Wikipedia, WikiProject Food and Drink and the Food Portal

Some of you may not know, but I work extensively on Wikipedia to improve the food and drink articles. In an attempt to get people to work together in a cohesive format a project was started up some time ago which I have taken the regins of in order to keep it going on the right path. The project is entitled WikiProject Food and Drink. We look to come up with proper criteria for the improvement of all articles in the addressed food and drink themes.

We also manage what is know as the Food Portal, which I update each month (which is why I am posting this today, as I just finished updating the portal for the next month) with a high quality featured article which has met certain criteria to be nominated as such. All such articles must be properly sourced and have a decent level of quality to them. There are also some other fun items on there such as a featured food quote (this month's one is really funny) along with a featured person, a picture and some "Did you know...?" facts.

Many academics frown upon Wikipedia, and I can see why as the format for creating articles is pretty open and when sourced, the sources are not always reliable (Ie. third party writers bias). However that is what projects like this one try to avert. I spend a lot of time on this stuff, probably too much but it is a great hobby that actually helps me learn more in the process. Just working on the French cuisine and Italian cuisine articles got me to do a big chuck of research to make those articles up to par.

I hope you take some time and check it out and see what you can learn new about some different food items. There is also a Wine project, along with a cheese project, beer project, herbs and spices project, ice cream project, one for the foodservice profession and others which you can also find links to from my profile on Wikipedia. Enjoy, and if you have some spare time and a desire to work on some articles let me know or just stop by and start working on some of the stuff we have posted in the project.