Timeline for How feasible is a generic question on average portion size?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 7, 2017 at 22:12 | history | edited | rumtschoMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
testing anchor tag
|
| Jan 12, 2017 at 20:03 | comment | added | rumtscho Mod | Luckily, it is up to the community to provide an answer, not to those discussing the meta question, so we don't have to create the answer here and now :) I think I imagined the same thing as you - "explains why it's hard and what they need to think about". For me, this is the opposite of the answer they have come here for, which would have been on the lines of "cook 115 g of meat per person, plus 5% extra portions for seconds". | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 19:57 | comment | added | Cascabel Mod | I'm not suggesting writing the answer here, I'm just responding to things like "incredibly wide range of X" and "addressing the flaws in their thought process" - it sounded like you were suggesting writing an answer to explain to people that they can't get an answer, while I'm hoping for us to write an answer that explains why it's hard and what they need to think about, then still gets them an answer based on that. Sorry if I misunderstood. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 17:13 | comment | added | rumtscho Mod | I think this comment brought the answer into the wrong direction - I just didn't plan to write the full answer to the canonical question here. I was not suggesting that we focus on the extremes. And yet the "average" range is also very wide. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to pinpoint it as best we can. It just means that the answer to the canonical question will not be what the OP expects, and that's the whole reason why having a canonical question is a good idea. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 16:07 | comment | added | Cascabel Mod | Yup, what Catija said, or alternatively, give average values and an amount to adjust by for various things. The key is that someone needs to be able to read it, think of the main ways their situation differs from average, account for them, and end up with actual numbers. If they can't, we shouldn't be dup-closing. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 15:57 | comment | added | Catija | We could pretty easily give a middle number and then give numbers for a "ladies only" group and "college students" to give a range. My guess is that amount will depend less the larger the group is. And any answer should start with a disclaimer that even professional catering companies have leftovers because you always allow for overage. Too much food is always better than insufficient amounts. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 15:47 | comment | added | Cascabel Mod | I think while the full range is large, an awful lot of people are either serving average adults or average families. It's really just not that common to end up catering for less typical groups, and extremely common to cater for family gatherings, office events, and so on . So by focusing too much on the extremes, we risk avoid helping people with the typical cases. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 15:32 | comment | added | rumtscho Mod | @Jefromi maybe I expressed myself wrong. It is not impossible to give ranges, but it is impossible to give a point estimate that it useful, and the ranges are so broad that they only become useful after taking additional information into account ("am I feeding ballerinas or lumberjacks") which is rather independent of the food type - and this information seems to be highly surprising to the askers. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 15:30 | comment | added | rumtscho Mod | @Catija no, not one that can be used without changes, although there are useful bits. I have looked through them last time. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 15:26 | comment | added | Cascabel Mod | To be clear, I'm suggesting giving useful ranges, not just telling people it's impossible; caterers do this all the time. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 15:15 | comment | added | Catija | I wonder if any of the existing questions/answers has a strong enough answer to be co-opted as a base question... | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 14:33 | history | answered | rumtschoMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |