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This is an example of people trying to use technology to fix a social problem. I don't know who is editing or curating these recipes. Taste is subjective. At

This is an example of people trying to use technology to fix a social problem. I don't know who is editing or curating these recipes. Taste is subjective. At least with Wikipedia, I can point X sources and back my claims up. On here, I could just add random family ad-hoc recipes and no one can really debate them. Which leads to: Mac n' Cheese 1. Mac n' Cheese 2. Traditional cookbooks solve a problem: people may not know any recipes (or want to learn new ones) and want a curated collection from a chef that knows what they're talking about. Not random people online. Sure, books aren't guaranteed to be quality, but they're far less likely to be junk than random websites. They're even better if you only go by word of mouth- ask your parents/grandparents what they used! This wikicookbook idea doesn't solve any problems because it's no better than randomly searching "how to make tres leches cake" and picking some web page that had good enough SEO to get to the first page of duckduckgo. --- Things people actually want and/or need: * a website that matches (curated) recipes based on your ingredients. i.e. I can input "chicken bouillon, kale", and have it show me various recipes. * a standardized schema for recipes, i.e. in json. This way we can programmatically build apps, share recipes with friends, and maybe have browser/site integration. * a digital, open source collection of recipes only from chefs/etc with credentials. aka a curated collection. * a website that parses said recipes and can display multiple types of units depending on your preferences. * a website/app that lets you bookmark recipes and automatically parses them with said schema. and lets you categorize/tag recipes so you can filter by "favorites" or "want to try", etc. Bonus points if your app can interface with Apple's Homepod / Alexa, etc, so I can confirm a recipe while I'm cooking or washing dishes. This is the biggest let-down by far for the homepod.

gabcoh 7y ago
Regarding a standardized schema for recipes: https://schema.org/Recipe https://schema.org/Recipe I have no idea if this is in use anywhere or if any actual recipe service exposes this information, but there it is.
kleer001 7y ago
Heh, reminds me of this garbage: https://www.vintag.es/2018/11/honeywell-kitchen-computer.html https://www.vintag.es/2018/11/honeywell-kitchen-computer.htm... "It was advertised as a machine for storing recipes and helping housewives in their daily domestic tasks. However, reading and introducing a recipe was a difficult if not impossible task as the computer had no display and no keyboard. It required a two-week course in order to learn how to use the machine."
themodelplumber 7y ago
You can solve a lot of social problems with software though. For example, simply extending an existing interface to one that assists users in matching their subjective taste to others' subjective taste. Goodreads was well known for this. (Edit: I see the cookbook already has at least one subjective-qualitative enhancement in the form of the Featured Recipes list) Also we can be pretty critical here on HN but I see no reason why Wikibooks must be judged without reference to its potential--not only is it already helpful to some, for various reasons all along the long tail, but perhaps it's just a few tweaks away from even greater functionality. Critiques too often impart the idea that the current experience is lacking _and therefore_ needs complete replacement by e.g. "a website that..." when the existing efforts at least show potential in terms of humans being willing to work together productively toward building a generous resource. That's really something.
- andrewzah 7y ago
  In this particular case, the resource has been around since 2004, and is part of the wikimedia network. So I highly doubt any of the wants I mentioned will get implemented if it hasn't already. A new website/app doesn't have to deal with old stuff so it's free to innovate its UX, ideas, etc. I also don't like the idea of not using existing work, but sometimes that's better than trying to adapt a system to do something completely opposite to its original goals. I don't intend to be quite critical, but as an amateur cook I just don't see the need for this. Traditional cookbooks + reading a book like Ratio by Michael Ruhlman will serve your time far better in my opinion.
mrob 7y ago
I usually solve this problem by averaging several recipes that look plausible. It's unlikely to give you the best version, but it will be good enough to let you decide if it's worth trying again. The 2nd attempt can be improved using general cooking knowledge.
combatentropy 7y ago
> a curated collection from a chef Good point. In fact, with the risk of vandalism, this could be a recipe for disaster. On Wikipedia, vandalism may lead me to believe that the president of Russia is Taylor Swift, something usually harmless. Here, someone may vandalize a recipe to add 1 cup of arsenic. Okay, more seriously, I wonder if there are subtle ways to mix normal ingredients into poison. I suppose this is already a risk on WikiHow, where someone could tell you to clean your house by mixing bleach and ammonia. What about a web of trust for some wikis? Instead of letting everyone edit a page, begin with the wiki's founder, who can delegate editor rights to people he knows, then they can grant the right to their friends, and so on. I have always loved the wiki format and prefer them at work over more draconian tools with complicated workflows. So I am surprised to hear myself saying this. But recently at work I have also been dealing with server certificates. So a web of trust is on my mind.

gabcoh 7y ago

Regarding a standardized schema for recipes: https://schema.org/Recipe https://schema.org/Recipe I have no idea if this is in use anywhere or if any actual recipe service exposes this information, but there it is.

kleer001 7y ago

Heh, reminds me of this garbage: https://www.vintag.es/2018/11/honeywell-kitchen-computer.html https://www.vintag.es/2018/11/honeywell-kitchen-computer.htm... "It was advertised as a machine for storing recipes and helping housewives in their daily domestic tasks. However, reading and introducing a recipe was a difficult if not impossible task as the computer had no display and no keyboard. It required a two-week course in order to learn how to use the machine."

themodelplumber 7y ago

You can solve a lot of social problems with software though. For example, simply extending an existing interface to one that assists users in matching their subjective taste to others' subjective taste. Goodreads was well known for this. (Edit: I see the cookbook already has at least one subjective-qualitative enhancement in the form of the Featured Recipes list) Also we can be pretty critical here on HN but I see no reason why Wikibooks must be judged without reference to its potential--not only is it already helpful to some, for various reasons all along the long tail, but perhaps it's just a few tweaks away from even greater functionality. Critiques too often impart the idea that the current experience is lacking _and therefore_ needs complete replacement by e.g. "a website that..." when the existing efforts at least show potential in terms of humans being willing to work together productively toward building a generous resource. That's really something.

andrewzah 7y ago
In this particular case, the resource has been around since 2004, and is part of the wikimedia network. So I highly doubt any of the wants I mentioned will get implemented if it hasn't already. A new website/app doesn't have to deal with old stuff so it's free to innovate its UX, ideas, etc. I also don't like the idea of not using existing work, but sometimes that's better than trying to adapt a system to do something completely opposite to its original goals. I don't intend to be quite critical, but as an amateur cook I just don't see the need for this. Traditional cookbooks + reading a book like Ratio by Michael Ruhlman will serve your time far better in my opinion.

mrob 7y ago

I usually solve this problem by averaging several recipes that look plausible. It's unlikely to give you the best version, but it will be good enough to let you decide if it's worth trying again. The 2nd attempt can be improved using general cooking knowledge.

combatentropy 7y ago

> a curated collection from a chef Good point. In fact, with the risk of vandalism, this could be a recipe for disaster. On Wikipedia, vandalism may lead me to believe that the president of Russia is Taylor Swift, something usually harmless. Here, someone may vandalize a recipe to add 1 cup of arsenic. Okay, more seriously, I wonder if there are subtle ways to mix normal ingredients into poison. I suppose this is already a risk on WikiHow, where someone could tell you to clean your house by mixing bleach and ammonia. What about a web of trust for some wikis? Instead of letting everyone edit a page, begin with the wiki's founder, who can delegate editor rights to people he knows, then they can grant the right to their friends, and so on. I have always loved the wiki format and prefer them at work over more draconian tools with complicated workflows. So I am surprised to hear myself saying this. But recently at work I have also been dealing with server certificates. So a web of trust is on my mind.