User talk:Willscrlt/WikiProjects

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Archive This page is an archive of past discussions involving Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on Will's current talk page.

Contents


General

January 2007

No Problem...

Thanks for tweaking my user page, I don't mind it all. What's a Wikipedian without editing? I got lost in your words, but i got it all...kind of. One question that has been running around in my mind (a little less than other questions) what's a WikiProject? Chameleon3322 23:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I am sorry if anything I said confused you.
A WikiProject is a group of editors who work together toward maintaining and improving all of the articles within a certain scope or topical area. There are very broad groups (History, Culture, etc.) and very specific ones (Heroes TV show or ice cream). Other WikiProjects focus more on helping users instead of helping the articles (Adopt-a-User, Kindness Campaign, Mediation Cabal). Some WikiProjects are very casual, while others create fairly complex rules for participants/members (both terms are used) to follow. The most successful projects seem to strike a balance between the two extremes. Usually the participants have some knowledge in the topic, or at least a strong interest, but this is not a requirement. Some projects are picky about how many edits you have made and types of administrative actions have been taken against you (usually only the ones where you are offering to help mentor other users, because a bad mentor does not help the new user become a good Wikipedian). The WikiProjects I am most involved with are very accepting of new and experienced members--basically anyone who wants to pitch in and help is welcome. (Food & Drink, Mixed Drinks, Soft Drinks, Ice Cream, Herbs & Spices, and the Kindness Campaign) Other WikiProjects are very welcoming, too. So why the need for a WikiProject? Well, there are several. By collaborating with others, it becomes easier to prioritize and plan how to be most efficient at improving and cleaning up articles. It helps lessen the work required of any one editor, by focusing the efforts of several editors together with the same goals. It provides more eyes to watch over the articles to help keep vandalism and inaccuracy to a minimum. Working together, project participants can sometimes improve an article threatened with deletion enough that the article is saved from deletion. It is also a way to be social and have fun at Wikipedia, which can otherwise be a bit of an isolated experience (or sometimes it can even feel adversarial). By working together, you develop a sense of community that is a little more personal than the overall Wikipedia community, yet is in harmony with the greater community. In short, WikiProjects are fun, functional, and focused ways to improve Wikipedia.
I hope that cleared things up for you a bit. :-) If you have any other questions, please ask. I do not mind. Have a great day! --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 03:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


WikiProject Mixed Drinks

Formerly WikiProject Cocktails
See also: WP:MIX and WP:MIXTALK

December 2006

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cocktails template placement

You seem to have misunderstood the part of Wikipedia:WikiProject_best_practices#Recruiting about placing templates. These go on article talk pages, not on article pages. On article pages it would become a self-reference, which should be avoided: Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. Please move these to article talk pages. AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. Part of the reason I (apparently mistakenly) did that, is because articles keep being deleted faster than they can be merged or cleaned up. I was hoping that by seeing those, people would leave things alone long enough to get the house cleaning finished. Suggestions? --Willscrlt 15:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I only saw it on Old Fashioned ... which I'm watching because I saved it from an AfD a while ago. :-) Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is put the cocktail pages on your watch list, and that way, if someone tags them for deletion, with AfD or ProD, you'll know, and can respond individually. If you don't have time to fix all the articles being nominated at once, fix the ones you can, and remember the others (with a list, for example). Then, when you get the time, you can recreate them one at a time with adequate rewriting. At any time, you can ask an administrator (say, me), for a copy of deleted content - even a deleted page isn't gone forever. AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I just finished reading the Wikipedia:Avoid self-references article. I can see that I need to go back and clean up several articles now. *sigh* Two steps forward, one step back. Here are a few articles that have been deleted that would be good to see the contents to see if there is anything worth merging:
I know there were more that were deleted, but I have already wiped out their links. At some point I will peruse back through the history and may dig up some more, if that is okay with you. --Willscrlt 16:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Dirty Diaper- nope, never was such an article. Alternate spelling, perhaps?
  • Fuzzy Navel - ditto
  • Gorilla Fart - User:Willscrlt/Gorilla Fart
  • Hairy Virgin - nope
  • Martian Hard On - nope. Are you sure you're not just making fun of me?
  • Three Wise Men (cocktail) - User:Willscrlt/Three Wise Men (cocktail)

AnonEMouse (squeak) 13:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Nope. Not making fun of you, I promise. They were probably links to disambiguation pages or the wrong articles entirely. All I know is they linked somewhere, and that somewhere isn't there any longer. Thanks for the two you did find.
After I am finished with those pages, how do I delete them? I really don't want a Gorilla Fart hanging around my user space. :-) --Willscrlt 21:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
You can ask me (on my user page), and I'll delete them. You can also mark them for speedy deletion, ({{db-userreq}}, see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#User pages) and another admin can do it. AnonEMouse (squeak) 13:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Cocktails and sprits

If Wikiproject cocktails also covers other alcoholic drinks, why not just rename the project and officially broaden its scope? Stevage 04:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent question, and one I have asked myself. The main reason I have not done so is that I do not wish to step on anyones toes or give the appearance of being a power hungry dictator. ;-) Right now, I am the most active member of the WikiProject Cocktails (by probably hundreds of edits), and just doing the editing is keeping me plenty busy. The work needs to be done, and that is why I am doing it. Expanding or renaming a project is something that I think really needs to be a group decision, and it should probably be discussed higher up the project chain at the WikiProject Food and Drink level. I have already expanded the Project's scope considerably just through the process of tracking down and fixing the huge variety of problems. I could really use help, and will be very appreciative of any help people offer. :-)

