User talk:Philvarner

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[edit] Bellini

Wow. Great catch on the copyright violation on the Bellini (cocktail). I completely rewrote the article from scratch (except for a few bits, including yours, that were not based on the original source). I explain more at Talk:Bellini (cocktail).

You are really a great help! Thank you so much. I would like to ask you to read the documentation for the {{WPMIXInfobox}} again. You occasionally make a few minor mistakes when adding it to articles, and that causes the template to not work quite as expected. I know the thing is very confusing because it has so many options (and I occasionally add more if I find things are still missing from it). If you ever have any questions, please ask me, because I wrote it and know it inside and out.

The biggest concern is that I'm not sure where you are obtaining your recipe information from for the IBA Official Cocktails. For all such drinks, you should only use the official recipes and preparation instructions found at the IBA website. Generally, the only tweaking we do to them is to add bullets to the list of ingredients, Wikify the ingredients and any bar tools or procedures mentioned in the instructions.

One other thing you could do that would help as you browse through the articles is swap out the old {{Cocktails Project}} with the new {{WPMIX}} template. It has only two options to deal with (class= and priority=), and both are optional (see the documentation). If you could note stubs (|class=stub) and any IBA cocktails (|priority=high), just that would be a big help.

Thanks again for all your great work so far. I look forward to seeing what other things you might find along the way. If you do find anything like this Bellini problem, please note it on our WikiProject to-do list (WP:MIXT is the shortcut). That way it's more likely to be spotted by more people who can actually fix the problem. Conversely, if you ever run out of things to do, check the to-do list for ideas. There are plenty to share. :-) Have a great week! --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 13:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cocktails responses

