Talk:Robot

Archives

Due to age/length some older discussions have been archived:

• Archive 1 - (to June 2005)
• Archive 2 - (to 16 Feb 2007)
• Archive 3 - (to 13 Aug 2007
• Archive 4 - (to 09 Sep 2007)
• Archive 5 - next to start

A Class status

Since this article seems to be A-class status now, I have removed the "Failed GA" notice at the top. I hope this was the right thing to do. Rocketmagnet 12:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Versatras150.jpg

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BetacommandBot 05:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hate link?

Listen, I'm not sure if you guys want to delete this, but the current note #26 directs to what I could only describe as a hate link [1]. I'm not gonna take any action it, because I'm not sure what the point of referencing it was... So if I'm mistaken, forgive me. Themindset 03:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right. It was me who added the link, as it was the only reference I could find for the Asimov statement. It wasn't until I re-read the page a couple of months later that I realised what the whole web site was about. I've looked hard for a page on the web which is a suitable replacement, but I can't find one. I'm not sure what the policy is about this kind of thing. I almost deleted it myself, but didn't because I couldn't find a replacement. Any ideas anyone? Rocketmagnet 12:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Woo hoo! After a lot of Googling, I finally found a replacement for the link. Rocketmagnet 22:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Reducing the size of this article

This article is pretty long now. I reckon that quite a lot of it can be moved to other sections. For example, some of it might be moved to the Robotics article. Anyone got any opinions? Rocketmagnet 00:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC) ^{Superscript text}

Good Article Nomination

I'm a little confused now. It was my understanding that someone had made this article A-class. And if A-class is better than GA-class, why are we trying to get it voted into a lower class? Rocketmagnet 12:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Because the GA people always find some way to improve articles, even A-Class ones. It'll certainly help, specially to aim for FA-class. igordebraga ≠ 14:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

This is my general impression only. I'm giving it because I put a page up for GA status:

• It seems as though the "Can move with one or more axes of rotation or translation" example is included in the "Can make dexterous coordinated movements" example. I would think having a shorter list of what makes a robot would be an improvement.
• The term "agency" is a bit overused. I'm sure the writers know their stuff and this is a common term in the robotic field but some synonyms or a better definition of the word agency would help.
• It also seems as though the bulleted "robotic property" list should be ranked. As a layman the first two things I think about robots are that they are intelligent and shaped like some sort of lifeform.
• The rubber dog chew, shaped like ASIMO, example seems a tad too informal. Light humor is fine but I think this example is approaching slapstick.
• The Pick and Place robot, Contact Systems C5 Series[33] picture doesn't stand out as very robotic. The pick and place operation doesn't come across in the picture. After looking hard at the picture one last time I see what it is describing. It's not a big deal but a time lapse picture that was immediately recognizable might be a better candidate here.
• The picture of Cadmus is wonderful and I enjoyed the loose historical references to robots.

These are just comments. The page is outstanding. I can see from above that this article might actually be shooting for FA-class. It's got my vote. Mrshaba 10:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I contributed substantially to the article, and although I'm fairly happy with it, I think there is still a lot of work to do before it could be an FA.

• I'm not too happy about the list of robot properties either. I was hoping to come up with something more axiomatic. It's hard to rank the list because different people have different ideas about what are the most important properties. But it may be possible to produce a rough ranking.
• There is a link to the definition of agency. I don't think the robot article is the right place to define the word.
• I hardly think the rubber chew is slapstick, but if anyone think of an alternative, it should be replaced with something which is unambiguously passive.
• I agree about the Pick And Place robot picture. The problem with such robots is that they are really quite hard to illustrate in a single picture. They don't look much like robots, but they move like them. If anyone can find a better picture, that would be great.

Things I would like to see improved:

• History section: Currently there is a great deal about ancient historical stories about (probably) fictional robots, and very little about the development of real robots, and the technologies that enabled them. History is my weakest area, so I haven't tackled this much. It would be great if someone could do some work here.
• Dangers and fears: I'm just starting some research to tackle this now. I would like to rename it "Hopes and Fears" and discuss some of the things that are predicted in the future. It also needs more references.
• Literature: It's not bad at the moment, but could still use tidying up, and some references.
• Competitions: It's just a list at the moment (almost linkspam). Could do with some prose at the beginning at the very least.
• References: I'm slowly converting them all to templates. Only a few more to do.

