expos? de 10-15 mn sur un
th?me (en l'occurence le Sahara alg?rien), et s'aider dans son expos?
d'un support, en particulier visuel (photos, cartes, objets ...) pour ne
pas anonner un texte tap? sur une feuille. En gros, il doit faire un poster.

Nous avons donc d?cid? de diviser son expos? en 4-5 parties (? priori,
"g?n?ralit?s", "les plantes", "les animaux", "les habitants du d?sert"
et "?conomie" - dans lequel nous parlerons du nomadisme/?levage et du
tourisme.

J'imprimerais les textes r?sultants et les photos/cartes de fa?on ? ce
qu'il les colle sur son poster. L'expos? restera sur Wikip?dia m?me.

Je note les ?tapes au fur et ? mesure sur sa page utilisateur
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:William
(Je ne suis pas ? jour)

L'exp?rience est int?ressante car son age repr?sente probablement le
minimum pour participer ? une telle aventure. C'est un gamin calme et
minutieux (et bien s?r, super intelligent, beau, gentil, calin, bref...).

Le principal facteur limitant que je per?oive actuellement est sa
lenteur ? taper sur le clavier. Au point que j'ai avant hier tap? sous
sa dict?e (avec ses fautes).

Nous discutons du contenu avant, puis il cr?e une phrase. Je peux me
tromper, mais je ne pense pas que l'?dition par un enfant de cet age
puisse se faire sans un accompagnement permanent par un adulte. Il est
actuellement en classe de CM1 (donc avec des enfants de 9 ans plut?t que
8 puisqu'il n'a pas fait le CE2), et le maximum que j'ai pu voir
demander jusqu'? pr?sent par la maitresse en terme de r?daction
personnelle libre ?tait de l'ordre d'un paragraphe de 5-10 lignes
environ. Dans cet esprit, le minimum de 8 ans pour un wikikids rend la
pr?sence d'un ?ducateur obligatoire.

------------

Zaninum, I started a sort of experiment with my son (I stopped doing the
wikipediholic test when I got steward... it was not in the questions...
it got even worse when I got board member... no points for this, now I
guess that no one has put in wikipediholic test the idea of having own
kids do their homework on Wikipedia...).

As I previously said, I spent my holidays in the Sahara desert with my
kids. Well, we were a group of 25 with 8 kids between 3 to 13.
Kids adapt quite well to a life with no chair to sit on, no water to
bath with, no bed to sleep in and no other toys than a couple of
pencils, some bits of wool and kites.

Back at home, I learned my son had to do a report in school on a topic,
talking during 10-15 mn, with support of text, pictures, maps, objects
etc... The text having to be typed. Of course, he decided to do it on
the Sahara.
Since typing happens on a computer, since most pictures will be on
Wikipedia anyway, and since we will use Wikipedia as a resource to help
us with a couple of details, and since I have trouble having time with
my son in real life, I suggested to him that we do it on Wikipedia, in a
page under his personal user space. I asked fr: editors and they give
agreement to this crazy idea. So, we are currently trying to do this
little by little. Ultimately, I will print the text and pictures and he
will put them on a poster at school, then I think we will wikilink the
report on Wikipedia.

I have not told the teacher yet. I have no idea what her reaction will
be. Perhaps thinking I am mad :-)
Last year, we did such a report after we went to Lapland, but we did it
on paper. And it circulated in many classes after the headmistress heard
about it.
So I am quite optimistic, my son is bright and patient and he is in a
rather unusual school which is quite open to unusual educational ideas.
I know the previous school my son went to, a public school in a rather
disturbed area would have thought me mad. However, this school is at the
same time an international school, with about 1/3 of the kids not being
french and sometimes not even speaking french at all (which implies a
bit of jungling for the teachers)  and the school taking care of some of
the gifted kids in the region (which also implies adapting educational
system quite a bit). Overall, I am interested as much as in my son
reaction than in the school reaction. Note that I do not think the
school has internet access in classes.

As I wrote in french, I noticed that free reports by the kids of 9 were
usually about 5-10 sentences long. So, this article, as short as it will
be, will still be amazingly long compared to what they usually do by
themselves. Note that it also mean a kid of 8-9 can only approach Wiki
editing with strong adult support.

So, no, I do not do an encyclopedia. Just a test. And doing something
with my baby boy as well ;-)

-------

Currently, Wikipedia is too slow for this idea anyway :-(


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: exposé par un enfant


from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
ok - I admit it - I got a little bit too excited, my language got a little bit flowery, I may have exaggerated somewhat, and maybe I was a wee bit over the top to boot.  I gave the POV inspectors plenty of grist for the mill. All this is true.

But when I said "a microwave just doesn't cut it" - was that truly POV? Especially in the context of traditional cuisines?