Hi Phil

Why was the IBA chosen as the "official" source of cocktails?
  • The IBA was chosen when I was pretty much the only active participant in the WikiProject and doing 99% of the cleanup work by myself. I chose the IBA as the "official" source, simply so that there would be one internationally agreed upon standard that could be used as a reference point
  • The IBA runs an international cocktails competition each year. Many professional bartenders from around the world learn how to make a particular cocktail the IBA-way (for better or for worse), so even if their way is not the most preferred by drinkers, it does seem to be the only standard used worldwide. If you know of another international standard, then I'd be open to considering it.
If there can only be a single recipe in the box, which one should it be? (original, traditional, or contemporary)
  • From WP:NOT#IINFO #4: Instruction manuals. While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instructions or advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes. (emphasis added)
  • It is for that reason that our mixed drink articles have historically been a bit problematic on Wikipedia. At its heart, a mixed drink is basically nothing more than various alcohols and mixers poured into specific drinkware, possibly with a garnish. There's little you can do to disguise the fact that listing those various parts and the method of putting them all together essentially amounts to being a recipe with instructions. In short, articles that contain nothing except that basic information do not belong on Wikipedia.
  • Before picking one standard, the articles were in terrible shape. A very large number of cocktail articles were nothing but a sprawling collection of recipes and some instructions. The three recipe types you mentioned, along with numerous "variations" of the same were the norm. Few articles actually had much encyclopedic information (history, demonstrations of notability and cultural relevance, etc.), and what little there was, was drowned out by the disproportionate amount of text focusing on the recipes. Several articles were nominated for deletion weekly simply because the average Wikipedian participating in the AFD could not clearly see anything other than recipes.
  • Worse, people were constantly edit warring over the proportions. Someone who prefers 2 parts of X to 1 part of Y instead of equal parts of X and Y would make that change, and then someone else would revert it back. Or maybe change it even more. There were edit wars between brands and styles of liquors to be used (even disagreement between using dry or sweet). In short, since there was no standard, the drink recipes changed on whims and personal preferences. The non-IBA cocktails still do (though moving the information to the infobox seems to actually reduce that a bit, which is nice).
  • After discovering the IBA's list, the decision was easy: use the one recipe that (I presume) has already been debated on internationally by people much more familiar with the topic than I am (or likely most other Wikipedians are).
  • In the case where the IBA version differs significantly from one of the others, or where the drink has gone through a major change in how it is prepared, then go ahead and include the various incarnations of the recipes, but in encyclopedic form rather than in a bulleted style that sticks out like a sore thumb (and also offends some Wikipedians who hold the recipes part of WP:NOT#IINFO up as a black-and-white policy). For an example, see Cosmopolitan. In that article, I was able to locate a quote from the originator that describes how she made it (encyclopedic style), and then provided information on how the second person involved tweaked her original recipe (so it's not a second recipe, but a 'diff' from the original). Meanwhile, the IBA version is sitting in the infobox as a third (though mostly similar) option. Three recipes discussed in one article, but only one that is a plain recipe.
  • By moving the "standard" recipe to an Infobox (whichever standard that might be: IBA, traditional, contemporary, whatever), that seems to make other editors happy. Obviously, if after making that move, there is no information left within the article, then the article was nothing but a recipe (which has turned out to be the case on several occasions so far). It actually helps highlight the relative strength and weakness of the article, and clearly indicates if the article is a stub, a start, or something better.
Give IBA designation less importance—move it to a new "designations" section
  • If there were more than one standard or designation that can accomplish the same purposes, then that would be fine with me (though we would still have to decide which standard is the "best" standard to use in a given situation). Until and unless that happens, I think that the special designation is helpful for two reasons:
    • It clearly expresses the notability of the drink. You won't find the Incredible Hulk or Backdraft (two problematic articles subject to prior AFDs) on the IBA list, because they are not well enough established in the international drinking culture to make them worthwhile for bartenders from around the world to learn how to make them. IBA ones, on the other hand, have significance and are notable, and such cocktails should be relatively easy to locate additional sourced information, even if the article does not currently express that.
    • It serves as a "don't mess with the standard" sign to would-be editors who wish to muck around with the proportions or ingredients. This goes back to the earlier edit warring that I discussed, and by sticking to standards, there is no need to muck around with them. It makes for a fair playing field, even if it's not everyone's personal favorite of a recipe.
This is an industry sponsored group of major spirits producers.
  • Thanks. I did not know that bit of information. I do not see how that makes the organization any less useful for these purposes, however. If anything, knowing that it is such a prestigious (if deeply invested) group of people backing it, makes the designation a bit more meaningful to me. Realize that some rather non-mainstream alcohols are featured in some drinks (Amaretto sour, Caipirinha, etc.), so it's not like it was the Vodka Industry pushing only vodka-based drinks.
I was looking at recipes on Haigh's CocktailDB, Drinkboy (aka Robert Hess), in Haigh's book, and in DeGroff.
  • I am familiar with DrinkBoy.com (see the list of external links that have been "approved" through consensus), because it's one that seems well respected and non-controversial. There is even a template that links nicely to articles within DrinkBoy.com. In the case where IBA information is not available, that would seem a good choice.
  • Haigh's CocktailDB, Haigh's book, and DeGroff are unknown to me. If you have a link to Haigh's website, please pass it along. The books are fine if they are the only source available (unlikely), or to be used as secondary sources. They make poor primary sources only because someone has to have a copy of the books on-hand to verify the information. You could state that a Whiskey Sour is made primarily with Pisco according to page 131 of the 1988 edition of DeGroff, but unless there is another editor with a copy of that version of the book (which could even be a made-up edition, as it is in my case), there is no way to verify the (patently false) information I just claimed. Such assertions are used by unscrupulous editors to circumvent WP:RS and WP:VERIFY to forward their own agenda. A freely accessible website makes a good choice, because anyone can go there with a mouse click and verify the information very quickly.
  • Having just said that, any publication that you can use as a source is better than leaving something completely unreferenced. :-)
The box could just list the ingredients instead of giving proportions
  • Based on the feedback we have received from visitors, many people come to Wikipedia's mixed drinks section solely to find and experiment with new drink recipes or variations on old favorites. To leave out the measurements entirely would be a disservice to those visitors.
The IBA recipes are available on the IBA website, so this is duplicated info and close to copyright violation
  • True, the information is available on their Website, but even people I have sent to that website have had great difficulty in locating it for some reason (apparently their interface is not very intuitive, or the fact that the recipes open in a new window might cause pop-up blockers to block the actual recipes; who knows?).
  • Individual recipes cannot be copyrighted anymore than a scientific formula can. In essence, these recipes are an internationally standardized way of referring to a particular mixture of alcohol-based liquids and mixers.
  • Even if the recipes could be copyrighted, fair use should kick in, because any given recipe and instructions appear only alongside an article discussing the particular drink. Full attribution to the IBA is given, and there is a two-click method of reaching the original source (which I am considering making a one-click direct link, but have not made up my mind about yet).
  • Further, by removing the IBA version, we open the articles back up to free-for-all revisions again.

I hope you understand that I am not trying to "sell you" on the IBA, or even push my way as the only way. You asked some very good questions that I felt deserved detailed explanations. I really value your input and look forward to your thoughts, too. Remember, I am not a professional in any sense of the word when it comes to mixed drinks. I have performed computer work for a couple of nightclubs, so I have been "behind the scenes" during working hours, but that's pretty much my only experiences outside of limited drinking as a patron. What I do have is a lot of editing experience here at Wikipedia, and I have dedicated the past 2.5 months or so to trying to wrangle the chaos into something more orderly. That is really my primary objective. Trying to do things "right" by the professional industry is a secondary concern for me, mostly because I don't have a clue what "right" would be. If you see I am going about things contrary to industry norms, I'm open minded and willing to discuss changes. But such changes also have to make sense within the reality of editing and AFD discussions here at Wikipedia. :-) Cheers! --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 00:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this discussion is growing beyond the point where only the two of us are involved. We are essentially discussing topics that affect the entire Mixed Drinks section. A few of the other active Project participants have been helping with (and have voiced no concerns about) the IBA standardization, so they should have a say in any decisions about this. On top of that, I would like to try to involve the editors over at the WikiBooks Bartending Guide in these discussions.

Speaking of WikiBooks, I would like to encourage you to join the two related bartending projects (one at WikiBooks and one I hope will eventually help coordinate between the two projects).

WikiBooks is a very different critter than Wikipedia. Yes, they both use MediaWiki software, but the focus is very different. I'm sure to run into some resistance from the status quo for my Wikipedian ways. It's hard to break Wikipedia habits and go with the different WikiBooks flow. WikiBooks is essentially a collection of text books (like for use in a classroom). In our particular case, it's a Bartender's Guide. So, forget everything about what Wikipedia is not when you are there, because that's, to some degree, what WikiBooks is. But not exactly. It's a little hard to describe, and I'm still mentally adjusting (though I've been an editor there for nearly as long as on Wikipedia, though much, much less active). Another difference is that linking is discouraged. The entire contents of the text book should be found in a fairly sequential order and without having to jump around between articles. You know, like when you read a book.

I feel that WikiBooks has been given the bad end of the stick for a long time when it comes to mixed drink articles. Anything that was determined was not Wikipedia-quality, has been dumped into WikiBooks through the transwiki process (which I still haven't figured out) that somehow keeps the edit histories intact for GFDL compliance. Essentially, it moves the article between websites. Anyway, as a result of that process, the Bartending Guide is in a much worse mess than the List of cocktails was when I started working on it. Partly that is the nature of the book format, but it's also a lot to do with being Wikipedia's dumping ground.

I think that parallel cleanup would be beneficial to both sites. I'm also a little scared of alienating the existing editors over there or of pissing them off with my bold new ideas. I think that it could be very beneficial, however, because it would help standardize information on both sides, and we could work together instead of at odds with each other. If this sounds interesting to you, please let me know. Better yet, sign up as an Active Participant there, too.

Let's put this discussion on hold for a few days while I finish setting up the WikiBooks WikiProject (it's little more than a skeleton there now, with no members--WikiProjects are sort of a new thing over there), and make an initial recruitment drive for some members. Then, let's open all this up for discussion amongst all the interested parties.

You've actually given me some good ideas I would like to mull around in my head as possible ways to improve the WPMIXInfobox to help automate some of what you are speaking. I have to track down some other infoboxes I have seen that do linking to other sites, and so on. Hmmm. Yes, lots of good ideas swirling around my brain right now. :-) I just would like to build up some of the infrastructure a bit more and involve a few more people before going too far, too fast and alienating the goodwill that has started to form. Remember, WP:MIX is essentially only 2 months old from the point where I rebuilt it; it's growing fast but could die even faster if people feel left out. Thanks again for all your hard work and ideas. --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 04:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Just caught these two updates from you:

Oh, one more thing
why is the Bellini a cocktail and not a wine mix?
  • Darn good question. I was wondering the same exact thing as I typed it up. Actually, wine mix (like beer mix) is not the proper term. "Beer cocktail" is apparently the "in vogue" term around the internet (for people who actually care to differentiate "true" cocktails from the rest). Therefore, "wine cocktail" is likely the counterpart for a wine-based one. I just left it as cocktail because I was too tired of editing the article to try to research that part any more. I'm not even sure if the Infobox supports Wine cocktails yet or not.
  • Another good reason: We don't have a Wine cocktail page similar to Beer cocktail yet. I have been requesting someone to write it for two months, and figured I'd probably give in and write it myself before now, but I haven't. If you would like to use Beer cocktail as a template (just copy and paste it into Wine cocktail and then edit it to reflect wine instead), that would be great. Again, I could do it, but I never seem to get around to that particular task.
  • Until that page is created, we would essentially orphan the Bellini. Mimosa and several others should be moved from the List of cocktails to that new page, too. See the Beer section on that page for how I split them off. Probably Mimosa and Bellini should remain on the List of cocktails (like I did with Snakebite for beer), simply because if we don't leave the most popular ones behind, people will keep trying to add them, thinking it's an oversight. (That already happened with the Beer cocktails that remain listed on the cocktails list)
  • So, for now, please leave it as a Cocktail until we are ready to move all the related drinks at once. If you can write the article, I will take care of all the moving around and recategorizing (I'm a bit of an old hand at that process now).
IBA does a good job of maintaining standard drinks in the EU, and you receive the same drink in Italy as you do in France, unlike North America
  • You're helping me to like the IBA more and more as a standard. The thing about standards is that rarely is everyone happy with them, but at least most people agree that "a standard" is better than "no standard" as long as the standard isn't total drek.
Not sure if IBA drinks follow historical recipes or are abbreviated versions
  • My research indicates that they remain fairly true to the intent of the original recipes, but do make substitutions to use commonly available and stocked ingredients. Sometimes that results in some interesting variations from the more traditional form, and in those cases I note the difference in both the infobox (either in notes= or footnotes=) and the article itself (see White Russian and Bellini (cocktail). Personally, I like that compromise. It means that the IBA recipe should be pretty easy for people to use, plus it gives more talking points within the article, which helps to expand the article and usually adds some interesting historical points that would not be mentioned if the IBA recipe weren't the standards. In other words, the deviation helps to improve the article by allowing for additional explanations.

--Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 04:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Responses to Cocktail Wiki questions

{{tl|Alcoholic beverages}} is how you display a template like {{Alcoholic beverages}}. Essentially {{tl|''TemplateName''}} is just a template that displays template links. Pretty cool. :-)

To escape other things, just surround it with <nowiki> and </nowiki> like any other HTML tag. nowiki just tells the MediaWiki software to print the enclosed test without any processing. To escape links, just use two sets of brackets: [[[[Link]]]]. It doesn't really escape it, but places a set of brackets outside an active link.

Please be sure to include a space between the article title and the (disambiguation). In the case of Fizz(cocktail), it is going to have to be moved to Fizz (cocktail) (using the Move button at the top of the article's page.

Nicely done. I totally agree with the decision to make that merge (which is essentially what you did). In proper Wiki-bureaucracy, you probably should have placed merge tags at the top of each article's page, then added discussion about why it's a good idea to merge the articles together, and yada, yada, yada. Personally, the bold editing you did (with a run past me) is the kind of bold editing I did a lot more of before the project became so active, and the way I still prefer to edit if it seems there is unlikely to be an disagreement. We're on a time crunch to get this cleanup process completed by the end of the month, and it's going to be tight. But, I'm a lot less worried now than I was in December about meeting that deadline.

If you feel up to it, could you look at Wiskey sour and see if you could do the same type of thing with it and other sours that are currently stubs or just mentioned in the List of cocktails. I kind of like leaving Amaretto sour where it is in the Amaretto article, but it's not critical. All the information in Whiskey Sour is original work by me (well it was at least as-of my last edit there), and fully non-copyrighted. :-) I just couldn't find that much out specifically about Whiskey Sours, but it made a great start for an article on Sours in general. Your Fizz article is something I was considering doing with Sours, but haven't had a chance to do so yet.

I do like the way you created separate headings for each cocktail mentioned. That allows me to easily create redirects directly to that part of the article. Very helpful.

The {{Alcoholic beverages}} is a nice template, but it's grown huge. There was discussion started about streamlining it a bit so it doesn't take up quite so much real estate on the screen. You will probably notice it more often appearing on stubs, because I use it to fill up space in otherwise tiny articles. (*blush*) It was a gimmick I used before the Infobox. I still think the template is a good idea, but I would hold off on large-scale deployment for now, simply because I think it will be edited soon, and that will require going back and editing the articles all over again. I'd rather just edit once.

--Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 06:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Busy beaver

Wow. You don't slow down, do you? :-)

As I stated before, I think we really need to involve more people in the decision making process before proceeding with any major changes to the mixed drink articles.

Also, I see a potentially big problem with developing the new articles in mainspace (i.e., the "live" part of Wikipedia where articles live). Instead, they should be developed inside the WikiProject Work Area, and then, once they are ready to go live, they should be MOVEd to their new location.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is to minimize the disruption and relinking that is required every time articles in the mainspace get moved or merged. I have been kept very busy fixing redirects and moving things around. We need to focus a little more on process and procedures. I know, they are tedious and maybe even irritating, because they get in the way of doing "real work".

But believe me, my recommendations to chill out a bit and slow things down and do them properly are much kinder and gentler suggestions than you will receive when a slew of your work suddenly gets nominated for deletion by people outside the project who don't understand at all what you are trying to accomplish. I have been on the losing side of those discussions. It's not fun. It made me seriously consider quitting Wikipedia. I don't want to see that happen to you.

There is also a lot of tradition, and there are many people who have been involved in the articles arriving at this point now (not the least of which is me, and I have invested literally hundreds if not thousands of hours by now, in this). I'll be honest when I say that I'm not real keen on some of your proposed changes, but that's largely because some of them work against some things I'm trying to accomplish, too.

My vision is probably much broader than yours is at this point. I am looking at things in a very multi-wiki sort of way. This is probably because I am an active participant in several Wiki's (most notably Wikipedia, Commons, and WikiBooks). Many of the changes you are proposing will cause broken links on other sister projects. Not just the three I mentioned, but also on the international/multi-lingua versions of Wikipedia. All those interwiki links at the bottom of an article's page are the foreign-language equivalent of the same page. In other words, if you change List of cocktails to List of 16th century cocktails (just as a silly example) and then changed the page content around to that, and then split the rest of the content out, there would be many, many broken links worldwide.

These are definitely not minor changes you are discussing. There is being bold in editing, and there is being rash. It takes time and planning to implement the kinds of changes you are discussing to minimize the negative impacts worldwide (and even within just the English Wikipedia), and that's not currently happening.

Believe me, I did not understand all this myself when I started. But I have come to understand this, and I hope that you begin to see what I feel that it is important to do this right. We really do not want to cause problems or do anything that is likely to end up with edit wars. That just brings undue negative attention to our Projects. We want to continue building good, strong, positive reputations for our projects and project members. We want people to take notice and listen when we have something to say as a project. And that won't happen if all people have in their minds is that our project is nothing but a bunch of rash troublemakers. We must work within the system, we must build consensus, and we must discuss and plan before we act. Otherwise, we will be in a big fat mess with a lot of drama, and I want none of that.

I hope you understand my message. While I don't like all your ideas, there are a lot more that I do like. I'm sure we can come to some mutual agreements that will make both of us and everyone else happy. I want to work with you. I don't have to be right all the time (I'm often not, and I admit it). Please remember that I like you and think you are a great editor with fantastic enthusiasm and great passion. I don't want you to lose any of that. The only reason I disagree with some of your ideas is because they don't (currently) mesh well with other plans I have OR they don't mesh well with the bigger Wikipedia and Wiki-universe way of doing things. It's certainly nothing to do with you personally.

I have archived all the related discussion on List of cocktails. Please use the Restructure Section to read, discuss, and plan these important changes. This is WAY beyond the scope of that list, because it encompasses way more than even Wikipedia. Our WikiProject is really the only forum where such discussions make sense. You're welcome to encourage others via talk pages to join in the conversations if you think their input would be helpful. I have done so already to all the Project members. I will be doing the same at WikiBooks, too. I will see if there is anyone at Commons who might also be interested, but it's a very different sort of place, and involvement is much less than here. Thanks for listening.

One more thing, please sign your posts with the four tildes. It's very confusing trying to read series of comments, and it takes extra time for me to go to the history, see who posted it, and then add an unsigned tag to the comment. Again, this gets back to process and procedures. They are important, and they are helpful to the other people reading your words. Have a good day! --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 11:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leite de Onça

A licor is a type of beverage very popular in Brazil. It is a sweet fruit juice mixed with alcohol or cachaça (the latter being preferred). The spirit added to the juice acts as a catalyser and helps fermentation. In the end you'll get a beverage that is both thicker and sweeter than wine, though more alcoholic. In the case of Leite de Onça you can replace cocoa licor for melted white chocolate. jggouvea 23:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A licor is a homemade liqueur!!!! jggouvea 12:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of the Year contest

Hello. Thank you for your interest in the 2006 Picture of the Year contest. To vote, you must be an established Wiki editor with at least 100 edits registered either on your Commons or on your home wiki account (eg on one of the Wikimedia sites). You don't have 100 edits on your Commons account, but if you do on your home wiki, please add a diff pointing to a statement on your home wiki talk page which confirms your identity. See for a step by step guide here. Thank you! If you have any questions, you can ask at commons:Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2006. Bryan 18:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whisky vs. Whiskey

Thanks that helps sorry for the long reply thuglasT|C 18:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

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