Wikipes

January 24, 2005 12:03 PM

Wikipes proposes to be the modern cookbook in an online form and is made to be simple enough that even your grandma can put up her famous apple pie recipe. It uses Wiki technology and hopes to one day be the Wikipedia of global recipes.
posted by kartooner (16 comments total)

Only problem...What stops me from adding "1 cup Drano" to the Vegetarian French Bread Pizza wikipe? My conscience?
posted by poppo at 12:13 PM on January 24, 2005

This might answer your question; Why Wiki Works, although it's a legitimate concern. To my knowledge Wikipes and Wikipedia contain an archive of older revisions so as to give the ability to restore the original, unaltered and defaced version.

Plus, Drano just wouldn't add to the flavor (I don't think).
posted by kartooner at 12:29 PM on January 24, 2005

poppo, people are notified when a page is edited. Not only would your vandalism quickly be reverted (which takes less effort to remove than it took to add).. your account or IP number would be flaged as a vandal and after a certain number of times you get blocked (at worse), or just have a bad reputation in the community at best. It just doesnt pay.

kartooner, are you involved with this project? My understanding is the Wikipedia folks allready have a recipe archive and its allready quite large and growing daily. This one seems to be very limited (2 soup recipes). Nothing wrong with the idea, though.
posted by stbalbach at 12:42 PM on January 24, 2005

I'm not so sure the Wiki concept works with recipes. Defacing an entry is one thing, but if the site has one entry for, say, spaghetti sauce, the Wiki-way would be to alter that recipe as you see fit to make it more suited to your individual tastes instead of adding an entirely new recipe. But what I would want in a recipe database is many variations on spagahetti sauce to choose from, so why Wiki at all? Surely people aren't going to want their recipes tampered with.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:44 PM on January 24, 2005

Excellent point.
posted by digaman at 12:47 PM on January 24, 2005

Ugh. There's millions & millions & millions of recipes freely available on the web.

How would this be superior to, say Recipezaar, for example?

I don't see it adding much value.

Now cooking techniques, practices, tips, etc., that's where I can see a real value add. Sort of like what the folks at America's Test Kitchen are doing?
posted by Jos Bleau at 12:51 PM on January 24, 2005

A similar project.
posted by gwint at 12:51 PM on January 24, 2005

Why is there no category for 'Main meal' [or whatever the equivalent in Amerenglish is]? Has nobody yet submitted a main meal? Just when I need to find a good curry...
posted by dash_slot- at 12:52 PM on January 24, 2005

I'm not involved with this project but I support it and have added a few recipes of my own. Also, that's great Wikipedia has a recipe section but those pages are edited with such scrutiny I'm surprised it would even work. Looking at it just now it seems a bit confusing whereas Wikipes takes the "keep it simple" approach.

Besides, I suppose there is room enough for a few good ideas. :)

In response to your opinion John, the Wikipes people have added a comment area at the bottom of every recipe to allow for ingredient suggestions and what not. I can see where you're coming from though but I suppose it's not for everyone, especially those with reservations about their recipes being tampered with.

I think it's an interesting concept which I why I posted about it.
posted by kartooner at 12:54 PM on January 24, 2005

Surely people aren't going to want their recipes tampered with.

I think there's some value in having annotated recipes. While other participants might not changes recipes, they might want to add their experience in making the recipe or detail about certain ingredients or alternatives. I agree, though, that this isn't the most obvious wiki application. There's also the wikimedia cookbook at wikibooks.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:58 PM on January 24, 2005

I hope it takes off, I'm a big fan of the wiki concept and eating - so it's win-win for me.

However having looked over the site quickly I am not convinced that my Grandma could use it happily, which is a pity because she has a great apple pie recipe. The system, as with wikis in general, seems to depend on a certain confidence to experiment with technology that is likely to be missing in many of the group who might have recipes of their own to contribute. A little more wysiwyg and structured forms and a little less markup language might go some way to fixing that. I liked the quicktips next to the edit form a lot (saves remembering obscure markup, which I can but my Grandma won't), more thought in that direction could go a long way.

On preview: Dash_slot, in Amerenglish entree is the term for the main course. I live over here and it still doesn't quite make sense to me, seems like some mixed up etymology to me (from the French for entrance to the American English for main course, not starter, in one easy step).
posted by pasd at 1:06 PM on January 24, 2005

dash_slot: I think you want the "entrees" category.

I wouldn't bother though. There isn't yet 20 recipes on the site, and no curry. There are tons of recipe sites out there, and I just don't see the point of allowing people to mess with my family's spaghetti sauce recipe, or, say, remove anchovies from a caesar salad recipe, etc.

On the ease of use aspect, maybe, but then my mother still hasn't gotten around to inputting her recipes in the really easy to use program I installed for them. It's forever doomed to being preserved on index cards (which I better inherit). I don't think the thought of anyone being able to modify her recipes as they see fit would be attractive to her, or the maintenance work associated with it (oh, somebody changed my recipe again, better revert the changes).

Kartooner, are you sure you're not involved with the project?
posted by splice at 1:07 PM on January 24, 2005

But what I would want in a recipe database is many variations on spagahetti sauce to choose from, so why Wiki at all?

My first thought was "great idea!" but my second was the above. Not sure I see the point.
posted by rushmc at 1:13 PM on January 24, 2005

Splice: I created the logo for Matt as his request. As for any involvement with the development and maintenance of the site, I'm sorry but you can't dig that up on me if that's what you're trying to do.

Rather, I thought my friend's idea was a unique one and figured it would be worth mentioning.
posted by kartooner at 1:19 PM on January 24, 2005

Ah, ok, thanks folks. That's explained a lot, actually.
posted by dash_slot- at 1:27 PM on January 24, 2005

Thanks for the education...Not that I would add "1 cup Drano", but people who are not as smart or good-looking as myself definitely might
posted by poppo at 1:29 PM on January 24, 2005