What I would really prefer to see is the WikiProject Cocktails renamed to WikiProject Mixed Drinks, so that it more clearly covers beer mixes, wine mixes, shots, drink mixes, mixers, and odd ball drinks like eggnog. I think that there are more than enough liquors out there that there should be a separate sister project, like there are for Beer and Wine. Like I said, the only reason I tagged the liqours I did was because nobody else seems to be working on them, and since Cocktails is doing major cleanup now, I figured it was more helpful to the article than leaving it semi-generically tagged with drink-stub. It's not a control thing. If a sister project or anyone else wants to clean it up, re-tag it with another project tag, or whatever, I would be very happy for them to do so. It's all about doing what is best for Wikipedia and keeping ego and irrational behavior (rashness, spite, blind reliance upon precident instead of considering each situation on its own merits, etc.) out of the decision making process. --Willscrlt 06:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Heh, I'm not worried if it's a "control thing" or not. More power to you for doing the work. I guess I just like things to be named "appropriately". Keep up the good work anyway. Stevage 06:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Cocktails and AFD

Hi. I have read your suggestion that the cocktails project be allowed to work on all cocktails articles for a while and then the project itself will nominate cocktail articles for deletion. I probably should have replied somewhere explaining why I'm not in full agreement with this approach, as otherwise you have no way to know whether I was aware of your efforts or if I might simply be ignoring you. I didn't respond in the past primarily because although I don't agree with all of your points, I respect them, and it was my guess that you probably wouldn't be persuaded by my views.

