Who Needs Wikis When You Have Github?

A new taco recipe library highlights something interesting about the nature of spontaneous collaboration on the web.

This weekend, on a blustery evening, his tummy full of steak and apple tacos, journalist and technologist Dan Sinker embarked on a spiritual journey.

Which is to say, he made Tacofancy: an online, collaborative library of taco recipes. And how he made it reveals something about collaboration on the web works now: it’s increasingly wiki-free.

Debuted at 7 p.m. Central on Saturday, the library took off. Now boasting more than 50 recipes, it includes details on how to make slow-cooked salsa verde chicken, drunken green beans, and chipotle sauce. It has directories for all the various taco elements—base layers, mix-ins, condiments, seasonings—and what they come together to make, “full tacos.” It even has recipes for “like_tacos,” or taco-esque foods that resemble, but are not exactly, tacos. This category includes roti, gua bao, and smørbrød, as all satisfy the ingenious definition penned by programmer and Taco Fancy-contributor Max Ogden*: