Cookbook talk:Table of Contents/Archive 3

index generation
The recipe index is kind of insane. It's a big page, and just getting bigger. Worse, it is unmaintainable. How can one tell if a recipe is missing? By looking, recipe by recipe, in that huge page. Probably a category would be better, but note that recipes really should appear under multiple names. I believe the term for this is a "permuted index". So a "Spicy Chicken" recipe would also appear as "Chicken, Spicy", etc. AlbertCahalan 03:24, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I was thinking about this but for slightly different reasons. Seems like uber-categorization is the "answer" though it's more difficult for newbies to maintain. So, for instance, we could have categories like so:
 * Category:Cookbook:Ingredient
 * Category:Cookbook:Technique
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Poultry
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Vegan
 * The cookbook seems like an ideal candidate for fairly strict categorization like this. Notice that I put the "Cookbook" namespace into the category -- I think this makes more sense if other wikibooks want to use the same categories (Category:Recipe, for example might be used in a technical setting like a HOWTO).
 * Of course, this requires tagging every recipe with the recipe category, but that seems like what we need to do to get an automatic index. Kellen 02:14, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we really should have an giant global index for people to browse. I just don't think we should be trying to maintain one by hand. I want to see automatic generation of:
 * Toasted Cheese Sandwich
 * Cheese Sandwich, Toasted
 * Sandwich, Toasted Cheese
 * Vegetable Stew and Dumplings
 * Stew and Dumplings, Vegetable
 * Dumplings, Vegetable Stew and
 * Mussels with Potatoes
 * Potatoes, Mussels with
 * AlbertCahalan 03:45, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed that we shouldn't try to maintain one by hand. Automatic permutation of titles like that would be helpful, but there would be some odd cases:
 * Grandma's Pumpkin Pie
 * Pumpkin Pie, Grandma's
 * Pie, Grandma's Pumpkin
 * Odd? No, that's perfect. It's what you need if you half-way remember the name of a recipe. It's also good if you just want to browse through all the pumpkin pie or pumpkin recipes, eliminating the need for lots of obscure categories like "pumpkin pie". AlbertCahalan 18:44, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
 * We are facing two problems:
 * Finding recipes by major ingredient (e.g. Chicken or Pumpkin)
 * Easily distinguishing content within a namespace (Recipes from Cooking Techniques, or Stews from Breads)
 * For (1), a custom tag which created an index based on the tagged "major" ingredients would be good (so we could have a Chicken section); for (2) I think the existing category tags are enough, we just have to be more strict and thorough with them, which means a set policy to which new users can be pointed.
 * Kellen 04:10, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The category problem is different. Indexing needs to be done automatically. For categories, we could use automatic suggestions. Imagine if it worked like autocompletion in a web browser URL entry area or in an email client "To:" area. Google has a beta of this for their site, letting you choose from common queries. See here (Wikipedia article), here (animated gif demo), and of course here (Google's beta). Tree-structured browsing, as is done on freshmeat.net for project categorization, could be somewhat helpful as well. Note that this all pretty much means that the categories need to be edited separately from the wiki text. AlbertCahalan 18:44, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * As a test, I created a couple of fake recipes:
 * Kellen:Fake Recipe 1
 * Kellen:Fake Recipe 2
 * Each of these is tagged with a namespace-enabled category, e.g. Category:Cookbook:Recipe
 * Unfortunately the automatic links to these categories don't work correctly, but if one goes to the page directly: Cookbook:Recipe Category page it seems to work. I'm not sure about how easy it is for us to ask for/get modifications to the wiki software to fix this, or to customize it to properly alphabetize things with respect to namespaces (i.e. not file everything under "Cookbook"), but seems to me that this could work. Kellen 04:50, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

categorization proposal
After looking at this a bit more, I think that categorizing all of our cookbook pages will be essential to indexing and browsing. I'd propose using a (fake-)namespace-enabled system, like so: This requires that: (2) means to have the correctly set the sort-order name; for "Chicken Salad", the link would be "Category:Cookbook:Recipe|Chicken Salad"
 * Category:Cookbook
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Breakfast
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Bread
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Diet:Gluten_Free
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Diet:Kosher
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Cuisine:African
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Cuisine:Caribbean
 * Category:Cookbook:Cooking_Technique
 * Category:Cookbook:Equipment
 * Category:Cookbook:Ingredient
 * 1) All existing pages in the cookbook be tagged with the approprite category (e.g. all recipes should minimally be in Category:Cookbook:Recipe)
 * 2) To be useful, all these category tags must be aliased properly

I realize that this is a very labor intensive process, but I believe it'll help readers immensely. The initial conversion of adding Category:Cookbook:Recipe to all pages linked from Cookbook:Recipes could be done with a bot.