If so - I would like to apologise to all microwaves, and microwave enthusiasts - for my penance, I am going to order an upsized, mega combo heap of mush.  Not that there's anything wrong with that :-)

pippu d'angelo

---------------------------------
Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger E' molto pi? divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica
 Scaricalo ora!


from_name: Reuven R.

subject: [Foundation-l] a weird one, i guess, but...

body:
heyo...

a general idea - what if there was a patent-wiki? to
write down softwere(mostly) patents which u want to
keep availible to the public - providing proof of
their existance before any other registration attempt?
and serving as a lisintg of availible methods and
such...

this could be an idea for the preservation(or
something?) wiki which suggested writting down how
things work before the end of the civilization as we
know it.. ;p

reuven r.

=====
http://www.mia.org.il/petition/index1.html
http://hungersite.com

in case, ur wondering, about the first link -
http://www.terror-victims.israel.net/mainh.swf

and who'd thought that we'll need http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23/ ,eh?

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Thank you for posting this. It nicely addresses the case of references being
used which when you check them out, turn out to not actually support the
information which they supposedly support. The advancement of references to
support information implies that when the supposed reference is consulted
you will find (and not by exhaustive search) information which backs up the
information inserted in Wikipedia; not a confused and ambiguous situation.

As we offer no alternatives to you other than giving up or breaking
Wikipedia rules yourself, the problem must be solved using our dispute
resolution procudure. Your request for comment is a good start, as is
continued discussion with Jayjg. If those actions do not result in
agreement, you may try mediation. If mediation fails after a good faith
effort (or if it is refused or not engaged in with good faith) you can then
request arbitration (hopefully the mediation committee itself will do that
in such cases).

Jayjg has been the "victor" in a recent arbitration since the other party
aggressively broke most Wikipedia policies. However it has long been
observed that there are problems with bias in the articles which concern the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will not support anti-Semitism masquerading
as "balance" but I will welcome responsible insistance on our Neutral Point
of View policy. Hopefully the rest of the Arbitration Committee is of the
same mind.

Fred

> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:10:41 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Situation deadlocked, how to solve it?
>
> Hello, everybody! I like to draw your attention to the page "Estimates
> of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948"
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1
> 948).
> The page lists estimates of how many Palestinian refugees where
> created in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. There are quite a few different
> estimates out there, all diverging from each other. Therefore, and
> because Jayjg insisted on inserting the number 472,000 in the article
> History of Israel
> (Ihttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Israel&diff=6566071&old
> id=6554019),
> I felt that a separate page was necessary.
>
> Recently, that page has suffered a violent revert war, in which me,
> Jayjg and Viriditas was the combatants. The issue is over the
> following text:
>
> 472,000 According to the "Progress Report of the United Nations
> Mediator on Palestine", as cited by Mitchell Bard on the Jewish
> Virtual Library. [1]
>
> [1] links to this page:
> http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf14.html#2
>
> Jayjg insists on retaining that source, while I want it removed. Yes,
> it is true that Mitchell Bard claims he is getting the estimate
> 472,000 Palestinian refugees from the UN document "Progress Report of
> the United Nations Mediator on Palestine," but a large part of that
> document is availible online, from UN:s own site:
>
> http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa?OpenDocume
> nt
> That document does not mention any estimate of the total number of
> refugees. However, this page:
>
> http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/decade/decad170.htm
>
> Contains some more bits of "Progress Report of the United Nations
> Mediator on Palestine" which mention the number "360,000 Arab refugees
> and 7,000 Jewish refugees requiring aid in that country and adjacent
> States." Because of this information and the fact that the number
> 472,000 Palestinian refugees cannot be traced to any other source, I
> doubt that the UN Mediator ever wrote it. I've also had an e-mail
> conversation with Mitchell Bard and he has so far refused to quote the
> full line(s) from where his number 472,000 comes from. To me, that and
> the fact that he is an editor of a strongly pro-Israel site
> (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org), does make his claim less believable.
>
> That is the reason I didn't want the page Estimates of the Palestinian
> Refugee flight of 1948, to tell the reader that the UN Mediator (Count
> Folke Bernadotte) wrote 472,000. Because currently there is no
> evidence for that, other than that Mitchell Bard has written it.
> Therefore, I wanted the text to read as follows:
>
> 472,000 According to Mitchell Bard on the Jewish Virtual Library. [1]
>
> But if someone can provide a more definite source than Mitchell Bard,
> the situation changes.
>
> The other reason that the number 472,000 should not be attributed to
> the UN Mediator's report is that it was written before September 16,
> 1948, many months before the conflict ended. Israel's operations in
> the Galilee hadn't even begun! It is estimated that in that operation
> 1-200,000 Arabs were driven from their homes.
>
> How can you make an estimate of something that hasn't occured yet?!
> ...
>
> This I have told Jayjg many times
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Palestine-info/Ignoring_the_datum),
> and after many days of exhausting discussion, he has changed his
> paragraph a little:
>
> 472,000 by September 16, 1948 according to the "Progress Report of
> the United Nations Mediator on Palestine", as cited by Mitchell Bard
> on the Jewish Virtual Library. [1]
>
> But that is still far from factual. What Mitchell Bard really claimed
> can be seen when visiting his article:
>
> "This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become
> refugees. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine arrived at an even
> lower figure -- 472,000"
>
> This claim is made in a paragraph in which he is discussing how many
> "Palestinians became refugees in 1947-1949." There is no mention of
> the fact that the report was published September 16. If you read the
> paragraph it becomes clear that what he is trying to do is to lure the
> reader to believe that the UN Mediator estimated that 472,000
> Palestinians became refugees due to the war. Therefore, the new
> version that Jayjg tried with is also bad - noone but people
> knowledgeable about Israeli-Palestinian history knows that a large
> number (hundreds of thousands) of Palestinian refugees was created
> after September 1948. They will be fooled.
>
> And also, Mitchell Bard did definitely not claim that the UN Mediator
> counted 472,000 Palestinian refugees by September 16, 1948.
>
> To solve this dispute, I tried with a footnote:
>
> 1: Mitchell Bard alleges that the UN official record "Progress Report
> of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine" estimates that the number
> of refugees was 472,000. The progress report was published on
> September 16, 1948, ten months before the hostilities and the refugee
> flight ended. Large parts of the report is availible here
> (http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa?OpenDocum
> ent).
> It is estaminated that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left in
> the months after September, 1948. The number 472,000 should therefore
> not be seen as an estimate of the total number of refugees, rather as
> an estimate on how many Palestinian refugees there were in September
> 1948.
>
> This compromise was not acceptable to Jayjg who has continued to
> revert. So now I'm at loss of what to do. I've posted a Request for
> Comments but it hasn't helped very much. One editor said that my
> attention was an attempt to skew the article to a particular POV.
> Another said the number might be comparing apples to oranges.
>
> This mail is long, probably too long for people to read. The issue
> isn't very important and there are many much worse instances of POV in
> Wikipedia than this one. But that is why it is so astonishing to me
> that it has taken so much time to try and correct one minor POV
> detail. I've tried to discuss for over three months now with Jayjg,
> but it just doesn't seem to work. His editing behaviour is very
> hostile - if something is even slightly POV according to his
> perception he will always revert instead of trying to fix it or
> working out a compromise. I've written for Wikipedia for over four
> years but I've never encountered an editor quite like him.
>
> I don't know what to do. Do you?
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: DIG