Rocketmagnet 14:25, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I went too far by using the term slapstick. Goofy would more accurately describe my impression. There is no insult intended. I agree that something unambiguously passive should be thought of. I'll float it around. But getting back to the term agency... As I started through the page I wasn't immediately moved.. Agency was a significant part of this this because I was confused at first. My comments above concentrate on the first quarter of the page because as I went along I became increasingly impressed. It seems as though the early stuff is rather stiff. I figure part of this stiffness is due to the writers' desire to describe things accurately with the terminology of the field. I would like to stress again that the word agency, while I can understand it, needs more support. I looked at the link and I'm still left without a complete understanding of the term as it applies to robots. Again, I'm a layman, I'm only pointing out what I see as a weakness on the page. I assume robots can display different sorts of agency. An early sentence describing a primary agency of robots would help from my perspective. Again, the page is great. It's stuffed with oodles of good stuff. I don't think it's too long because it totally kept me going.

No insult taken. Now, agency: as the article explains, there really is no simple or official definition of the word robot. Anything that attempts to define robot will need some time and thought to understand it. While I was researching peoples' definitions of robot, it took me a little while to realise that agent was the best word. I agree that a layman's understanding of the word agent is different from someone involved in robots. They might think of travel agent, or estate agent. They might even think of a chemical agent. However, these meanings are actually very close to robot too. An agent is something which has the power to act, or has the authority to act on our behalf. Having agency of its own is what differentiates a robot from other machines.

I wanted to keep the first paragraph as short and simple as possible, and tried to elaborate on the meaning of agency in the 'Defining characteristics' section, and the difference between a roboticists' understanding and a layman's. But clearly something more is needed. Can you give some idea what you had in mind? Rocketmagnet 11:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from with specific word choice. The first thing I would suggest is to remove either agent or agency from one of the the first two sentences and instead use another word which means something close. I think the reader needs to be hit with different words to help them get the point you are trying to make. If you can spike neurons in different places you're more likely to get the reader. Hope that makes sense. I figure you've had to defend this word agency some so I don't want to protract this for you. The word intelligence might be used. Is there a reason why intelligence isn't used? Is it that you don't want robots to be confused with artificial intelligence? That would make sense. You could use the word intelligence and then just say flat out that robots should not be confused with artificial intelligence. Many might confuse the two so pointing out the difference doesn't hurt. I'm just throwing things out here. Again, I randomly came on the page and I'm not sure what you're thinking so disregard anything you wish. One other thought is that you could prioritize the two types of robots mentioned. You use the word both to describe robots and bots. Maybe using a phrase like, the word robot generally describes physical robots but also... The page is all about physical robots so you should give physical robots a higher rank with your phrasing.

Unfortunately, intelligence isn't quite the right word. Many robots do not have any intelligence at all. For example, most industrial robots are just running a script, and do not think for themselves in any way. The thing that makes them robots in people's minds is that they look like they're going about their business, and they look like arms. The only alternative to agency I can think of, is the appearance of intent. But I can't think of an alternative for agent.

The 2,3 and 4 references can be move to the end of the sentence. No worries. Easy fix.

I wondered about this. I know that the refs normally go after the punctuation, but they relate to the discussion, not to the list of properties. So I thought they should go immediately after the word discussion.

There should be some sort of tag or invisible note you can use to pull these references to the end of the sentence while still maintaining their relationship to the word discussion. I've used some tags in microsoft works that when you scroll over the word (or the reference in this case) the definition of the word pops up. In this case just the word discussion would pop up. I've really only been doing WP aggressively for the last 3 months. I'll come back with something. References are great but they annoy the eye in this case.

The alternative is to re-phrase the sentence so that the word discussion is at the end. Rocketmagnet 10:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I know you want to keep the intro short and sweet. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it could use a few (2 or 3) sentences that hook the reader. From a layout standpoint I would think two solid paragraphs should be used so a few more sentences of explanation would produce this. The second paragraph dangles. One more sentence would fix this. If you appreciate these comments I'll try to comment further. Remind me on my talk page and I'll come back. Mrshaba 08:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy for you to add more sentences, as long they help.