I am rarely persuaded by off-the-cuff remarks and "easy" answers. However, a well thought out response always gets my attention and full consideration. Even if we disagree, rest assured that I truly respect everything you took the time to write me, and I appreciate it very much. Hopefully we can come to more agreements than disagreements. :-)
  • You often refer to "hundreds" of articles under the cocktails project umbrella. I am only concerned with articles in Category:Cocktails and its immediate subcategories, except for Category:Mixed drink shooters and drink shots which I consider a lost cause and never look at. There aren't (and in my opinion shouldn't be) hundreds of articles here.
Ha ha. At least we pretty much agree about the Shots -- what a mess.
There are 344 articles in my watchlist. Nearly all of them are related to cocktails, though I also have wine, beer, a few user talk pages, and miscellaneous articles linking to cocktails. Assuming that only 2/3 of the articles are actually cocktail articles that should be listed under the category, that would still leave 230 cocktails, which is technically "hundreds". And believe me, when you are trying to review and edit all those articles it certainly feels like hundreds. The big problem is that a large number of the articles have never been properly categorized. My first priority has been to work my way through each one, categorizing as I go. I am also tagging them as stubs and expands, and now I am going to start tagging many as micr-stubs. Those micro-stubs are essentially the ones I feel are worthless articles that contain scraps of useful info that should be inserted into the List or into Wikibooks before the article is dumped. As I complete that process, you will see the number of cocktails within the categories continuing to climb toward the 230+ articles to which I refer.
  • Articles like Backdraft (drink) are awful, and in my opinion should be deleted. WP:V is non-negotiable. There are no references in the article, even after several months. Your research in WP:AFD isn't an adequate substitute for in article references. Furthermore, your own research can't confirm any of the claims in the article, and so it should be deleted. If an encyclopedic article meeting WP:V using WP:RS reliable sources can be created for the backdraft cocktail, my opinion is that it would be much better to start from scratch than leave the current abomination in the edit history. (I see now that Backdraft (drink) has been given two references, but both references are recipes, and neither reference supports any claim made on the page. Incredible.)
Actually, I have reached pretty much the same conclusion as you. It is now my intention to ultimately delete that article and a few other flaming ones. Before I do that, I want to consolidate them all together into a new flaming beverages article, and I will use aspects of the Backdraft (drink) as illustrations within the article. Once that is completed, the article will become only a bad memory. Unless, in the process of researching that article, I come across a wealth of information (highly unlikely) that will make the article worthy of continued inclusion. The problem with the AfD process is it only gives me 5 days (less if I do not notice the article is being considered for deletion) to figure out what I am going to do with it. It took me nearly two weeks to come to the conclusion I just described, and after two more weeks, I may change my mind again as I become more familiar with the library of articles Wikipedia contains. The only example I can compare it to, would be being hired as a new Librarian. My job is to go through the Library's collection, weeding out the bad books, repairing the ones worth saving, and highlighting the ones that are exceptional. While I am trying to do that, people randomly wander into the library, grab a book off the shelf, pour gasoline on it, and ignite it. I chase after the book with a fire extinguisher, hoping I can save the book from being destroyed. Then, once the flames are out, I can look inside the book and make a determination if the book was even worth saving or not.
I originally thought of myself as likely to be an inclusionist. I am probably still leaning more that way than toward a deletionist attitude. However, after reading recipe after recipe, after one or two liners that don't even qualify as recipies, I am taking a rather dim view of this "library's" collection of articles. That is why I have stated that at the end of the cleanup process, a mass deletion is due. Bring your marshmallows, cuz there is going to be a book burning bonfire (of the virtual kind anyway).
  • It is a community guideline that recipes alone do not make encyclopedia articles (WP:NOT). This means that I do not find keep arguments such as "I found a recipe on google", and "it's in the 1001 Cocktail Recipes book" the least bit persuassive. (Other AFD participants have different/lower standards.) By it's very nature, a cocktails book with 1001 recipes isn't very selective, so it provides a lousy source for anything. The entire, "WP is not a recipe book" argument is rejected by some people. It isn't my intent to argue that point here, but I can give you one example why I agree with WP:NOT. The Joy of Cooking has several thousand recipes, and qualifies as a WP:RS reliable source. I do not want every recipe in The Joy of Cooking to have an article, and it is only one of tens of thousands of cookbooks. Compare this with "I found it in 1001 Cocktail Recipes". To allow recipe articles in wikipedia is an extraordinarily bad idea.
Believe it or not, I do agree with you. Let's fast forward to March 1st, and here's how I envision the Project's pages to look.
  • The List of cocktails will contain only a) links to full articles, with possibly a little disambiguation information to help people find the right one; 2) links to b:Bartending/Cocktails recipes that were not able to prove WP:NOTABLE, WP:V, and WP:RS enough to warrant an encyclopedic article; and 3) an entry without a link that includes a brief summary of key ingredients and notable/verifiable pieces of information that is interesting, but nowhere enough to warrant an article. This is similar to the way I have morphed the List now, but after another round of pruning and validating.
  • Articles will follow a standard template that prompts for drink history; etomology of the name; notable references from history, pop culture, and/or celebrities; recipies only where they serve to illustrate an important point; hopefully a photo of each drink; and optional sections for trivia, see also, and external links. Each required section must contain at least a paragraph of verifiable information, with good sources cited. Exactly meeting that definition would quailfy an article as an "expand", meaning it's okay, but could still use improvement. Anything less (i.e., a key element is missing), would qualify as a stub. Any article that contains only a recipie, possibly with a one- or two-liner description, or sounds entirely questionable, would be classified as a micro-stub. Micro-stubs would be culled for any useful info (back into the main List or transwikied to Wikibooks if there is a full recipe), and then be mass deleted.
  • Categories would be fixed to sort beer and wine mixes out from true cocktails. I see no point in keeping moonshine or other pitifully small categories, especially when the listed articles are inferior. A single category of Cocktails with less common spririts would do fine for holding the miscellaneous ones.
  • Shots... um... I still haven't come up with a good way to deal with those dang things yet.
  • Most cocktail articles have a serious WP:V and WP:RS problems. Backdraft (drink) is a poster child for blatantly ignoring WP:V. The few cocktail articles that are sourced typically run afoul of WP:RS, as seen in Carbomb (beer mix), which provides no source that uses the page title (sources always call it "Irish Car Bomb"), and which uses anonymous web forum postings as sources. Feh.
Agreed again. In fact, the entire article reads like a thinly disguised attempt to slur certain Irish groups. On the other hand, if it is part of a viable drinking culture, it would be a mistake to remove the article. The question is whether or not reliable sources can be found. Even if not, I'd remain on the fence on that particular article (inclusionist leanings kicking in, I guess). In short, if the article can be made to meet the requirements of an expand article without being adequately referenced, I would not add it to the bonfire. I would look at that as an article needing ongoing work after the initial cleanup. I am enough of a a realist to recognize that the Cleanup Project is only a rough hack to remove the most horriblly offensive items from the Wikipedia. Once the obvious crud is removed, it will be time to look at the remaining articles in much finer detail. When that time comes, it will be time to roll out a classification of articles (A, B, C+, C, etc.) like other Projects do. Even after that, deletions will likely continue to occur as we fail to find verifiable information and can no longer justify keeping articles once they have been completely reviewed. Right now, there just isn't enough time to do that.
  • The cocktails project doesn't have an exclusive patent on cocktail articles—cocktail articles are not a walled garden inside wikipedia. In fact it doesn't require any particular expertise in cocktails to identify cocktail pages that are non-encyclopedic garbage. Although I am a cocktail aficionado, that has little to do with the cocktail pages I have listed on AFD.
I know. And this is the biggest challenge I face. I fully realize that there is no reason that anyone should make any special exemptions or bend procedures (let alone any established guidelines or policies) just because it would make my life easier. I do believe that everything must be done within the intent of the law, so to speak. I do say intent of the law, not the letter of the law, though. Since the intention of the guidelines and policies (the law) are to improve Wikipedia and keep it accurate and relavent, I do not see that requesting a "wait and see" attitude of a very specific period is going against the intent of the law. I hope that through my continued efforts (and hopefully soon the efforts of others, helping more, too), I will prove that the time was well worth it. I have no illusions of magically turning every article into a masterpiece. I just want to be sure that every article is given a fair chance.
You point out that "it doesn't require any particular expertise in cocktails" to determine if things are bad. I say, maybe so, and maybe not. The expertise is like the Librarian in my illustration. Anyone could walk into the library and say that all books under 30 pages are too short and must be purged. Another person might say that only works by certain authors are worth keeping. Others might claim that any book containing sex must be banned. The librarian is the only one who knows the collection well enough to know which books help the library to be well rounded and most useful to all the visitors. We have an advantage here that libraries do not: we can cut, paste, and edit good pieces of bad articles into other articles making much better articles. That does require a little bit of expert knowledge. Not in being an expert in cocktails (because you are probably more of one than I, since I drunk very few in my life), but being an expert in the collection of articles. For example, you felt that my estimate of number of articles was highly inflated. Having gone through and added every cocktail listed on the List of cocktails to my watchlist, I had performed a bit of reasearch into the collection, and I gained a little expert knowledge on the state of the collection that an average person does not have. Likewise, I found some candidate articles to receive useful bits of articles that do not stand alone, but would dovetail in nicely with other articles. Again, if I had not gone through the entire collection, I would have seen a crappy article with no redeeming properties.
  • Once somewhere I saw you mention that the cocktails project would tag bad cocktails pages for speedy deletion after review and merge. That isn't actually how the process works, since a project requested deletion is not a WP:CSD criterion for speedy deletion. The cocktail project will have to either {{prod}} the bad cocktail pages, which in my experience is most often removed by some knucklehead, or go through the regular AFD process. In my view I'm saving you some work down the line.
Ha ha. Thank you. I appreciate that. To be honest, I have already sent some articles on to the great bit bucket in the sky simply because it seemed useless to keep articles around after they had been culled of useful information (if there actually was any). When I started writing that stuff, I was not as familiar with the deletion processes as I am now (and they still can be a bit baffling at times). Given your observations, I will do that more often as pages are cleared out. Part of why I was suggesting the other alternative was to give others within the Project a chance to voice opinions as we went. I did not want to be the Project, nor do I have any desire to be a dictator. This leads to your next point...
  • I appreciate your enthusiasm on the cocktails project because the articles need a lot of work. Unfortunately there don't seem to be too many other active participants, so you are working practically alone. This makes me unsure that the March 2007 deadline will be met.
Tell me about it. :-( If this was a topic I was passionate about, I might be happier to be running a one-man show (though I'd be far less objective about it, I'm sure). As it is, my passion is strictly for Wikipedia and doing what needs to be done to make Wikipedia better for everyone. I think I would call it "dogged determination" instead of "enthusiasm". I will be returning to college in January, and my free time may suddenly evaporate, and if that happens, I will feel very bad for deserting the project, let alone taking a hit in my Wiki-reputation for failing to keep a committment. That being said, I am very good at following through on my committments, and I have regularly undertaken (and succeded where others thought I'd certainly fail) more work than sane people seem to do.

In any case I don't think the rest of wikipedia has to stop while the cocktails project works on a bunch of really bad pages. The AFD process runs 5 days, so the project should have enough time to merge or improve pages nominated for deletion. Remember that the wikipedia admin who closes the AFD is free to consider whether the page is substantially improved over the version that was nominated for deletion. Admins have been known to keep pages that had consensus delete votes if the page has been greatly improved during the AFD process.

The problem with AfDs, prods, etc. is that they interrupt my work flow. Instead of being able to complete the tasks I need to complete, in the order I need to complete them, to be sure I will complete the cleanup project by the deadline, I am forced to deal with articles out of order, and often before I know where the information should be placed. Additionally, an article that is iffy, but could be improved enough to qualify as a stub or an expand, would likely be deleted without discussion once an AfD goes against it. While that might be useful in many cases, it defeats the ability to tag the articles for ongoing review and improvement after the cleanup project ends. A successful AfD is essentially a kiss of death for articles that might be made good if there was enough time to improve them. However, that is not something I can often tell at the time the AfD comes up. As a result, I dig in and fight for keeping the article (unless it is blatantly obvious that the article is pure crap). I figure at least that way, the article can live long enough to improve it or reach a reasonable deletion decision. Chances are, that's not the way that AfD is supposed to be used, but that's what ends up happening.
To put it another way, if I am going to make the deadline, I have to keep working through the entire List of cocktails to salvage as much good stuff as I can. I don't have time to stop everything, and fix a potentially unfixable article at that time, especially when that article may still be deleted anyway. Doing so would be a complete waste of my time and suck out the remaining interest I have in completing this project. If I can keep working straight through, I should have little problem meeting the goals I have described. If I can find some like-minded people to help, things should really start cooking.

I think our goals are pretty much similar, although I don't think that Incredible Hulk (cocktail) and Backdraft (drink) deserve pages. We have different ideas on strategy and tactics, but I respect and appreciate your work to improve the cocktail articles. Thanks, and good luck. Quale 08:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for writing and sharing your opinions. I definitely see that we have much more in common than I feared. It's mostly a matter of procedure and protocol. You seem to see rules are more rigid, and I as more flexible. That is partly because I know my own abilities, and I know that if certain rules (like AfD and Prod) are bent just enough (or better yet, the rules are not even used as obstacles in the first place) to allow me to complete the work, the entire Wikipedia will be better for it. I see the end result very clearly, and impediments to that result are very frustrating. You probably see a long history of well intentioned individuals with lofty goals that never quite materialize. And there is always the chance that I could turn out to be one of those, too. I think we both would agree that would be sad, but I do have to consider life outside the Wiki as being somewhat more important; otherwise, I couldn't even be involved in the Wiki in the first place.
As to those specific articles (Hulk and Backdraft), I have archived the data, so deletions will not be the kiss of death for my work anymore. It will still be an irritation and impediment, but I have developed work-arounds to dull the pain. This allows me to keep working without offending the delicate sensibilities of other Wikipedians in the process. ;-)
One thing you could do that would really help me. If you do not see a comment from me on a cocktail related AfD or prod, drop me a note. That way I can have a heads-up to grab anything useful, and, if it seems necessary, voice an opinion. If you will do that for me, I will back off on my protests unless I have evaluated the article an truly feel it is worthy of saving instead of fighting diligently for every article that comes up. Fair enough?
Again, thank you for taking the time to write. I really appreciate it. Even though we do not agree completely, I have great respect for you. Take care. --Willscrlt 09:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

January 2007

Cocktails expansion templates/categories

Hi - please see my comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Category:Cocktails (expand) for the way other WikiProjects mark their articles for expansion. It a standardise=d system that makes far more sense than treading on the toes of other WikiProjects like WP:WSS. Grutness...wha? 00:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Cocktails templates reply

I've replied on my talk page, per your request. ~ Amalas rawr =^_^= 02:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Cocktails invitation reply

I Would be happy to help with the Cocktails project. You have my support and assistance. Churba 20:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a subject I'm interested in, please let me know if there's anything specific I can do to help. Roy Harmon 01:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Cocktails renaming

Feel free to rename now. If almost all the members have already approved, there's no reason to make it go on any longer. Such deadlines are generally fairly arbitrary anyway, so further changes are no big deal. Badbilltucker 14:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Beer mixes

Hi Willscrit. I have left a message on the talk page of the Beer mixes category. There is already a category for beer cocktails. Also, the term beer mix is used in the brewing industry. Regards. SilkTork 02:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Mixed drinks

That's an interesting and useful category. You could use that as a sub of Cocktails - as cocktails could be mixed food (such as fruit cocktail) or mixed drugs as well as mixed drink. Good work. SilkTork 02:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Beer mix

I see your intention, though I think the name of the article should change. A google search only reveals the brewing term, or reflections from Wikipedia. Mixed drink already redirects to Cocktail. Perhaps Beer cocktail? SilkTork 02:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Beer cocktails

Yes. I prefer beer cocktails to beer mixes. And I am as guilty as anyone in using the term beer mix at some point in discussion on the cocktail project. But as it just seems to be a Wikipedia editor term, it's not one we really should be using. It may be an idea to change the current article titles which say (beer mix) in brackets to something that is used outside of Wiki. If beer cocktail is that expression, and you have googled it, then that sounds good to me. SilkTork 09:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Good. Yes, I did google it and found several sites (one example) that refer to these as such. I plan to rename the "beer mix" disambiguations to "beer cocktail" once everything is moved back around. I was going to use AWB to do the recategorizing, but decided to do it manually and add the infoboxes at the same time. Though really, I should be in bed.