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Well done everyone - Wikipedia cluster vs. Google
	supercluster

references:
<loom.20050119T230716-645@post.gmane.org>
	<csnmmr$qbf$1@sea.gmane.org> <41EF65E3.7030202@myrealbox.com>
	<csnu6f$e73$1@sea.gmane.org> <41EF98DB.90202@tonal.clara.co.uk>

body:
On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 05:41:15PM +0000, Neil Harris wrote:

[...]
> Thus, we might regard Wikipedia as being roughly 24 to 48 times more
> "efficient" in its use of hardware than Google.

No, we can't.  It would be so for a linear system.  Which is not the case.

[...]
> So, a reasonable answer to critics seems to be:
> * the developers are already doing very well indeed coping with the
> combination of extremely high demand and very limited resources

True.

> * they already know there are big growth and capacity problems, and are
> working hard on scalability and reliability

True.

> * send money, rather than complaining

Always.

P.S. Would it be possible to restart wprc10 (recent changes bot for #ru.wikipedia)?  It is down for quite some time now.

--
DIG                        http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DIG
1024D/63A6C649: 26A0 E4D5 AB3F C2D4 0112  66CD 4343 C0AF 63A6 C649


from_name: Joel Franusic

subject: [Wikitech-l] Proxy scanning: a suggestion

body:
> I've noticed increasing levels of vandalism via anonymizing proxies. We
> turned off the automatic proxy-scanning some time ago because of
> complaints by the clue-deficient who saw this as potential attacks.

The Tor anonymous network (http://tor.eff.org) keeps a list of known
"exit nodes":
http://www.noreply.org/tor-running-routers/

--Joel


from_name: Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
MS> Sorry, playing the ignorant American for a bit there. But this just
MS> illustrates how woefully undercovered cooking topics are, along with
MS> almost all other traditionally "domestic" subjects, which is partly why
MS> we're having this whole debate over recipes for the nth time now. If we
MS> had decent encyclopedia articles about these things, which is almost
MS> never the case, then it would be less of an issue. I think a lot of the
MS> visceral objection to recipes is based on the fact that they frequently
MS> overwhelm the remaining content of the article, especially if the
MS> instructions are given in significant detail.
MS> --Michael Snow

Well, I wouldn't have anything against recipes in Wikipedia - except
that we have Wikibooks now, which is far more suited for that kind of
information.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:

>MS> Sorry, playing the ignorant American for a bit there. But this just
>MS> illustrates how woefully undercovered cooking topics are, along with
>MS> almost all other traditionally "domestic" subjects, which is partly why
>MS> we're having this whole debate over recipes for the nth time now. If we
>MS> had decent encyclopedia articles about these things, which is almost
>MS> never the case, then it would be less of an issue. I think a lot of the
>MS> visceral objection to recipes is based on the fact that they frequently
>MS> overwhelm the remaining content of the article, especially if the
>MS> instructions are given in significant detail.
>MS> --Michael Snow
>
>Well, I wouldn't have anything against recipes in Wikipedia - except
>that we have Wikibooks now, which is far more suited for that kind of
>information.
>
I am amazed about the amount of words that has been used on this
subject. To me a few things stand out.

*There are inclusionists and deletionists.
* Many arguments about why we should NOT have arguments do not cut it as
we have plenty of room. Hard disks are cheap nowadays.
*The importance of food is culturally indicated, therefore people who do
not get "it", are not likely to get "it", this makes the discussion
pointless.
*Spain has an excellent modus vivendi and I would really urge people to
adopt it so that we can move on. In essence no recipies on their own,
only in combination with a whole article.
*The idea that there is a consensus for deleting recipies has been
proven a fallacy, the only arguments to the contrary I can think of are
formalistic.Wiki is not much on formality.

The suggestion of using wikibooks has some merits except that we do not
have our interproject links yet. Without these we will get the old
quarrel of no outside references again. My personal opinion is that you
want at least one recipy that is typical for the dish. Variations can
then be in wikibooks.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
GM> The suggestion of using wikibooks has some merits except that we do not
GM> have our interproject links yet. Without these we will get the old
GM> quarrel of no outside references again. My personal opinion is that you
GM> want at least one recipy that is typical for the dish. Variations can
GM> then be in wikibooks.

Well, we have the interproject box templates for now...

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] original research, sources, and verification

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>>> Hmm, Historical revisionist seems a bit too easy.  How would you
>>> characterize that link I gave in the earlier e-mail, in way that
>>> warned people what kind of site it was, but the people running it
>>> could agree with?
>>
>> "The people running this website claim to reveal the truth about
>> everything".
>
> LOL!  Good answer!

Sarcasm is still POV pushing.

Ec


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

body:
That's a good summary of the details Daniel. I think the operative word
for 'Wikilabs' is "recognition."

Put is this way: the problem with starting, say, [[Wikibuilder]] off as
a Wikibook is one, for technical reasons, but two, because there is no
natural base of editors who are builders and architects, etc (compared
to programmers and scientists, etc.). To have [[Wikibuilder]] being
developed in its early stages under "Wikilabs" would allow for 'instant
recognition of potential,' whereas under Wikibooks the potential isn't
so obvious (especially to designers and builders who just happen across
the site). A "Wikilabs" [[Wikibuilder]] project is a very easy concept
to grasp and would be something a lot of people would be willing to get
their teeth into. A [[Wikibuilder]] under Wikibooks is a nice idea...
hope it does well, kinda thing.

Christiaan

P.S. As a draughtsperson, the potential of [[Wikibuilder]] is obvious
to me. I spend my entire day referring to books and more experienced
people for the things I design and draw. To be able to refer to an
entire world would be amazing. I can only imagine what people who
really _need_ such knowledge would do with it.

On 21 Jan 2005, at 5:24 am, Sj wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:38:31 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
> <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> --- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Why not have a standalone "wikilabs" project for new potential
>>> wikimedia projects?
>>
>> Because Wikimedia is not a free hosting service for just any wiki
>> idea and
>> Wikicities already exists to fill that role. Concentrating
>> development energy
>> into our existing projects and staying on mission are more important
>> than
>> budding-off new projects to the degree suggested,
>
> Why not have a standalone "wikilabs" project for new potential
> Wikimedia projects with recognised potential and good plans, which fit
> well into our mission of providing a free reference source?
>
> I see this as a way to reduce budding-off, not to increase it.  This
> would provide a place for the initial growth of new projects before
> deciding certain difficult issues such as 1) how they are licensed, 2)
> what standards they will use for naming, namespaces, and
> classification, 3) how they will be internationalised.  It would allow
> for more structured discussion of the goals and viability of new
> projects before they were stamped with a domain-level seal of
> approval.
>
> 0) Disclaimers about the alpha/beta nature of the projects could be
> explained once for the entire site.
> 1a) Wikilabs could be PD, containing only links to other CC/GFDL
> content that would be in the project proper, making transition to a
> different license easy.
> 1b) Discussions about how to license contributions, and how to comply
> explicitly with licenses or related content, would be important for
> each project.  Reaching consensus on these matters could be expected
> before a project forged off on its own (cf. Wikicommons, Wikispecies,
> Wikinews).  Legal scholars could visit this single site to weigh in on
> these related discussions; discussions about copyright would not die
> simply because those interested in a particular new project did not
> have the right expertise.
> 2) Discussion of standardization, how to comply with / interact with /
> reference existing standards, and citation, would also be important
> for each project.  Comparisons to existing reference works on related
> subjects, existing projects with similar goals, and existing
> classification methods, could likewise be expected before a project
> took on its own domain (cf. Wikispecies, Wikipeople*, Wikibuilder*).
> 3) Wikilabs could be like meta, multilingual on a single wiki, with
> unified discussion of which projects should be how multilingual when.
> Initial interest in a new project is often focused in one or two
> languages, and the first hundred people interested in the project are
> not necessarily interested in such decisions (cf. Wikisource,
> Wikispecies, 911-wiki)
>
>>> Wikilabs could also be a good initial test site for new software
>>> patches
>>> and upgrades, since everything on it will explicitly be in beta.
>>
>> That is what test.wikipedia.org and any number of other
>> MediaWiki-based sites
>> that the developers already use.
>
> ...but would soon be larger than any of these sites, and would
> certainly have a larger active body of regular users whose use might
> trigger sneaky new bugs.
>
>> could this be done within an existing Wikimedia project?
>
> I think it makes conceptual sense to have a separate wikilab for
> promising new projects, inasmuch as it makes conceptual sense to
> separate any of the Wikimedia projects from one another.  However, in
> the absence of a wikilab, Meta seems the best place to expand project
> drafts and start creating initial policy and content.
>
> --
> +sj+
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

