Actually, I am encouraging the Irish music crowd to start their own wiki ASAP, which I fully trust they'll do in the next few days. This is mainly but only only because current info about sessions is, frankly, not encyclopedic. By contrast, recipes are perfectly encyclopedic: they express "know how" about how to prepare food. Particularly if historical and cultural and other background is given, I think it's an excellent idea to include recipes here, because they (arguably) do fit the overall mission of creating a repository of human knowledge.
In this spirit, while I don't oppose the Wikipedia Cookbook idea, I think it would be better to link (also?) the recipes from the regional cuisine pages. See cooking. --Larry Sanger
Semi-rhetorical question: definitions of words dictate how to use those words. Definitions certainly have a place in the repository of human knowledge. Your opposition to definition entries without additional information is well established. Are we splitting hairs by allowing recipes without explanations of their cultural background but not definitions, under those same conditions? --KQ
That's a very interesting question! I'd explain this as follows: encyclopedias are repositories of empirical, or a posteriori, or synthetic (take your pick) knowledge. While many philosophers think there's no distinction to be drawn (I think they're just confused), I maintain that there is a fairly clear practical distinction to be drawn between knowledge of the latter sorts and merely semantic knowledge--about the meanings of words. With some exceptions (important jargon, e.g.), a repository of synthetic knowledge doesn't include definitions--that's what dictionaries are for.
Now, one might argue that since there are cookbooks, and these aren't encyclopedias, why include recipes in Wikipedia? It's because encyclopedias hitherto have underemphasized procedural knowledge, or knowledge "how to" (do things), which is certainly synthetic knowledge if any is. If we conscientiously strive to include such knowledge in our new encyclopedia, there is no good reason not to include recipes, codifying as they do how to prepare food. But I think it's actually very important, for our purposes, to include also information about the cultural, historical, etc., context of the dish.
Similarly, I hope we will eventually have many other "how to" articles: how to change a spark plug, how to clean a bathtub, how to plan a camping trip, and so forth. I'd like to reproduce, in a free encyclopedia format, all the information that can be found in various home improvement guides--cookbooks for the handyman. Maybe in the distant future, too, engineers' techniques will be added to the repository. Bearing all this in mind, it would be silly not to include recipes.
KQ, I see now that your point is that semantic knowledge could be construed as procedural. I would not classify it that way, though Wittgenstein and Kripke might disagree. :-) --LMS
I don't see how you can argue that semantic knowledge is not at least partly procedural, it is essential that we know how to use words, and the process of learning a language is largely composed of instruction about how to use words correctly. Some words in English have the same meaning, but different use, for an example from the Wikipedia religionist may mean the same thing as true believer'' but they have far different uses. Even those who subscribe to a hyper-realist position on the universals can agree with this, without giving up their claim that there is something more to words than mere procedural knowledge. --MRC
I imagine there is a way to argue that all knowledge is procedural--say, to know that Mt. Everest is the tallest peak on Earth is to know how to identify the tallest peak on Earth--but only at the price of rendering "procedural knowledge" a useless term. --LMS
I imagine you are correct, but since this is so far from anything I said I don't know what to do with it. The idea that part of learning a word is to learn the procedures for its use is not equivalent to a claim that all knowledge is procedural. (In reference to W's famous maxim, I think meaning is more than use, but certianly not less.) BTW Everest is the highest peak on earth, not the tallest. Other mountains are taller from base to summit, but they start out at lower altitudes. MRC
Also, imagine someone posts an article explaining the encryption scheme on DVDs, as well as what it was intended for, why people cracked it, and the legal results of its cracking; suppose someone also explains how to crack the scheme? It's been ruled that linking to or hosting the code is illegal in the U.S., but discussing it academically seems a first amendment right--what will wikipedia's stance on that be? Allow it? Disallow it without equally detailed reasons why one should never ever crack DVD encryption, even to exercise fair use of the product on a system running GNU/Linux? Do not discuss it at all for fear of the MPAA stepping in to crush us? Suppose someone wishes to post a detailed discussion of how to make nitroglycerine at home (a product that I suspect most people would never have a need for at home)? What would likely result from that posting: would it be left, removed completely, altered drastically....? I'm not arguing that wikipedia should or should not allow them; I'm just wondering what wikipedia's policy will be. --KQ
Proposed organizational change, because this page will quickly become unwieldy. First, link recipes under the appropriate cuisine page. Then link here also, but make this listing cross-cuisine (salads, beverages, desserts, etc.). That makes it easy to find the recipe from either angle. Comments? --Dmerrill
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