More info about Categories is available On the mediawiki web site Kellen 20:19, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * We're seeing some rather serious problems with caching, and with the use of ":" in a category name. Until somebody fixes all the bugs, we should stay away from anything likely to trigger problems. Also, namespace problems have not been a problem with categories. It's better to keep things short and simple if we can. Before we start using lots of categories, we should have some sort of an autocompletion and suggestion mechanism in place. Otherwise, there's no way people will get something like Gluten_Free right on all the recipes. AlbertCahalan 20:28, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I see the caching problem, what's the problem with ":" in a category name?
 * I don't think I was clear on my reasoning: I wanted to categorize things like this because it would allow us to have an automatically generated index listing for each item. For example, my Cookbook:Cardamom_Bread recipe could be tagged with:
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Cuisine:Scandanavian
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Bread
 * Category:Cookbook:Recipe:Vegan
 * And if a user browses to the main Category:Cookbook:Recipe, they'll see it linked in the main listing. If they browse to the "Vegan" or "Bread" subcategory, they'll see it listed there, and if they browse to "Cusine" then to "Scandanavian", they'll see it listed there.
 * The main advantage of this is that it centralizes the categorization of a recipe. Right now, we add a recipe, then add it to up to the bread page, to the recipes page, to the vegan_cusine page, etc. Using categories, we can just edit the page for the recipe and add it to all these places at once.
 * I share your reservations about the software, but I tend to think that we'll eventually have to do this sort of categorization anyway.
 * Kellen 20:58, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Would anyone be opposed if I tagged all of the recipes from Cookbook:Recipes with the category Category:Cookbook:Recipe? Kellen 04:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I do, for several reasons. First, no other category is named like that. Conflicts have not been a problem. Second, that's a lot of edits. You'd better get near-unanimous agreement that this is right before proceeding. Third of all, will this get us a friendly index? It won't be permutated. Fourth, over on the Commons, people have been saying nasty things about the performance of categories and the effects they have on the wiki servers. Perhaps using a template might be wise. Sorry to be so down about the idea, but I'd rather we all think this through carefully before editing like mad. AlbertCahalan 11:36, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok.
 * I do think that a relatively friendly index will be created; true it won't be permuted, but it'll be something easier to maintain than the Cookbook:Recipes page.
 * Would you be equally opposed if I suggested just tagging recipes with Category:Recipe?
 * There are already a fair number of categorized pages (I think by Gentgeen) under Category:Recipes.
 * Can I get a link to the commons discussion? Seems like some of these things could/should be easily solved. Kellen 19:07, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems that Category:Recipes is meant to hold sub-categories, not recipes. You should either choose a different name, like Category:Recipe (no s) or Category:Index, or move the sub-categories out. Other than that I guess it is kind of a nice idea. I'd like to see a few other people (maybe Redlentil and Gentgeen) show enthusiastic support before you start though. The nice thing about the current setup is that the boilerplate overhead is small enough that I can easily type it all in from memory. Maybe you should do this as a   template at the top, in place of the  Cookbook  wikitext we put there now. That way we could add other stuff later, without having to go back and re-edit all the recipes. AlbertCahalan 02:43, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll wait for a few other users; I'd like Gentgeen's approval as well. Good idea on the templates. Kellen 04:58, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * The Commons discussion is here, where it is noted that "The category way takes hundreds to thousands of times the resources of the normal page view and prevents serving the page from Squid servers close to the viewer." and categories are called a "denial of service attack on the servers". AlbertCahalan 02:43, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * A lot of the discussion seemed to be about how category caching and optimizations haven't happened because we (wiki-X-ians) haven't forced the issue yet. Maybe we can start =) Kellen 04:58, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Kellen, thanks for inviting my comments but I'm pretty clueless about categories. I'm never entirely convinced of their value. As I understand Albert's view, excessive use of categories can cause server problems, particularly when they include colons. Is that right? If so, I think detailed categories as you earlier suggested, although very useful are impractical. Using a thick category like Category:Recipe is OK, but I can't see it would make anything any easier. This may be just my ignorance. As for templates, my cluelessness there is almost entirely complete. Sorry. Redlentil 17:32, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Work-around for non-updating category listings
You erase completly the category from the article and you save the page... then you link again the category with the new asigned word after the | sign.

Solution from mediawiki bugzilla:

I have just noticed that someone on en.wikipedia started to remove categories from articles with one edit only to revert the change with the next edit. That seems to be the current work-around for this bug. Needless to say, I agree that fixing it is a rather high priority.

A bug has been filed here


 * Yes, I noticed that and did that on a couple of my categories and test pages. Thanks for encoding it here though! Kellen 22:15, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey, glad you filed a bug, looks like it's already been fixed by Brion_VIBBER Yay for him! Kellen 22:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

cool feature examples
Recipe scaling exists. You type in how many servings you want, and the recipe is scaled. Unless the info is in a cookie, this and this should be fine examples of how it works. Just change the number of servings.

Also, look at this category page. It shows ratings and has links to reviews. Anybody can post a review. I don't think people have to understand wikitext markup. :-/

Better than simple ratings would be ones like those used by a music recommendation service, where a recipe is ranked by how it pleases people who rate recipes similarly to yourself. (and by how it displeases people opposite to yourself) The same software feature used to ensure a heavy-metal fan doesn't get suggested country and western should work to make sure that I never get suggested to eat habaneros on tofu. (and I know, some of you are thinking "Yum!")