One note on the infobox. I see you changed type to "Cocktails with beer", but type should just be set to "beer" (well, originally it was "beermix", but I changed it to just "beer" now). That automatically generates the appropriate category. If you would like to finish up so I can go to bed, that would be great. :-) --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 10:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've just looked at what you have done regarding the new category. I'm happy. Yes - I agree that "beer cocktail" is better. I'm not going to be on much today as I have a number of things to do, including making some stout, but I'll take a look at the info box, and at renaming the articles with (beer mix) in the title to (beer cocktail). I'm not certain that having the category beer in the info box will work. The beer cocktails are just a little outside the scope of the main beer project, although they would come under beer culture, a subset of beer. SilkTork 10:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. I think I was unclear. I was speaking of the {{WPMIXInfobox}} Specifically look at the section on alcohol types. All you have to do is set that to "beer", and the drink will be added automagically to the Cat:Beer cocktails category. I agree with you that these are technically outside of the WikiProject Beer scope (read the note under "outcome" for more on sharing scopes). The thing that worries me now, is that I think there is likely only going to be 1 or maybe 2 Cat:Cocktails with beer left in the category, which makes that not worth having a category at all. What are your thoughts? Probably should move this to WP:MIX for some involvement from more people. If you don't have a firm suggestion, then let's move the talk there. --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 10:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


February 2007

backdraft

Hi. I hope you can read this. It's the closest thing I seem to have found on wikipedia to replying to your message. Yes I am the one who commented on Backdraft. I'd be happy to help you improve the article. I've spoken to a friend of mine, who also thanks you for it by the way, but he also does not remembers the ice (and we also don't know the ingredients used). We've tried to remember how it's prepared (we're usually a little dizzy by the time we order it ... and very dizzy by the time we leave :) ). Besides cinnamon, we've also remembered there is no ice involved, and the waitresses usually use a paper napkin to hold the alcohol vapors in the glass. After quickly drinking the shot glass with a straw, she punches the napkin with it and tells us to inhale from it. It really burns your neck, but I've never seen anyone vomit from it (this is regarding step 15). About the physics, I have to tell you that I have no idea. Regarding the intro however, I have to tell you this has an immediate effect on me (and seems to have the same effect on everyone who's enjoyed it with me).

I hope this helps you. If not please tell me how I can help you. I've been searching for how to make this drink for a long time and found it just now by accident. It would be a shame for this article to be deleted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.181.0.35 (talk) 23:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for the Tequila Sunrise cocktail update

I just wanted to thank you for updating the units, and yes, SI-units and metric units are synonymous. I looked at the votings, but they were closed already. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.142.47.76 (talk) 22:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Hi. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on the subject even if the voting has ended. --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 22:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)



WikiProject Soft Drinks

See also: WP:WPSD

January 2007

Coca-Cola peer review request

Hello Willscrlt, you have indicated that you are a member of the Soft Drinks WikiProject. Can you please peer review Coca-Cola here. Thank you in advance.--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 13:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


February 2007

Cocktails

Hi Willscrlt. Thanks for telling me what I'm doing wrong so I can correct it. I'll look over the Box format again. I was mostly just copying from other ones, so I didn't read the spec.

Your comment: 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.

Why was the IBA chosen as the "official" source of cocktails? This is an industry sponsored group of major spirits producers. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. But, the recipes presented here may not the traditional recipe or the "proper" one. I would like to see IBA designation given less importance-- taken out of the header and moved to a new section called "designations" or some such.

This brings up another issue, which is that cocktails generally have an original recipe, a traditional recipe, and a contemporary recipe. If there can only be a single recipe in the box, which one should it be? For instance, I've seen recipes calling for a prosecco to puree ratio of 5:1, 3.5:2, 3:1, and 2:1, all of which come from reputable sources.

I was looking at recipes on Haigh's CocktailDB, Drinkboy (aka Robert Hess), in Haigh's book, and in DeGroff.

I'll look for the template thing.

Philvarner 18:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


One more option: the box could just list the ingredients instead of giving proportions. Since the Wikipedia entry isn't supposted to be a recipe book (as per the references to the BartendingWiki [or whatever it's called]), it seems that this would be appropriate. Also, the IBA recipes are available on the IBA website, so this information is both duplicate and close to copyright violation.

Philvarner 18:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I responded on your talk page. --Willscrlt (Talk) 01:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


I think you've done a fantastic job on the cocktail pages. I actually remember looking a few months ago and couldn't find much good information, so I was actually surprised when I revisted last weekend. The increase in quality was part of the reason that I decided to start contributing.

Willscrlt: 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

I actually don't think we should have an "official" source. What I was actually arguing for was that the "ingredients" only list the ingredients with no proportions. Otherwise, you'll continually have people, like me, who see the proportions, think they're wrong (in their or others opinion) and try to change them. The reader can get the recipe other places, e.g., CocktailDB.com, Drinkboy, or the IBA. I don't like the IBA recipes on principle because they weren't democratically decided, they were declared by and industry group (I'm not against industry groups per se, just that they have different interests in mind than cocktail enthusiasts and cocktail historians). You said, "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).", and I don't think this true. The recipes were decided by the IBA, not debated, and are not necessarily historically accurate. The other issue is that if the IBA is the standard, non-IBA cocktails will either have no recipe or will have an arbitrary recipe. That's why I don't think any exact recipes should be in the box. I do think each drink should have a link to it's entry in CocktailDB and IBA recipe. I looked, and it is possible to link directly to the popped up window.