body:
JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050121 08:46]:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>

> >The phrase "you should actively search for" does not imply that the less
> >autoritative ones should be excluded, only that better ones should be
> >included.  By adding a caveat to a dubious reference it forewarns the user
> >of a possible problem.  When that same reference is deleted from the
> >article the warning goes with it, and our poor user is left to Google and
> >flounder on his own.  He will probably find the site anyway, and have to
> >waste his own time determining that the site is pure trash.

> And what form should that "caveat" take?  "Warning, this site is run by
> kooks"?

There should be a way to do it that the proponents would  not reasonably
object to. For instance, [[Rudolf Hess]] contains an external link to the
[[Institute for Historical Review]] which notes that they are Holocaust
revisionists, which they do claim to be. And both the majority against such
revisionism and the minority for it know exactly what "Holocaust
revisionism" means; and anyone who doesn't can follow the link on
"revisionist".

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] recipes

body:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:27:51 -0500, ilooy <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com> wrote:

> But all these solutions aside, the first step
> would be to talk this out before anyone gets
> delete-finger happy. Watching out for abuse
> and misuse is entirely understandable, but
> deleting recipies without discussion and
> a call for solutions seems contrary to
> wikietiquette. At least in my point of view.

There's been lots of discussion and calls for solutions. We've had
this discussion years ago, and it comes up every now and again. What
we do not have is an outcome that everyone agrees with. The only
strength of your arguments is that it is how we always do things - the
person wanting to remove something is always wrong, the person wanting
to keep or add something never is. I am getting sick of that.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
Mark Williamson (node.ue at gmail.com) [050121 08:21]:

> There are many different encyclopedias. If I write "Encyclopedia of
> All the Molecules in Jimbo Wales' body, with a detailed biography and
> label for each", does that mean each article in there deserves a spot
> in Wikipedia? Heavens no.

Recipe encyclopedias are not equivalent to this hypothetical example. Do
you have any real examples?

- d.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
> Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>>
>> References and external links should include at least brief
>> caveats about quality of sources, just as one sees in good book
>> bibliographies.

Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to be
writing NPOV articles.
A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV.  A
caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently incorrect" is POV and
superfluous.  Otherwise rely on the general site content disclaimer and
the reader's commonsense.


body:
JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050121 10:26]:

> Hmm, Historical revisionist seems a bit too easy.  How would you
> characterize that link I gave in the earlier e-mail, in way that warned
> people what kind of site it was, but the people running it could agree with?

I must admit I'd probably explode on the talk page along the lines of "that
reference really is complete shit" and then expand from there ;-) My past
experience of this is links to Israel News Network (INN) on [[Current
events]] - despite the 'l33t-sounding name, it's a small-time and very
partisan news source, and in no way whatsoever comparable to CNN, BBC, NYT
or whatever as a source for the ten or so most important things that
happened in the world on that day. But try getting that across to its fans.
(This is when I got tagged a Palestine apologist, whatever Alberuni might
say about me.)

- d.


body:
Stan Shebs (shebs at apple.com) [050121 10:31]:
> JAY JG wrote:

> >Hmm, Historical revisionist seems a bit too easy.  How would you
> >characterize that link I gave in the earlier e-mail, in way that
> >warned people what kind of site it was, but the people running it
> >could agree with?

> "The people running this website claim to reveal the truth about
> everything".

*applause* *wild cheers*

- d.


body:
>
> But if you used a BNP pamphlet or website as a source of information on
> the British Labour Party, for example, you'd be using it as a
> secondary source.

We report facts and facts about opinions.  The BNP website is a primary
source for information about statements about the Labour party made by the
BNP.  It is not an adequate source for statements about the Labour Party.
Thus: "BNP's Nottingham organiser Ray Pootly claimed that the local Labour
council had been giving preferential treatment to asylum seekers seeking
housing in the area."  In this instance it would be good to cite an
article by Ray Pootly on the BNP site.  It's a factual statement about an
opinion expressed by Ray Pootly, who is stated as a matter of fact to be a
BNP organiser.  The cite supports both facts.
"Nottingham's Labour-dominated council gave precedence on the housing
queue to homeless people if they were asylum seekers" is a factual
statement that cannot be supported adequately by the cite.  You would have
to find a description produced by Nottingham council in which it described
its allocation of housing to applicants (you might also want to support
the statement that Nottingham Council is Labour-dominated) or else
attribute the opinion to a third party (Ray Pootly or whoever).


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: "See also" section heading

body:
Zoney, that's the function of Categories.

TBSDY

> Ah, but you see, that's exactly the kind of thing that would be nice
> to stop (in my opinion). If for example, [[Gilbert O'Sullivan]] is
> likely to be confused with [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] (and I'm not
> certain about that, but yes, there are other plausible examples), it
> should surely be treated as disambiguation, not lumped in with a list
> of *related* articles. "See also" is too much of a "catch all" title.
>
> Zoney
>


body:
JAY JG said:
>
>>There should be a way to do it that the proponents would  not
>>reasonably object to. For instance, [[Rudolf Hess]] contains an
>>external link to the [[Institute for Historical Review]] which notes
>>that they are Holocaust revisionists, which they do claim to be. And
>>both the majority against such revisionism and the minority for it know
>>exactly what "Holocaust
>>revisionism" means; and anyone who doesn't can follow the link on
>>"revisionist".
>
> Hmm, Historical revisionist seems a bit too easy.  How would you
> characterize that link I gave in the earlier e-mail, in way that warned
>  people what kind of site it was, but the people running it could agree
> with?

Describe a website run by the LaRouche organisation as "a website run by
the LaRouche organisation." Describe a website receiving money from, or
affiliated with, the LaRouche organisation as "a website partly funded by
the LaRouche orgaanisation", "a website wholly funded by the LaRouche
orgaanisation", or "a website affiliated with the LaRouche orgaanisation".
 Be prepared to prove your statements.


from_name: Miriam Perel

body:
Regarding Slim's problem w/LaRouche, and building on Steve
Rubenstein's comments about the lack of a mechanism to deal with
violations of content guidelines, perhaps we should have a new
category of special editors in addition to admins and bureaucrats and
arbitrators.  We could promote certain editors to "Expert" if they
have recognized expertise in a certain topic area, so that they could
arbitrate content disputes.


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] culture - recipes and other stuff

body:
So some of you say: a recipe is not part of culture and has nothing to
do with encyclopedias .... hmmmm ...

So maybe you can tell me what these links and sublinks have to do with
"culture"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_television_channels
many of them are private and therefore this could be considered
publicity - or not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_videos_played_on_MTV_Jams
this is 100% encyclopedic content as it seems - more "culture" than a
recipe ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Episode_lists
and this would be than a must for culture, right???

I could go ahead with lots and lots of categories/links that make up
wikipedia - if these articles are there someone is interested in it - if
recipes are there someone is interested in it - so who we are to decide
what is interesting for people and what not what they search on
wikipedia and what not? I just don't read what is not interesting for me
(and I maybe don't consider as encyclopedic content), but maybe you read
it as it is interesting for you (and consider it encyclopedic content).

Taking recipes outside wikipedia without having proper interwikilinks
makes no sense. If I remember well, links to wiktionary were deleted
from wikipedia as "not relevant" ... but links from wiktionary to
wikipedia were welcome (strange behavior ... against the spirit of all
collaborative projects).

So: or you create a proper structure with proper links for people who
are interested in recipes if you don't like the actual structure and
propose it or you let those work who are obviously interested in it.

Just deleting and saying: do wherever you'd like to do it, or saying
just "go there" without proposing on how to connect, but don't work here
is not an answer.

If you say a description of a dish is OK, but not the recipe then from
this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night
Lyrics should be taken to wikisource

There's no difference between the description of a song and the lyrics
and the description of a dish and the recipe. Now you say: but lyrics
are unique - this is not true - Silent Night in Italian has three
different versions of lyrics ... so three recipes for the same dish (music)

When I first saw the recipes on wikipedia some weeks ago searching for
Christmas stuff I liked it and passed the link to some cooking-groups
that were simply delighted. If someting is interesting for an
enyclopedia always depends on the people you ask so ask the right people
and you will have as many positive or negative answers as you need.

If you want to pass recipes to a section in wikibooks you need to
present a proposal on how to show this "clearly" as an interwiki-link
and not just below the article with "for further information please see"
... (that probably is then going to be deleted as someone starts to
think it is not relevant and the same discussion starts over again).

Instead of writing thousands of negative words please start to think
positive and create something out of this discussion. We are not here to
work one against the other but to work together.

Sorry, but I was thinking about so many words written here that could
have been used for articles, improvements etc. - or to create the
proposal of a structure.

Ciao, Sabine


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>But really, how many people would be interested in cataloguing
>molecules of an individual's body? I think it would be better done by
>nanotechnology of some sort, but it would be difficult to get very far
>because beyond the outermost layer, there is very little information
>you could get without some sort of invasive procedure (digestive
>system, perhaps, but this still excludes important organs). ;p
>
>
What goes on in the digestive system is constantly changing.  This
implies that in describing the "Encyclopaedia jimboensis" one must take
into account what he included in his last meal.  The project should
probably be based on a time after defecation.  This avoids having the
encyclopedia describe him as full of shit.

Ec


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
The main argument of those who would like to remove recipes from
Wikipedia is a recipe is just a POV of a given dish. I would like to
point 2 things:
- A picture is always the point of view of the photographer (= he can
choose what he wants to show and therefore, the feeling he wants to
transmit). Does that mean we must remove all pictures from Wikipedia in
the name of NPOV? I don't think so. Even if pictures are always POV,
they give as information as they are useful to understand a concept (ie.
Show picture of tsunami devastations is a good shortcut to explain its
power).
- I think there a two kind of recipes: 1) the personal way of cooking a
dish 2) the minimal requirement to make a given dish. The first kind of
information is, imho, non pertinent for an encyclopedia. The second is
essential! A "crepe" is not a crepe because it's making with flour, milk
and egg, but because those ingredients are present in a particular
proportion and because they are mixed in a particular way.

I would like to make a proposal for Wikipedia:

- A dish's article can contain one recipe (the minimal requirements to
make a dish what is it)
- Each ingredient is express in range of proportion (to be
representative of variations)
- Non essential information (like flavors, decoration, etc.) is
explained into the article's text (this must be a representative
variation, not a personal taste).
- Dish's recipe alone is a stub that must be enhanced.
- If it's obvious that there is no intention to improve the stub (recipe
alone), it can be proposed at VfD.

I think, the only case we can't found a consensus about proportion range
to make a given dish, imho, mean that two dishs sharing the same name
(for example Japanese Kuri are very far from Indian one).
What do you think about my proposal?

Aoineko


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:57:33 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> I like the Spanish solution a whole lot. Andre, Anthere, what do you think?

I 100% agree with that solution.  A recipe as an EXAMPLE in a complete
article about a dish is quite appropriate for an encyclopedia.
Well-known dishes are suitable subjects for an encyclopedia.  A recipe
for a dish I invented last Saturday is not a suitable subject for an
encyclopedia.

Arguments about recipes being necessarily POV do not, in my opinion,
disqualify them from being in an encyclopedia.  Our NPOV policy does
not mean we have to remove all non-neutral statements, but rather that
we have to be explicit about the source of them.

I don't think a recipe by itself is a sufficient encyclopedia article.
 If a surrounding article cannot be written about a recipe, it's
probably a good indicator that the subject isn't important enough to
document here ...

-Matt (User:Morven)


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:56:05 +0100, Sabine Cretella
<sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> So some of you say: a recipe is not part of culture and has nothing to
> do with encyclopedias .... hmmmm ...

I don't see anyone saying that.

> If you say a description of a dish is OK, but not the recipe then from
> this article
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night
> Lyrics should be taken to wikisource
>
> There's no difference between the description of a song and the lyrics
> and the description of a dish and the recipe. Now you say: but lyrics
> are unique - this is not true - Silent Night in Italian has three
> different versions of lyrics ... so three recipes for the same dish (music)

That's three. That's not a different one for everyone making it, often
several per person.

Andre Engels


body:
JAY JG said:
>
>
>>steven l. rubenstein said:
>> > repute of sources.  Our "official policy" of "cite sources" explains
>> > that  claims should come from reputable sources,
>> >
>>Tony Sidaway replied:
>>
>>You mean [[wikipedia:cite sources]] says this?  Where does it say that
>>sources should be reputable?
>
> The policy states "More than that, you should actively search for
> authoritative references to cite".  Authoritative, in my view, means
> reputable.
>
Not in mine.  We have have seen on this mailing numerous examples of
authoritative sources that are not reputable, and you're familiar with
them yourself.  For instance, the Jeremiah Duggan article contains the
following paragraph:

The LaRouche organization strongly denies any involvement in Duggan's
death. Lyndon LaRouche himself has issued a statement saying the Duggan
affair is a "hoax" constructed by supporters of the British prime
minister, [[Tony Blair]], and the U.S. Vice-President, [[Dick Cheney]]. It
is "such an obvious fabrication that no further comment is necessary,"
said LaRouche.
[http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/site_packages/3125symons.html]
Here a LaRouche site is quoted appropriately because it is authoritative
on the official position taken by Lyndon LaRouche on the Jeremiah Duggan
affair.  It also happens to be quite preposterous, which in my opinion is
even better.


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>>Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>
>>>References and external links should include at least brief
>>>caveats about quality of sources, just as one sees in good book
>>>bibliographies.
>>>
>
>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to be
>writing NPOV articles.
>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
>that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV.  A
>caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently incorrect" is POV and
>superfluous. [...]
>

Well duh. People who find themselves absolutely certain about the
truth or falsity of various claims should spend a little time in
classics, where it took centuries of work to clear out a millennium
of transcription errors by semi-literate monks, just to recover
documents where we don't know whether they were intended to be fact,
fiction, or historical novel, written within a culture that
disappeared before it could be described scientifically, and using
languages where we have to guess at the meanings of many of the
words, since the few surviving dictionaries are incomplete.

