User talk:SilkTork/Beer Archive/Beer 2007
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[edit] Re: O Dear
I saw your comment on my talk page about removing a chunk of history, but you didn't mention which article. Can I assume it was the beer style article? As I wrote in my comment, there is already a history section in the article and that section (the first history) seemed much more "encyclopedic" than the second history, which I removed. If you're referring to a different article, however, which one is that? Mikebe 09:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the section you removed:
"Jackson's book had a particular influence in North America where the writer Fred Eckhardt was also starting to explore the nature of beer styles. The wine importing company Merchant De Vin switched to importing beers mentioned in Jackson's book. Small brewers started up, producing copies and interpretations of the beer styles Jackson mentioned. And home-brewers started to construct recipes around the beers which eventually resulted in the formation in 1985 of the BJCP, an organisation originally set up to judge home-brewed beers brewed to specific styles but which eventually developed into something of a guide for American commercial brewpubs and craft brewers. - - While North America developed beer styles into a serious study with fixed parameters of bitterness, colour, aroma, yeast, ingredients and strength, other counties continued to mainly categorise beers loosely by strength and colour, with much overlapping of naming conventions. " SilkTork 12:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- As I said in the comment when I removed it, this is American-centric. It is also completely unreferenced. And finally, the sentence regarding the BJCP, again, "which eventually developed into something of a guide for American commercial brewpubs and craft brewers" -- where are the references for this? Frankly, I see absolutely no evidence that this is true. Mikebe 12:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see this as being American-centric. This is a mention of America in a discussion of beer style history which has already mentioned several other countries. Mentioning America when it comes to the time that it appropriate to mention the influence America has had on the modern fascination for beer style doesn't appear to me to be America-centric. There are some who hold the view that the modern concept of "beer style" is entirely American.
"America exists, as do other countries." is an America-centric statement.
"Africa exist, as does the Middle East and America and other places." Is not America-centric. And deleting "and America" from that sentence under the view that it is America-centric is perhaps focusing too much on references to America. SilkTork 19:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Strongbow
I like the cut of your jib ! Have taken the liberty of polishing up your shiny ammends to Strongbow. Best wishes.Warburton62 20:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, the page will be unprotected. After seeing a request for page protection at WP:RFPP, I went to check the article history and the user talk pages, and I thought protection was warranted in this case. Many times people dispute the full protection of an article, so I wasn't surprised that they started telling me to unprotect the page when it really wasn't the right time. Usually if I go to a RFPP request, and see a potential edit war, I will protect in an anticipatory move. Anyway, thanks for letting me know, and thank you for the kind words. Nishkid64 20:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] List of beers topic discussion
I am weary of the extreme choice that you made concerning List of commercial brands of beer. Perhaps there was a Portal discussion (which I don't read) that helped you come to this choice, but by editing the topic in the way that you did, it no longer looks like a list topic. It is a category put in article form. So far, on every "list" page that I am familiar with, the list contains the information directly connected to the list (a "List of episodes" contains the names of all episodes for a show with links to articles if they exist, not a link to a category containing the articles that have been created, which means if an article does not exist, unfamiliar people will not know this). In essence, your change makes the topic feel like a soft redirect because the topic itself no longer contains any useful information, only links to where it can be found. On top of this, though the list was large and difficult to maintain, it did contain an enormous number of beers for which no articles have been created. Now, most of that is lost to cutting 100 countries down to 50 regions with possibly incomplete categories. To me, the better choice would have been leave the page as it was prior to your edits with an intro or See Also link to the Category: Beer and breweries by region. However, I did not want to outright revert without some discussion here, on my page, or on the talk page of the article. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 00:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Yes, thanks for getting in touch. It was a major edit - and you are right - it would have been better to have had a prior discussion. My mistake was that I confused it with List of breweries and Beer and nationality - both of which I have been working on for some time, so it didn't appear to me to be a sudden edit. I can see now, that I hadn't done any work on that article since May 2006, when I changed the intro. Anyway - the article as it stood, as you are aware, was a red link farm. And most of the links that did work went to the wrong places. The article was not helpful, was not easy to manage, and was simply encouraging people to list non-notable beers. It should have been proposed for deletion - and it may still get that proposal - but I could see some value in it as a more user-friendly guide to the information and articles that people wanted, than the main Beer and breweries by region category. I take your point about listing beers that Wiki does not currently have articles on. But articles are not the places to post such requests. This is where they should go: Wikipedia:Requested articles. In the meantime, if you wish to browse through a list of over 30,000 beers you may take a look here at RateBeer.com or BeerAdvocate.com. SilkTork 00:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Cocktails
First, thank you very much for the award. It is nice to be recognized for largely thankless work. :-)
Second, please realize that I am no expert in mixed drinks. I rarely drink the things myself. I only got involved because I saw the original List of cocktails was such a horrible mess, that I had to fix an error, or two, or twenty, or two-hundred, etc.