""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.""

Ted Haigh goes by Dr. Cocktail and is a highly-respected cocktail author and speaker. His site is CocktailDB.com, which has a large list of "classic" cocktails and their variations. His book is "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails". Dale DeGroff wrote "The Craft of the Cocktail", a well-respected and widely available book.

I agree that obscure references can be bad, but I think they're better than the mostly wrong information that's widely available on the web about cocktails.

"" 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."

I think giving them only one option is an even greater disservice. I think "new drink recipes or variations" is clearly in the recipe category. I think we should have several links to recipes at the bottom of each entry, but no precise recipe listed in the entry. Again, I think fewer people would try to change the ingredients or add measurements if none of them had measurements and there were many recipe links at the bottom.

One thing I think is important is to offer the history of various drinks. If a drink doesn't have a history, e.g., the Backdraft, I think it should be moved to a single page of "curious drinks" or something like that. I would be quite liberal with moving short cocktail articles into collection pages (if that's something that's appropriate for Wikipedia).

Oh, and just a bit on my background. I'm also a tech person rather than a professional drink-person. I've been into them for the last few months and have been reading quite a bit. I have a food blog and may be able to get some other more knowledgeable cocktail bloggers to contribute.

Thanks!

Philvarner 03:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing: why is the Bellini a cocktail and not a wine mix?

Philvarner 03:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

FYI, from a bartender I know:

The IBA is very popular in Europe. It's not very popular in North America though. They do a good job of maintain standard drinks in the EU, which is kind of good. If you order a drink in Italy from an IBA bartender, and then travel to France you'd almost get the same drink, unlike North America. But, I'm not sure their drinks follow the historical recipes or whether they are abbreviated versions.

Philvarner 05:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

So, I created the Wine cocktail page, but then realized there's not much to put on it. Since it just an obvious description and a list, I'd actually be in favor of leaving it in the List of Cocktails page. Perhaps getting rid of the beer cocktail page would also be good, since it seems to duplicate the list in the LoC page.

Philvarner

Ah, so I see the difference now. Nevermind.

I put the bellini and the mimosa on it, the two that came to mind. I'd say the qualification should be if the majority of the alcohol by volume from the wine is greater than the distilled spirits, then it should be moved to the Wine cocktail page.

Philvarner 05:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Cocktail Wiki questions

Couple of things:

A added a page Fizz(cocktail) to replace the Gin Fizz and Ramos Gin Fizz pages. I haven't added it to the List of Cocktails yet. Please do so if you think it's adequate. Redirects from the GF and RGF pages would be good too, if you can do those.

What's with the tag: open-curly-brace open-curly-brace Alcoholic beverages close-curly-brace close-curly-brace (sorry, I don't know the proper way to escape the wiki tags yet). It's on some pages, but not others (for instance, Mai-Tai but not Martini).

The Ramos Gin Fizz has text that's the same as on Gumbo Pages (run by a respectable and knowleable cocktailian, who wouldn't have copied it from wiki). Documented it in the Discussion.

Philvarner 06:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I responded on your talk page. --Willscrlt (Talk) 06:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Followup to Cocktail questions

Thanks for the info

I'll remember the space next time.

  • Good. :-)

I'll keep the merge thing in mind if it's likely to be contentious.

  • Take a look at the history of Jigger and Double jigger for an example of how to do one if you need to.

I'll add the Sour article (with a space!)

  • Sorry. I beat you to it. The Fizz article pointed out to me that it is much better to take an existing article (in this case Whiskey sour) and MOVE it to the new name, rather than attempting to merge multiple separate versions together (which I'm not sure can actually be done). So that's what I did. I will clean up the double redirects that were created and categorize all those redirects, too.
    • I'm glad you did!
  • So, in the future, I would suggest the following course of action:
    1. Bring up the proposed merge/whatever on the project talk page (we really should be more inclusive).
    2. Pick the one, best article to keep (or if all other things are equal, the one with the longest edit history), and that is the one that will be MOVEd to the new title location.
    3. The contents of the other article(s) can be incorporated into the new article.
    4. When everything has been incorporated, the old articles should be blanked and turned into redirects to the new articles. The redirects have to be handled in a certain way, however, so that the edit history is preserved.
    5. On the talk page of the new article, some template (not sure at the moment which) has to be added to point people to the old edit histories if they should ever need to view them.
  • As you can see, edit histories are a big thing that far too few Wikipedians understand or even care about.
    • Sounds good.

I'll add the Amaretto Sour to the sours page also. It's a very small amount of information to duplicate, and someone is going to add it to either place if it's not there anyway.

  • I'm thinking of creating a special article just for it that we transclude into both articles. That way, only one article has to be edited, and both get updated. I remember reading about that somewhere, and it is an acceptable option in a case like this. It will be fun to figure out exactly how to go about that. So for now, just use {{main|Amaretto sour}} as the only content for Amaretto sour on the Sours page. Then I can insert the transcluded portion there when it's ready.
    • Done. I think it should stay on the Amaretto page, since that's what it's really associated with, more so than sours.

The classification gets a bit difficult here, since a Fizz is also a Sour. I'll experiment some, but I think the sour page will probably be something like a "common sours" section with links to the other pages (e.g., Sidecar, Margarita) and Sour-named drinks without their own page like Whiskey sour and Amaretto sour. We'll see.

  • Okay then. I'm glad you're figuring that out, not me. Leave me the easy things like esoteric templates, transcluding sub-pages, and properly categorizing reirects, and I will leave you the challenging part of figuring out how to classify those drinks. Hehe.
    • I'll think a bit on this.

