Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Bot/Recipe Bot

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

 Not done @U+1F360: This request seems to be abandoned, please reopen it if that is not the case. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:28, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

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Recipe Bot

Recipe Bot (talk • contribs • new items • new lexemes • SUL • Block log • User rights log • User rights • xtools)
Operator: U+1F360 (talk • contribs • logs)

Task/s: Crawl https://www.allrecipes.com and insert items into wikidata with strctured data (ingredients and nutrition information).

Code: TBD. I haven't written the bot yet. I would like to get feedback before doing so.

Function details:

• Crawl https://www.allrecipes.com and retrieve the structured data (example) for a recipe.
• Parse the list of ingredients and nutrition information, Halt if any items are not parsed cleanly.
• See if a Wikidata item already exists (unlikely, but a good saftey check)
• Create an item for the recipe with the title, structured information (ingredients and nutrition infomration), and URL to the full work.

--U+1F360 (talk) 14:21, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

admittedly I'm not familiar with WD's bot policy but this does not seem useful as creating empty items would be useless and there is no place on any project where we should be mass posting recipes. Praxidicae (talk) 13:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Praxidicae: The items wouldn't be empty, they would contain metadata about the recipes. It would allow users to query recipes based on the ingredents, nutrition information, cook time, etc. U+1F360 (talk) 13:42, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

When I meant empty, I meant to other projects. Wikidata shouldn't serve as a cookbook. This is basically creating a problem that doesn't exist. Praxidicae (talk) 13:44, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Who says Wikidata shouldn't serve as a cookbook? I would love to query Wikidata for recipes using e.g. the ingredients I have at home. --Haansn08 (talk) 09:21, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Praxidicae: Most items on Wikidata do no have any sitelinks. I asked in the project chat if adding recipes was acceptable, and at least on a conceptual level that seems fine? I believe it would meet point #2 under Wikidata:Notability. I'm not sure how it's any different from Wikidata:WikiProject_sum_of_all_paintings. U+1F360 (talk) 13:52, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I fundamentally disagree I guess. This is effectively using Wikidata as a mini project imo. Praxidicae (talk) 13:53, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I feel like the ship has sailed on that question (unless I'm missing something). U+1F360 (talk) 13:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

It wasn't a question, it's me registering my objection to this request. Which I assume is allowed...Praxidicae (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Praxidicae: Of course it is. :) I guess my point is that, the "problem" is that our coverage of recipes is basically non-existent. I'd like to create a bot to expand that coverage. A recipe is a valuable creative work. Of course I don't expect people to write articles about recipes (seems rather silly). In the same way, we are adding every (notable) song to Wikidata... that's a lot of music. U+1F360 (talk) 14:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Which is what I find problematic. There have been proposals in the past to start a recipe based project and they have been rejected each time by the community. This is effectively circumventing that consensus. Not to mention this already exists and I also have concerns about attribution when wholesale copying from allrecipes. Praxidicae (talk) 14:03, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

What about the copyright side? Their Terms of Use specifies that the copyrights are held by the copyright owners (users) and there is no indication of free license in the website. Recipes are not mere facts, numbers and/or IDs. Also, there is no indication of "why Wikidata needs this info". — regards, Revi 14:18, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I'll kick myself for asking, but U+1F360, sell this to me. Explain the copyright details, explain the instructional sections, explain how alternative ingredients will work, explain how differences in measurement units in different countries will work. This is your opportunity. Sell it to all of us. Nick (talk) 15:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Let me attempt to answer "all" the qustions. :) For some background, I was recently trying to find recipes based on the ingredients I have on hand. Sure, you can do a full-text search on Google, but if you have 2 potato (Q16587531), it doesn't tell you if the recipes require 2 or less potato (Q16587531), just that it mentions the word. :/ Also, not to mention all the other ingredients you may need that you may not have (especially during a global pandemic). I was looking for just a database of recipes (not the recipes themselves), and as far as I could find, that doesn't exist (at least not in a structured form). I also thought of many other questions which are difficult (if not impossible) to answer without such a dataset like: What is the most common ingredient in English-langauge recipes? What percentage of recipes are vegitarian? Quesitons like this are un-answerable without a dataset of known recipes. As far as copyright is concerned, according to the US Copyright Office:

A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See Circular 33, Works Not Protected by Copyright.

At least in the United States, the "metadata" about a recipe (ingredients, nutirition information, cook time, etc.) cannot be copyrighted and therefore exists in the public domain. Since it's unclear whether the directions on a recipe are under copyright or not, I think it's safest to leave all directions in the source. As an example. Let's say we have a cookbook like How to Cook Everything (Q5918527) should we not catelog every recipe from the book in Wikidata? I would think this would be valuable information no? In my mind this is the same difference as an album like Ghosts V: Together (Q88691681) which has a list of tracks like: Letting Go While Holding On (Q93522041). I am not suggesting that we create a wiki of freely licened recipes. As @Praxidicae: mentioned that has been proposed and rejected many times. This is the same thing as music albums with songs or tv shows with epsides. Now we could make up a threshold of notability for recipes. Does it need to be printed in a book? Does it need at lest 3 reviews if on allrecipes? I'm not sure what makes a recipe notable or not, but in my mind they are valuable works for art that should be cataloged. U+1F360 (talk) 17:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I realized I missed a few questions in there. Alternative ingredients should be marked with a qualifier of some kind. Measurments should remain in whatever unit is in the referenced source (as we do with all other quantities on Wikidata). The measurments could be converted when a query is preformed or a recipe is retried. U+1F360 (talk) 17:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I manually created a little example Oatmeal or Other Hot Cereal (Q95245657) from a cookbook that I own. Open to suggetions on the data model! U+1F360 (talk) 23:02, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is another example: Chef John's Buttermilk Biscuits (Q95382239). Please let me know what you think and what should change (if anything). U+1F360 (talk) 17:47, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea of having recipes in Wikidata. The examples show we need more properties/qualifiers to better describe recipes. --Haansn08 (talk) 09:40, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.