Double Hmmm... use the some degree of intelligence phrase you use in the bulltes in place of one of your uses of agency. i.e. A robot is a mechanical or virtual agent with some degree of intelligence. Or... conveys a sense that it has some degree of intent or intelligence of its own. Just thoughts... good luck. Mrshaba 08:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

You are right about agent taking a little while to understand, and I would really love the first paragraph to be phrased in a way that makes it sink in more quickly / immediately. I've tried to explain that definition of robot to some of my friends, and their first reaction is always "huh?". After some verbal explanation, some of them begin to agree. So I'm sure the article needs some kind of extra punch to it. Rocketmagnet 09:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

What do you think of the phrase, "behave in an ordered or intelligent way." This or something like it would encompass the script (ordered) idea that you brought up as well as more sophisticated (intelligent) machines that interact a bit. I looked here [2]. All they care about is re programmable. I think the word "ordered" might be the ticket because it will take care of the programming aspect of robots and hint at the slavish nature of them.

Whatever phrase is used, it should distinguish between robots and other machines. It should include robots, and exclude other machines. The word agent is the only word I have seen so far which does both. I think that ordered includes robots, but also includes many (most?) other machines too (how many disordered machines can you think of?). I think that intelligent excludes many (most?) robots. However, perhaps you mean ordered in a different way? Perhaps in the sense of giving an order? Rocketmagnet 10:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes... I order you to do this. Follow this script. Having a phrase like "behaves in an ordered or intelligent way" or another phrase of your choosing gives things up to the imagination of the reader. I think you should consider doing this rather than perusing an exact definition. Give a little ground by using a synonym in place of agent or agency. You understand what agent is but I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say over 90% of your audience does not understand this word in the way you are using it. I think you should sacrifice some exactitude to communicate things to your audience better. As I say, I figure you've had to defend this word agency a bit. I don't want to prolong your defense of the word but I council compromise. I don't think I'm going to be the last to wonder onto the page and bring this word up.

I agree. I'd think it was more like 98% of people would not fully understand the word agent. Pretty much everyone I've discussed it with has needed some help. But here is the dilemma: I want to get across a good definition of robot, and give an insight to the reader. I could either use what I think is the right wording, and thus they would learn, but risk the reader not making the effort to understand the definition. Or I could use a wording that was easier to understand, but which I think is not a good definition. In the latter case, the reader has not really learned something. In the former case they might do if they made the effort.

I would rather use the best words I could think of, but help the user to understand them, than to use another wording. I already tried to give the reader some help to understand the word agency, by saying the appearance of intent and giving links to the definition, and also links to reification, anthropomorphisation and pathetic fallacy. But I guess something more is needed.

One possible phrase, which I like, but I'm not sure is right for an encyclopedia is: "looks like it's going about its business". Because robots do look like they've got business to get on with, while other machines just look like they're clattering away. Rocketmagnet 10:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Wiktionary definition of agent is very good. Read it a couple of times and it could almost be describing robots.Rocketmagnet 10:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, this web page tries to examine the definition of robot, and comes to a very similar definition. Rocketmagnet 11:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I ran into an issue over the definition of solar energy which is my home base page. I wrote to everyone I could think of in an attempt to find a good working definition. National and international laboratories, famous authors, one member of the Solar Energy Hall of Fame etc. I did not get a definition which satisfied everyone. The definition currently used is far from the one I would like but what are you going to do. People are going to bring their own ideas to the page. If that's what they understand give in a little. You've written a great page. Good luck with the rest of it Rocketmagnet. Mrshaba 21:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I am seeing this more and more as I think of the definitions of things. So many things are impossible to define exactly. Mostly we seem to use the Engleberger definition. "I can't define it, but I know one when I see it". Rocketmagnet 11:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

One other thing and this might just be me. I was anticipating the root explanation of the word a little earlier. I looked up the word years ago and remembered it kinda meant slave. The origin/etymology of the word is quite interesting. The page does a good job explaining the origin of the word robot as well as all the things that robots do for us. This is just a thought but it seems like one of the important qualities of a robot is that they do low work (dangerous, repetitive etc). This is explained on the page but it is not included in the bulleted list. Maybe it should be. These are follow up thoughts. I am only a reader of the page. And once again... I think the page is great. Mrshaba 16:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have been thinking the same. At the moment, it's lost in the middle of the History section. Maybe it could have its own section Etymology. However, the fact that some robots do useful work is not one of the defining characteristics of robots. Therefore I did not include it in the bulleted list. Rocketmagnet 11:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I added the Etymology section, using text from the article, and the Karel Capek and RUR articles. Rocketmagnet 09:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks much better. Mrshaba 21:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :) Rocketmagnet 10:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Opening sentence