Thanks Philvarner 07:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What's with the end of the month

You mentioned something about needing to get a lot of things done before the end of the month. What's the deadline for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philvarner (talk • contribs) February 8, 2007

In December, when I started the cleanup project for WikiProject Cocktails, I set the end of February as a reasonable deadline to complete the process. Actually, at the time, I didn't know if it was reasonable or not, but I knew that people would need a firm deadline, and 3 months seemed as far out as people were likely to tolerate.
In December, there were several AFD nominations within the scope of our project to kill off stubs (especially the stubs that were nothing other than recipes). I established that deadline as a compromise to encourage people to stop nominating the articles I was trying to improve, without allowing such cleanup to drag on forever and never be completed. Initially, that request was ignored, but after seeing some good results, the number of AFD nominations dropped off sharply. There are still several articles that are more or less likely to be AFD'ed around March 1st, if they are not cleaned up before then (ranked in order of jeopardy):
Between your, Happy-melon's, and my efforts, we stand a very good chance of getting most, if not all these up to an acceptable standard by the end of the month, which makes me very happy. I'm sure I couldn't have done nearly so much with out your help, and the help of other editors who have helped more anonymously. --Willscrlt (Talk) 22:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
my 2c:
I added a Historical section to the list of cocktails, but I think this should be split into something else. I don't know what to name it yet, so I didn't want to make the page.
on the merge delete candidates:
Daisy (cocktail) - Cleaned up and put in historical section.
Gin Fizz - done
Bull Shot, Captain Kinger, Carrot Cake (cocktail), , Effervescent moonshine, Freddie Bartholomew (cocktail), Jellybean (cocktail), Lorraine (cocktail), Mock champagne - minor drinks, these should be merged into the list.
Jäger Bomb - popularly important, but should be on a shots page
Planter's punch - important, but not much to it. I think we need a Tiki drinks page for this
Salty dog (cocktail) -- important, but not much to it. Move to the list of cocktails.
Satan's Whiskers -- I cleaned this up, but I don't think it needs to be on a separate page.
I'll get started on this.
Another idea: create a new page for "stupid drinks in which you drop a shot of something into something else" (I don't know what the real name for this type of thing is, so that's my snarky name) and merge the short-ish Irish Carbomb page and the JagerBomb page to it.

Philvarner 06:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I would agree with creating some type of an historical cocktails articles that focuses on the history of pre-, during-, and post- prohibition cocktails, perhaps with one or two illustrative cocktails in each section. I think that would be a good branch off of the main Cocktails article. I think that building "family" pages for things like Sours, Fizzes, and so forth is a good idea for dealing with broad classes of drinks (I will be updating the Infobox to handle "families" (see Sour (cocktail) for how to configure the infobox for that, even though it doesn't do anything special quite yet).
  • I would keep the regular link to the main article. If the main article is merged to a different page, that's okay. A redirect will work fine. It also allows someone to expand the article again at a later time without breaking links.
  • As we condense and merge, we need to keep in mind that in the future, people may wish to expand and split again. That's perfectly fine, and we should make it as easy as possible for them.
  • The List of cocktails should remain a sort of master list to help people find whatever it is, and serve as a catch-all for minor drinks that really do not fit anywhere else.
  • At least, that's how I see this making the most sense both now and into the future. You're free to disagree, and that's good, because I like a lot of your ideas. :-) --Willscrlt (Talk) 06:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Another idea: create a new page for "stupid drinks in which you drop a shot of something into something else" (I don't know what the real name for this type of thing is, so that's my snarky name) and merge the short-ish Irish Carbomb page and the JagerBomb page to it.

Philvarner 06:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  • They are all variations on a Boilermaker (beer cocktail). Carbomb could be merged into the Boilermaker article, but that would definitely need to go through a formal discussion process, because Carbomb receives a lot of interest. I doubt consensus could be reached on merging it. As to Jager Bomb, I think I already discussed merging it with the main Jaegermeister article.
  • In many instances, I am in favor of adding drinks like that directly to the main alcohol's page. Amaretto is one where I did a lot of that. Herbsainte was one created by someone else before me that is a similar idea.
  • A similar "family" is the Snakebite (beer cocktail), which is where you mix a shot (or equal parts) of something with something else. Though that is also similar to a Shandy, which is where you mix equal parts beer with lemonade or other soft drink. All variations on a theme. It's hard to know where to draw a dividing line. --Willscrlt (Talk) 06:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I created the page Minor_cocktails to put Satan's Whiskers, etc. I don't like the name and am trying to think of something better. I see it for drinks that don't have enough info for a single page, but more than just an ingredients list. I haven't done the redirects since I want the name to change. Philvarner 06:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • No. I don't like that either. I faced the same problem with Cocktails with less common spirits. I was originally wanting to say "minor spirits" or "other cocktails", but each would have offended someone. Pisco has few drinks associated with it, but it's a HUGE source of national pride (and edit wars) between Peru and Chile (be very careful when you edit anything to do with Pisco). Likewise, a cocktail we feel is minor (or even historical) is likely to be considered offensive to someone who loves that drink. We have to remain totally non-value-judging in our naming. --Willscrlt (Talk) 06:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Editing the Todo list?