For example, every scholar of the subject agrees that the
"Augustan History" is full of errors, and should not be trusted.
Is that POV? Sure, but the "N" means "neutral", not "no", and it's
perfectly valid to say "low-quality source" when that is the
consensus of the experts. Saying that the "reader should use
common sense" in such a situation is not only a complete abdication
of our responsibility to uphold scholarly standards, but is an
insult to the workers who've spent their lives studying the
material in order to tell us which parts are the most believable.

Stan


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikimaps: autotracing

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> This GPL'd software might come in useful for converting raster maps to a
> vector format:
>
> http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/index.html
>
> -- Neil

That's cool! Exactly what I've been looking for :)

TBSDY


body:
JAY JG said:
>
>>What if I want to describe the British
>>National Party's official policy on asylum seekers?  Wouldn't the best
>>way to do that be to cite the official policy itself?  It isn't
>>produced by a reputable organisation, but it's pretty authoritative on
>>official published party policy.
>
> That's not the issue.  Citing the National Party on it's own policy is
> perfectly reasonable.  However, the real issues occur when people want
> to  cite webpages like this
> http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/fake_invasion.htm on the
>  George Bush article:  to prove that George Bush "first started selling
> drugs  to our children. The drug money was used to finance the deep
> underground  alien bases."

That site is clearly not authoritative on the activities of the younger
Bush.  It is, however, authoritative on the expressed opinions of the
anonymous kook who wrote that piece.


body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:56:05 +0100, Sabine Cretella
><sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
>
>>So some of you say: a recipe is not part of culture and has nothing to
>>do with encyclopedias .... hmmmm ...
>>
>>
>
>I don't see anyone saying that.
>
>
>
>>If you say a description of a dish is OK, but not the recipe then from
>>this article
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night
>>Lyrics should be taken to wikisource
>>
>>There's no difference between the description of a song and the lyrics
>>and the description of a dish and the recipe. Now you say: but lyrics
>>are unique - this is not true - Silent Night in Italian has three
>>different versions of lyrics ... so three recipes for the same dish (music)
>>
>>
>
>That's three. That's not a different one for everyone making it, often
>several per person.
>
>Andre Engels
>
Andre,
Expect a typical recipy, perhaps add a few significant varieties and
that is what you will find. I cannot foresee that everyone will want to
write how they want their eggs in the morning. As far as I am concerned,
I like mine with a kiss (to quote the song). :)
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
> Put is this way: the problem with starting, say, [[Wikibuilder]] off as
> a Wikibook is one, for technical reasons, but two, because there is no
> natural base of editors who are builders and architects, etc (compared
> to programmers and scientists, etc.). To have [[Wikibuilder]] being
> developed in its early stages under "Wikilabs" would allow for 'instant
> recognition of potential,' whereas under Wikibooks the potential isn't
> so obvious (especially to designers and builders who just happen across
> the site). A "Wikilabs" [[Wikibuilder]] project is a very easy concept
> to grasp and would be something a lot of people would be willing to get
> their teeth into. A [[Wikibuilder]] under Wikibooks is a nice idea...
> hope it does well, kinda thing.

Wikilabs isn't needed at all due to the existence of Wikicities. After being
hosted at Wikicities for some time we can then see if Wikibuilder is 1) a
viable idea and 2) if it is something that will fit with our mandate.

-- mav

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body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050121 21:31]:
>
>
>>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to be
>>writing NPOV articles.
>>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
>>that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV.  A
>>caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently incorrect" is POV and
>>superfluous.  Otherwise rely on the general site content disclaimer and
>>the reader's commonsense.
>>
>>
>Yes. I feel sufficient trepidation at separating external links into pro
>and con.
>
>
But in the first example the words "proven" and "in error" make POV
assertions.  Better: "Warning: this source relies on population
projections that have been severely questioned."

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] agenda promotion,
	was: Re: Original Research versus Point of View

body:
--- Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> I had much the same thought today. After all, we mark a number
> of articles with {{NPOV}} or {{disptued}}, so why not create
> a category for articles where the normal rules of behavior
> on Wikipedia are replaced with more stringent ones actively
> monitored to enforce compliance?

I think the developers are working on a delayed edit function that might be
useful  for controversial articles. BTW, there is already a {{controversial}}
tag for talk pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Controversial

Adding a category to that would be easy.

-- mav

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from_name: Neil Harris

body:
I've noticed increasing levels of vandalism via anonymizing proxies. We
turned off the automatic proxy-scanning some time ago because of
complaints by the clue-deficient who saw this as potential attacks.
However, it might be a good idea to do the following:

* whenever an admin _blocks_ a user, the IP they were editing from
should be automatically proxy-scanned, and blocked indefinitely if it is
an open proxy (_in addition to_ the username/IP block that would have
been applied)

By restricting proxy scans to proven vandals, this will reduce the rate
of proxy scans to a few dozen a day (from tens of thousands before), and
result in a proportionately trivial level of complaints which can safely
be auto-replied or ignored. It will also allow the reply to be very
clear: "we detected abuse from your user, verified that it was coming
from an unsecured proxy on your network, and took appropriate action".

99% of the code for this already exists, so it should be trivial to put
in place -- however, I'm aware that our heroic developers are somewhat
busy...

-- Neil