AlbertCahalan 12:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Neat! The scaling is nice (and relatively easy). What I like is the conversions between US and metric -- they must have some DB of the weight per tablespoon/cup/whatever of various ingredients. Kellen 19:14, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

move featured recipe template
I'd like to move to  and use  for a main navigational template (Cookbook, Recipe Index) and category inclusion (into Category:Recipe). I will do the migrations. Objections? Kellen 05:41, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Good idea. There's an one too, probably deserving the same treatment. The other major article classes are tools (pot, stove, fork), techniques (boiling, pickling, chopping), and geographic cuisines (Russian, Spanish, Mexican). I suppose the rest (oven temperatures, vegan stuff, contributers) go in "misc". AlbertCahalan 15:03, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I moved the featured ingredient and recipe to Template:Featured recipe and Template:Featured ingredient respectively. The second word is lowercase so that if you do it still works (since it's common to lowercase the template names).Kellen 19:12, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I made the template. I tried including a Category:Recipe in it, but that leads to a weird sort order that doesn't please me too much. See Cookbook:Cardamom_Bread for an example. Kellen 05:55, 27 May 2005 (UTC)


 * A pipe rename in the category tag (Is that what it's called?) would keep things from always sorting under "R". If the article name was used, as is done for the template on Wikipedia, we'd get everything sorted under "C". That's no improvement. Supplying the recipe name as a parameter would work, but usage is not as nice. Renaming a recipe would require an edit. AlbertCahalan 18:36, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh neat, a macro. That's fun! It at least gets everything in alphabetical order in the right spot (not renamed to "Recipe"). I wonder if there's any other macros like that that'll strip out the namespace prefix. Kellen 01:25, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Well according to if "Cookbook" were a proper namespace, we'd be able to use  to get the name we wanted, alternatively a variable to strip off all preceding false namespaces would also work. Kellen 01:45, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I posted a request about this on Help_talk:Variable, and I will file a bug when I get a password for bugzilla. I also noticed this bug report which would clear up the problem for us at least, though I think this will become a more general need in the future (for instance if we introduced further false namespaces under a true Cookbook namespace, e.g. for a page "Cookbook:Recipe:Cardamom_Bread"). We could also (as you noted) use a piped variable to our template, but we'd have to update that when the name of a page changed. I might do that for the time being in any case. Kellen 07:41, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Bug report filed. Kellen 18:35, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * update: Response from mediawiki people is that we should just use real namespaces and the real variables and that they don't have capabilities for nested namespaces. We should be getting a real namespace soon, and the upgrades to the mediawiki software should make it easier to deal with namespaces in the future. Kellen 02:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

advertising
A while back I added a bunch of info about vegan ingredient substitutes, with specifics of brand names and links to their respective webpages User:The_bellman did some amount of purging of these with a NPOV complaint. I responded both on his user talk page and the Talk:Cookbook:Vegan_cuisine page, with no replies on either. I am going to reinstate these links for the reasons I have written in both places. If somebody can think of a better format, I am open to suggestions, but I think the info itself is useful. Kellen 02:50, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I have no problems with product recomendations. Our NPOV policy is much looser than our big sister's, and specifying specific brand name products is common for a cookbook. Gentgeen 21:08, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Agree that recommendation of specific brands - particularly for tricky things like vegan substitutions - is OK. A similar thing would perhaps apply to kitchen equipment, where someone might want to suggest that Acme Food Processors are a reputed product, etc. Redlentil 17:36, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Classic Recipes
I think that certain 'classic' classes of recipes should be dealt with differently. Take, for instance, Lasagna. Right now there is a - no doubt lovely - specific lasagna recipe. The problem is that these recipes are added on a sort of first come, first serve basis. There are a thousand different lasagna-recipes that could just as well take this place. I think it should be general practice to move these to a more specific name like "Ricotta Lasagna" and use the "Lasagna" page for a lasagna recipe that is as generic as possible, with not so much a recipe as a general description and notes and tips that apply to all lasagna's.

I think this would provide a way to transition smoothly between 'information pages' and recipes. For instance, the "Pasta" page gives information on pasta, with tips and notes, the "Lasagna" page does the same, but with more of a recipe structure on how lasagna's are basically made and some tips on ingredient combinations and finally the "Eggplant Lasagna" gives a specific lasgna recipe. For an example of what I mean, check the Risotto page.

I may be stating the blindingly obvious here, in which case I apologise. :) risk 17:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * You are correct. In wikipedia these are generally turned into disambiguation pages. In our case, of course, we're disambiguating between some relatively similar things, but I think that's OK. I say if you find something like this, move the old recipes and link them from your new disambiguation page. Also consider creating a "____ recipes" category for it if there's enough need, e.g. "Category:Lasagna recipes" Kellen 06:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)