Should I edit the todo list when something is done? Or is it more of a static thing that shows what was decided to do ? Philvarner 06:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  • For now, it would probably be best to <s>Strike-through</s> the text (Strike-through) to indicate it was completed. Or, if you moved something, just add a note there. Eventually we can come up with a page that lists what everyone has done, and we can move things from the current to-do to the completed list as a record of our work. But I'd rather focus on getting real work done than getting caught up in administrative tasks. :-) --Willscrlt (Talk) 23:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Snakebite reversion

Okay on the reversion. If people keep trying to add anything, then I'm definitely in favor of anything that dissuades them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Philvarner (talk • contribs) 07:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

Effervescent moonshine removal

The drink Effervescent moonshine doesn't seem to exist outside of wikipedia. Googling for either it or the "Norwegian" term in the article only give hits for either wikipedia or the wikipedia copycats. I suggest complete removal, but I don't know how to initiate the process. Philvarner 08:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Agreed. Try the {{prod}} template first (follow the link for options). If it is removed, then a full AFD process will need to be started. --Willscrlt (Talk) 10:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe Gilmore

All of the Gilmore cocktails have been merged into Joe Gilmore. It probably needs some polishing, but I need to wait a while. All of the merge redirects have been add. The main issue remaining is that the infoboxes are longer than the entries for each cocktail, and I don't know the proper line/entry break to use. -- figured it out. Philvarner 22:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Cocktails

Hi, I noticed you've been doing a bunch of work regarding List of cocktails and other articles related to cocktails. Just wanted to mention that I did a bunch of stuff regarding cocktails articles in the past. When I first discovered the cocktails articles here, I found that a large percentage of the articles consisted of nothing but recipes, which violates WP:NOT. So, I transwikied over 100 of them to wikibooks(where they eventually got moved to the huge Glossary page there), and deleted them all from here.

Well, actually, I made them all into redirects to Cocktail. They're mostly still there, if you were ever interested in seeing them, clicking on "what links here" from Cocktail and looking at most of the entries which are redirects will find them.

I actually know basically nothing about cocktails, I was just attempting to get unencylopedic content out of wikipedia. But I figured I'd mention this if you ever wanted to resurrect some of those articles and turn them into actual articles, instead of what they were which was merely recipes. --Xyzzyplugh 23:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Responded on your talk page. --Willscrlt (Talk) 12:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks, bartending, etc.

Hi Willscrlt. Yes, I'm still active on WB (I'm an admin), but really don't know enough about bartending to add to the conversation either there or here. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 16:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Im back

Yeah im going to have to start helping with this stuff - i feel bad for not wiki-ing thuglastalk|edits 15:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Review of List of cocktails

Hey Will. Thanks for the advice. Don't worry, I'm not about to restructure anything major without a lot of input.

I've been going through entries on the List of cocktails. As you've probably seen, I've removed some that don't exist, and have clean up some that do. I don't know whether this should go on the "To do" list or the discussion page, so please move it to wherever it's appropriate. Comments?

A couple of general things:

(1) a page "Soft drink cocktails" to go with the Wine cocktails and Beer cocktails pages. "Soft drink" is the page that "soda" and "pop" etc. redirect to. This can hold all of the entries like Jack and Coke, 7 & 7, etc. This will help keep these from proliferating.

(2) a page "Coffee cocktails" to put all of the various American "national" coffees (Spanish, Jamaican, etc) and traditional "real" national coffees like Karsk.

Expand/edit page

  • Tom Collins - add history
  • Bronx edit
  • Gimlet edit
  • John Collins expand
  • Bumbo (also known as Bombo or Bumboo) expand
  • Moscow Mule expand page
  • Singapore Sling editing. The first sentence makes no sense.
  • Hurricane expand or merge

Expand only description

  • Presbyterian - includes bourbon expand desc, not page
  • Man O'War - includes bourbon expand description, not page

Merge

  • Ramos Gin Fizz merge to Fizz
  • Gin Sour merge to Sours
  • Brandy Alexander - merge into Other classic cocktails, page is mostly recipes
  • Lynchburg Lemonade merge
  • CS Cowboy merge
  • Mickey Slim merge
  • Wine cooler merge
  • 7 & 7 merge
  • Jack and Coke merge
  • Piscola merge
  • Karsk merge w/ coffee based
  • French 75 merge, transwiki recipes
  • Zurracapote merge w/ sangria
  • Tinto de Verano merge w/ sangria
  • Vodka Red Bull merge into Soft drink cocktails article
  • Champagne Cocktail merge
  • Spritzer merge
  • Mimosa merge
  • Rose Kennedy Cocktail merge
  • El Presidente merge
  • Buck's Fizz merge into Fizz
  • Screwdriver merge
  • Apple Martini merge
  • White Lady or Delilah merge
  • Rusty Nail merge
  • Panama merge
  • Pink Gin merge
  • Stinger merge
  • Lime Rickey merge into Rickey article
  • Black Russian merge into White Russian
  • Feijoa Dancer merge or delete
  • Backdraft (also a Pepperdraft variation) merge
  • B & B merge
  • Buttery Nipple merge
  • Sake Bomb merge
  • Glogg merge (already tagged by someone else)

Delete

  • Salmiakki Koskenkorva - delete or merge, sounds like a hoax, and I couldn't find any reliable references to it.


Responses

Wow. A great job on this list. :-)

Soft drink cocktails. Eh. I think there has got to be a better name for that. It's bad enough we have beer cocktails (cocktails are distilled spirit based, not beer-based) and wine cocktails, but soft-drink cocktails is really stretching things. However, if you find enough evidence that the term is currently in-use elsewhere (which is the case with beer cocktails and wine cocktails), then okay. Otherwise, we should not invent a term just for the sake of article classification convenience.

Ditto with coffee cocktails.

As to these new pages, please remember to fully develop them within the Mixed Drinks WikiProject Work Area. A review by other project participants would be a good idea before moving the article into main space, just to be sure the article is fully up to Wikipedia standards and not in conflict with other participants' efforts. Plus, developing in in Project-space allows other people to chip in and help with the work.

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I have been without a working computer since the 13th. And now I will be visiting relatives (with very limited Internet access) for a few days. I will try to dial in for messages, but I won't be able to return to Wikiwork for about a week or so, I fear. :-(

--Willscrlt (Talk) 06:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)