Not to be a stickler, but robots can be biological or nano-tech: for example, the remote-control rats and the nano-tech manufacturing research bots so I'm not sure the opening sentence on the page is quite true.Jdietsch 17:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about the "mechanical or artificial agent" sentence. Nano-tech still falls under "mechanical" and "artificial". Are the rats called robots? Wouldn't they be called "cyborgs" or something? Rocketmagnet 10:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Dangers and fears

Also, re the "Dangers and Fears" how about talking about lives saved by robots, like iRobot's PackBot and Foster-Miller's Talon, or the surgical robots that enable physicians to perform brain surgery that was too difficult and delicate to do unaided by mechanical systems if you're going to talk about people killed? Also, shouldn't there be a distinction between movies where fictional robots intentionally kill humans and some fellow who is knocked off because he forgot to turn off the automation system before he repaired it? Jdietsch 17:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not too keen on that whole section. I think it would be more useful to have a section called "Relationship with humans" or something, to discuss the unique relationship we have with robots, as opposed to other machines. This would also cover people's fears. Rocketmagnet 10:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I concur. How about "Human/Robot Interaction"? Dangers and Fears is a bit negative and the larger Human/Robot Interaction would capture those concerns in a more positive way. takeitupalevel 2:51 19 Nov 2007 EST —Preceding unsigned comment added by Takeitupalevel (talk • contribs) 19:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't think of a good angle though. This kind of section is outside of my expertise. What are the important points we want to get across? These are some I can think of:

• Humans have some kind of relationship with machines. They give them names and call ships 'she'.
• But robots have a special relationship with humans, in a way other machines don't.
• This is because robots are seen as having intent.

• This leads to thoughts about robots that we don't generally have about other machines or animals:

• 1. Some people assume that, since robots have intent, they have, or might one day have, desires.
• One day, robots might choose their own desires.
• The desires of robots might conflict with their own.
• A robot, or robots in general might one day desire to do something really bad, and successfully carry it out,
• Interestingly, while other animals are seen as having desires, nobody wonders if dogs will try to take over the world.
• This is because dogs are not seen to be improving in intelligence and strength every decade, while robots are.

• 2. Some people assume that robots will one day have complex social interactions with humans and even other robots.
• Such interations may involve talking, helping, becomming friends, having sex, loving and falling in love.
• These kind of interactions are seem to be less unacceptable with robots than with animals or machines, and are sometimes discussed seriously.

Any thoughts, please modify above accordingly. Rocketmagnet (talk) 00:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Turning the intro list into prose

Igordebraga, you tried to convert the intro list into prose. However, it still reads like a list, not prose. I think that, if it's going to be prose, it should be proper prose. Otherwise a bulleted list is much easier to read. Rocketmagnet 11:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Rocketmagnet. The bulleted list makes it easier to understand "robot" to be a selection of something from a list. This is less clear when written in prose. I changed it back. takeitupalevel 7:51, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Competitions section

I don't like the competitions section at all. It seems to only describe FIRST competitions. The robot competitions spin-off page is not bad. We should use this section to describe the range of different competitions, without going into too much depth on each one. ---- BAxelrod 14:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too bothered if this section, as it exists now, was deleted. However, I think the article should at least mention that there are robot competitions (especially ones like the DARPA Grand Challenge, and Robocup) which help to drive innovation in the field. Rocketmagnet 15:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone make an Anti-vandal 'bot

Since this page gets a lot of Karl Stefanovic vandalism, would it be possible to make a bot specifically for dealing with this type of vandalism? Or can one of the other bots be modified to spot this? Rocketmagnet (talk) 16:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of bots that do this, but some thing that specific, requires human decisions. Sorry... <DREAMAFTER>^<TALK> 00:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Is that a Wikipedia rule? Surely an exception can be made in this case. There have been about 20 edits to the robot page involving Karl Stefanovic, and every single one has been vandalism. It's some kind of joke in Australia apparently. Rocketmagnet (talk) 10:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is, and just so that you know, I am a member of the BAG, and it is so specific that it does need human decision. Dreamy ^§ 22:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Huh? That seems like the wrong way round. Surely something this specific is perfect for a 'bot? So far, 100% of Karl Stefanovic edits have been vandalism. I also can't think of a single reason why a Karl Stefanovic edit could be considered otherwise. That person has nothing to do with robots at all.

So, you're telling me that tricky judgements about what is vandalism are fine for bots, but simple algorithms like this are not? Has A.I. come on much more than I thought? Rocketmagnet (talk) 23:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of October 21, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass

2. Factually accurate?: Pass

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass

5. Article stability? {{{stable}}}

6. Images?: Try to find a free image of Karl Čapek. Otherwise, good.

A very good article, well written, and very broad. Try to keep the NPOV throughout the article. Very many references, a very good job. Well done! If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.— Ejg930 04:02, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Are there any bits of the article which are not NPOV, and need fixing? Rocketmagnet 22:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I have some problems with this. I doubt the Well-written as the structure is unconventional, lists and summations are entered without explanation, the lead includes things not in the main article (which should not be the case per WP:LEAD / WP:MOS).

Secondly, I doubt the Neutral point of view. Antropomorphic robots get a lot of attention, US and Japanese views are pushed before international views. If I were to do the assessment on the article right now, I would give it a solid B class (but not a B+ just a B). (Note the GA promoting editor has about 175 edits in Wikipedia, while this does not say anything perse, it may mean that the editor lacks the experience for high level assessment (I am wary of them myself)). Arnoutf (talk) 22:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak with authority on GA issues (which bothers me, WP:GAN is on my todo list), but I do know that the point of GAR is to give people some reasonable improvement tasks to do, and then to certify the results. Even if a new GAR would give us more work to do here, there's no question that this article contributes to Wikipedia roughly on the level of other GA's, because it's a massive collaborative effort over a long period of time, an article that has withstood constant attempts to challenge and change it. If you want to make changes, please do. Just do it in one or a few edits. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not demoting it, as I have too little experience with GA procedures myself. I think however that if some other editor does a formal GA review, there is a fair chance it will be demoted. There are some minor points of bias towards antropomorphic and US/Japan issues, but these are fairly minor.

However manual of style problems worry me more. I think an important problem is that the lead section does not povide a summarry and has much information unique to that section (see: WP:LEAD). I am also not sure about the narrative through the different sections. Furthermore, the mixed use of UK and US English, and several very short sections can be considered a breach of WP:MOS. I would suggest that frequent editors with much more subject knowledge compared to me, agree that they take some time to do a very thorough round of copy-editing, basically not adding or changing content but polishing the flow, language etc. of the article. Arnoutf (talk) 14:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Arnoutf is right, except the bit about losing GA status, I think. Any takers? I don't think I should try to rewrite whole sections of Robot (see WP:OWN), but I'm happy to work on linked articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

As someone who has (re)written alot of this article, I agree that some sections read very differently from others, and should be fixed. Now, this is going to sound *really* lame, but the sections I think need the most work are the ones I didn't re-write. Those are: History, Dangers and Fears, Literature, and Competitions and exhibitions. I did not tackle those because I don't feel I can contribute much in those areas. IMHO, the history section really needs a re-work. It's full of ancient history, barely relevent to modern robotics, and hardly touches the modern stuff. Rocketmagnet (talk) 00:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

About the introduction. Wat should it have, a summary, or a definition ? Rocketmagnet (talk) 00:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

←I agree, Rocket, you did a good job. The WP:LEAD should tell people what to expect in the article. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

History of robots & duplication of effort

The history section in this article is excellent. The article History of robots could use some help. Eventually, I think it would be good if material from here (and from humanoid robot#Timeline of developments) was merged into History of robots, to spread the good material around and help with the overall organization of Wikipedia's robot articles. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that the History section of the Robot article concentrates too much on Automata, and not nearly enough on "proper" robots, developed after 1950. There are a lot of facts in the History of robots article, but not enough prose and structure. Both articles could learn from each other. Rocketmagnet (talk) 10:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Just made a bunch of changes...

I love this page and I'd love for you guys to get "Featured Article" status. I made a bunch of changes to bring some things in line with the Manual of Style (MOS)...headings have to nest correctly, block quotes are for more than 4 lines of quoted text, removed the very last of the robot definitions since it repeated earlier material, changed an "and" to an "or" for parallelism, removed some capitals per MOS, deleted two occurences of the "/" symbol per MOS, fixed hyphenation (37-year-old), and fixed two links...hm, I worked on this longer than I thought!

I also made a couple of suggestions to Rocketmagnet in emails rather than doing the edits myself.

I see Rocketmagnet's editorial comment that new links are not to be added without talking first, and I didn't, other than just fixing the two links that weren't working. The only change of any substance was the change I made to the last bullet point in the introductory paragraph. Feel free to revert it, I made all changes with individual edits, hopefully they're be revertible if anyone feels the need, but hopefully you won't feel the need :) The problem with that last bullet point was, per MOS, if it's not clear how the linked material fits in, you're supposed to explain it...I made some guesses what you wanted them to get from Pathetic fallacy and Anthropomorphism, but please feel free to correct me if I was wrong. I didn't see relevant content in Reification and that article is in bad shape...do you need that link?

Btw, my nefarious purpose here is to do whatever needs doing on your articles so I can get to work on robots.wikia.com, which needs some serious work, starting with making relevant links to the Wikipedia robotics articles and getting rid of the trash that's there, mostly outdated content stolen from your excellent article :)

Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for comments on breaking this article up a little bit

Thanks much to the recent contributors, it's all been good stuff, but notice that it's now 63K long, and some browsers choke on anything over 32K. How shall we divide things up? There are already separate pages for specific robots, competitions and exhibitions...should we just give pointers to those articles and keep descriptions out of this article? Or maybe give a short description with each link? — Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Which browsers choke? I'm not 100% sure this article needs to be broken up. Many pages on the Wikipedia are longer than 32k. Rocketmagnet (talk) 09:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll hunt around later today to find it...I was just quoting a guideline I saw somewhere, that literally said, don't have articles over 32K because some browsers "choke" on them. Obviously one window in IE or Firefox on most laptops will not be a problem, but I'm guessing the idea was that this content is delivered in many ways...on small screens, including Kindle, or as one of many windows, or over a dial-up connection, so we should keep pages a reasonable size. There's also the issue that content mirrored in two places at once will tend to get out of sync, so it's better to use short descriptions and links rather than tell the same story two different ways in two different places. — Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia:Article size. The bit about browsers choking is pretty obsolete information these days. - Ehheh (talk) 16:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's embarrassing, it was in the obvious place :) That article is a "guideline", something we're supposed to follow unless we have a good reason not to. The first section says "30-50 KB of readable prose", and "One rule of thumb is to begin to split an article into smaller articles after the readable prose reaches 10 pages when printed. Articles that cover particularly technical subjects should, in general, be shorter than articles on less technical subjects." (I added the bold.) Another consideration, as Rocketmagnet has pointed out, is that History and some other material is repeated in two different places. That's not good style...it almost guarantees that information will get out of sync. Another consideration is that "robots" is exactly the kind of topic that is not well served by simply putting a bunch of articles into "Category:Robots" and "Category:Robotics", because a simple list of links, available at the category page, will not be a useful guide for the typical reader. That is, this page is serving a very useful function...directing people where they want to go, giving short, useful descriptions, without making the descriptions so long that they overlap too much the material at the links. This is a good article, but I believe we could be more consistent in this purpose and make it better. I'm asking for general thoughts, and when we seem to have consensus, I'll try my hand at moving things around a little bit. — Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean _only_ short descriptions, there is plenty of good stuff here that isn't duplicated elsewhere. But the short descriptions and links are important, I think, and per guidelines, this article needs to be shorter. — Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines are not there just to be followed. See [3]. There are many featured articles which are longer than the Robot article. For example Influenza, Immune system, Down syndrome and Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. So an article does not have to be 32k to be considered the best the Wikipedia has to offer. I think that Robot is an article that should be long. It's a huge subject, and it's actually covered quite briefly in my opinion. Rocketmagnet (talk) 00:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm really not taking aim at this article in particular...you've done great work here, keep it like it is if you want to. My concern is that the layman (and that would include me) who's interested in robots has very little chance of being able to find an answer to their question by using Wikipedia, because the information about robots is scattered over hundreds of articles in at least 50 categories, with not a lot of good "signposts" to point the way to what they're looking for. The problem, as I see it, is not that this article is currently 63K...the problem is that a person who wants to know if they can get a robot to carry their beer can into the kitchen without breaking the bank is likely to give up before they find the answer on Wikipedia, in part because they have to scan a 63K article and many other long articles as a first step.

Computer Vision category

I asked Andreas about his edit, he explained: "I added category 'Applications of computer vision' to category 'Robots'. Since the article Robot belongs to category 'Robots', it doesn't need to belong to category 'Applications of computer vision' anymore. I hope this is fine." — Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Really bad definition of robot in intro

It's incomprehensible to most people, but most people know what a robot is. Lets make the definition a little easier to understand shall we? 65.41.92.77 (talk) 00:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia aims to be accessible to anyone and also definitive...and of course, these goals collide, particularly in technical articles. So please, go ahead, take a shot at it. People will want to discuss your edits, so you may want to get a username, if you don't want to get reverted without comment. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

How about: A mechanical device that is capable of performing a variety of human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance. --RoboticBob (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