In the beginning, I, like you, tried to bring the beer mixes in line with the cocktails. Since then, I have learned that there are "true cocktails", which are mixed drinks where the primary alcohol is a distilled spirit. Beer mixes (and that term was in use before I ever got involved, but I do not know the derivation) are for mixed drinks where beer is the primary one.
Is the distinction important? To me, personally, not in the slightest. To cocktail enthusiasts (and some beer enthusiasts), it's quite a different story. In the Talk:List of cocktails archive, you will find some discussion about it. Likewise in some of the early WP:MIX talk archives, and also at b:Bartending.
I have seen a number of potential reasons for the distinction, but one that makes sense is that when you mix certain types of alcohols together, you are more likely to get nastier hangovers and become drunk more quickly. Most beer mixes appear to focus on the "drunk faster" (despite the nasty hangover the next day). Cocktails, on the other hand, may not even pack that much of a punch, but to aficionados, it's about the complex flavors that develop as the various flavors mix and blend and swirl around inside the mouth, OR how the particular drink looks (layered shooters).
Therefore, there definitely seems to be a cultural difference between beer mixes and cocktails, even in the fans of each type of drink.
All that being said, I think that the professional bartenders in the WikiProject Mixed Drinks, and anyone else interested in the discussion, should make the decision. If you don't mind, I would like to reverse the category changes you made on the beer mixes that are now classified as cocktails with beer. To me, it seems a step backwards, since one thing I have been trying to do is get the two clearly split apart. I don't want to start an edit war, or anything. And if people who actually know a lot about this subject (and that may well include you) reach a consensus to merge everything back together again, then I'm totally fine with that. I'd just rather revert for now, while the edits are fresh and easily un-doable, than wait and have a tougher time making the changes later.
I would appreciate your feedback. If you agree, let me know. If you strongly disagree, also let me know sooner. :-) --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 04:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
- On second thought, after a fair amount of Googling, I definitely see your point. However, I think the distinction is still an important one: cocktails with beer and "beer cocktails" (which appears to be the more common term for what someone here at Wikipedia originally dubbed a "beer mix") do seem to be somewhat different beasts within the same zoo of animals (like orangutans and chimpanzees or great white sharks and hammerheads). So, I think I will go ahead and essentially revert the drinks you changed, but change them to "beer cocktails" instead of "beer mixes", and then create a new article on "beer mixes" once I figure out exactly what a beer mix really is. I hope that you will agree with that logic. If not, we can still always bring it up for discussion.
- I thought of another distinction between beer mixes (old definition) and cocktails... At least in the U.S., there are many bars that are only allowed to serve beer and wine -- distilled spirits are prohibited. However, they can sometimes serve the various ingredients, and the customer can mix them directly. Since cocktails, by definition, are served with spirits, they would be forbidden. Perhaps the person who chose the name "beer mix" originally had that in mind. Perhaps it is even a distinction that is used in some places. However, it does seem that "beer cocktail" is the phrase currently in vogue with the media.
- I will change them to beer cocktails, and I hope that will satisfy rather than offend. :-) It's always so tricky writing these, because one cannot assume that things work in other countries, or even elsewhere within the same country, as it does in one's own part of the world. Further, one cannot always assume that anything on Wikipedia is automatically correct, which I more-or-less did when it came to the term "beer mix". Live and learn, I guess. --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 05:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
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)
I've just looked at what you have done. I'm happy. SilkTork 09:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yay! I'm happy you're happy. I left you more over on my talk page. --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 10:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] WikiProject Mixed Drinks - Important discussions starting
Hi. Philvarner and I have various thoughts on how to restructure the entire mixed drinks and bartending section of Wikipedia, and that also squarely ties in with WikiBooks. Some of these are pretty sweeping changes.
Some of the ideas Phil has suggested involve eliminating, merging, or otherwise changing how Beer and Wine cocktails are distinguished (or not) from true cocktails. I know this is a topic we have both discussed in the past. Your input would be very helpful.
On top of that, a large part of my vision for the outcome of this restructuring involved good collaboration with the sister WikiProjects, both here at Wikipedia and elsewhere. Since pubs and bars tie in so closely with beer, too, I think it would be great if you could pass along an invitation to other Beer WikiProject members, too. We have even created a Bartending WikiProject Task Force that is going to be incorporating some important, but largely neglected, areas of Wikipedia related to pub life. I could use help with that, too, because I probably know less about all that than I do about mixed drinks. These are actually two separate requests, but feel free to pass them along to whomever you feel might be interested.
Please visit the Restructure Section to read, discuss, and hopefully help plan these important changes. And visit WP:BARTF for the Bartending Task Force.
Finally, I have not forgotten your invitation to join in the discussions concerning the infobox for the beer project. I do intend to do that, but I have been so busy with so many different things, that I just haven't had a chance yet. I have actually tweaked a few things at your Project. Basically only little things that help tie your templates and categories in line with the other related WikiProjects under Food & Drink. As BARTF gets more active, I imagine that I will probably get even more involved with the Beer project. Should be fun!
Thank you. Have a great week! --Willscrlt (Talk·Cntrb) 12:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