What's a human task? Computers are mechanical devices, wouldn't that include them? On the other hand, I think you're on to something here...the essential nature of a robot is that is performs some physical action that would otherwise be performed by humans...please, keep going. Dank55 (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Dan, I hate you - not really ;). After reading your comment I spent a couple of hours searching the web and found out for myself what was already covered in the robot article here, there are dozens of definitions and not one single clear and simple definition for a robot that satisfies everyone or every instance. After re-reading the robot article here a few times I for one have decided that the definition is fine. At least for now. As robots continue to become more and more main stream we'll either develop a better sense for the definition or we’ll do something like divide robots into classes, each with there own definition. Anyway, to the person who made the original statement here about the definition, I still agree with you, the definition is long and not easily understood but until we take a different approach to defining robots the short and simple ones are probably going to be lacking.--RoboticBob (talk) 20:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I think "we’ll do something like divide robots into classes, each with their own definition" is exactly right. Around 4 million robotic vacuums have sold so far; when that becomes 300 million, they won't be "robotic vacuums", they'll be "vacuums". Dank55 (talk) 21:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The subject of the definition of robot keeps coming up. You're right, the definition at the beginning of the article is not easy to understand, but in coming to understand it, the reader should see why people tend to call some machines robots, and not others. After many weeks of research, on the web, in books, and asking several people in the field of robotics, I decided that the 'agent' definition was the one which best fitted. Again, it's not trivial to understand, but it's better than one which is easier, but less accurate. Rocketmagnet (talk) 10:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia strives to be easy to understand, but it should strive for accuracy even above that. Rocketmagnet (talk) 10:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Talking about definitions, the definition sections opens with a US definition, then a Japanese and only then the international (incl US and Japan) definition. This order does not reflect worldwide view and needs to be changed. Arnoutf (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If my memory serves me correctly, the order used to Japan, America, international, but George C. Devol's grandson got upset and changed the order because he considered the American one to be the "correct" one. I don't really care, but I think it's nice that the ISO one follows the other two, because the text follows nicely. If you'd like to change it, and can make the effort to re-write the text so it flows properly, please do it. Rocketmagnet (talk) 02:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

OK I gave it a go, I think the section reads better now. Arnoutf (talk) 11:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Etymology of "Robot"

Thanks Reddi (about etymology of robot)...I've heard that somewhere too, can you find a source? If not, I'll hunt it up. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This is frustrating...I know that I saw somewhere that Karel Capek credits one of his brother's short stories with introducing the word "robot", but I can't find the reference...not with a Google search, nor in the English, German or French wikipedias. A little help? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Bingo, I believe I've got the answer and a reference, I'll add it now. What's confusing is that many people have said that Josef Capek put "robot" into print first, but there's no evidence of that. He was the first to coin the word "automat" or automaton, and Karel said many times that his brother suggested the word "robot" to him. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Huh? I'm surprised it took you so long to find the reference, since it's already in the article! (currently ref number 20: Zunt, Dominik. Who did actually invent the word "robot" and what does it mean?. The Karel Čapek website. Retrieved on 2007-09-11).Rocketmagnet (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, I'm surprised by your statement "many sources claim that the word 'robot' first appeared in some work by Karel's older brother Josef". In all the research I did, I have never seen this claim. Do you have a reference for this statement? Rocketmagnet (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes...in the link that you just quoted to me! Some claim that the word "robot" was first used in Josef Capek's short story Opilec (the Drunkard) published in the collection Lelio in 1917 at http://capek.misto.cz/english/robot.html. Also: According to Rawson the word was popularized by Karel Capek's play, "but was coined by his brother Josef (the two often collaborated), who used it initially in a short story" at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=r&p=16. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dank55 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the links ... J. D. Redding 05:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

May be interested that Nikola Tesla used the term robot with a journalist in a talk about his device. PBS http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_robots.html ... this was before 1900. The term may have been in use ... but Tesla came from the Old Church Slavonic and may have naturally used it. Just a note. J. D. Redding 05:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair point. Although, I've still never seen one of these claims. If you don't mind, since the ref you added is a repeat of a ref a couple of sentences down, I'd like to merge the two into one, so that they have the correct ref format. Rocketmagnet (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No objection at all, makes sense. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to both Reddi and Rocketmagnet: this is why I prefer robotics to history. The historian has to constantly deal with a game of "telephone", where someone says something, people start repeating it, the legend grows by repetition, and the truth of the matter gets lost to time. The book that is the source for the Tesla quote at Nikola Tesla (a tract, really) is available online here: http://www.rastko.org.yu/istorija/tesla/oniell-tesla.html . The tract is referring to a supposed conversation between Tesla and Waldemar Kaempffert, who was a student at the time but later became a long-time science editor at the New York Times. But in later years, when Kaempffert mentions robots, I can't find anywhere he mentions the supposed conversation that isn't sourced to that same tract. He refers to R.U.R., not to Tesla, for instance here: https://eee.uci.edu/clients/bjbecker/NatureandArtifice/week9d.html .

Btw, Rocketmagnet, now I get what you were saying: I should have made it clear that you had done good work digging up the most important reference for Josef Karel's prior use of the term, and that I was looking for something more. Sorry. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

robot comes from a word robota - the work ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.229.179.174 (talk) 16:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Varieties of English (meter vs. metre)

I reverted the anonymous edit of "metre" to "meter" and posted a note at the anonymous user's talkpage, but it was a judgment call. (If they hadn't been anonymous, I would have contacted them first.) What made it a difficult judgment call is that you guys have done a pretty good job of avoiding words that are spelled differently in different places...all I could find, looking quickly, was "behavior" (American) and "metre" (British). Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English, the rule is to leave the spelling alone unless there's a clear trend in the article towards for example American or British spellings, in which case it's a good idea to be consistent. But there's just not much of a trend here. Rocketmagnet has shouldered most of the burden here and he's British, so I don't think it's fair to take away his "metres". - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

MOS states that an article needs to be internally consistent. Either UK or US spelling has to be chosen. Arnoutf (talk) 18:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes it does, and I wouldn't scream if someone added a "u" to "behavior". But "behavior" just doesn't look that strange to any Commonwealth citizen who reads a lot online. It's much more common for native English speakers to understand each other online now, regardless of nationality, even compared with five years ago. I don't dispute the WP:MoS recommendation, I'm just saying it's slightly old-fashioned and not terribly important, especially when you're talking about 3 words in a very long article. I understand that it's distracting to flip back and forth from one sentence to the next. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Mind you no problems with UK spelling (use it myself preferably), only wanted to state that if/when conflicts arise there should be some thought which version of English is chosen, and that version should be made consistent. Anyway, I agree it is not terribly important, there are more important improvements to be made to this article. Arnoutf (talk) 22:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Michel's edit

This is just a request (which you guys are free to ignore) not to revert Dr. Michel's addition of the Webots link (which then links to the site where he sells his software). I've sent him some email explaining a little about Wikipedia policies and offering my assistance, if he wants it. He developed Webots back in 1998 and I believe he owns the company that sells the software...and it's expensive for non-educational users, so this is just the type of link we usually revert. But, the best I can tell, his work is important and notable, and there are a lot of university students who agree, and he has a very active group of users on Yahoo. I think Wikiversity would benefit from sharing in some of that work and community, and I hope Wikipedia too, some day. Strike that, I will invite him and his users to join Wikiproject Robotics. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Robotics

I'd like to just make a personal plea for interested editors to jump in over at WT:WikiProject Robotics. What is great about editing robotics articles on Wikipedia? (The fact that I meet so many highly accomplished people is tops for me.) What sucks? (Wikipedia rules? Or just the fact that it's such an intimidating subject?) Do people's eyes glaze over when you talk about what you do, and does that mean we need more support and understanding from the admins? Join us! - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Roboethics

This link, added 2008/1/31, does seem to pass the test...they don't seem to be promoting or selling anything in particular, it's an attractive website representing the long-time work of a group, mostly academics in Italy, as far as I can tell. I'll check up on them (and all the other links) in a month or two. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC) Robo

Review of external links

Most of the external links are working and have content that doesn't violate any WP policy. Some appear to be deletable...if the broken links don't start working, and if no one objects, I'll delete the bad links in a couple of days.

Ten Best Robots isn't working at the moment. HUAR is working, but the HUAR page on Wikipedia seems better than the link in all respects, to me. Robot news, theory of robotics is a Polish-language site based in Krakow. Although they have an English flag to click on, there's very little English content. The roboethics official website was just added, but seems notable and fine. I just added Society of Robots myself, today. I have no connection to anyone at the site, except that I like them...they have "wiki values" and a lot to offer. I am trying to acquaint them with Wikipedia and Wikiversity, and get them to participate here in WP:WikiProject Robotics. Of course, if anyone knows any reason we shouldn't accept this link, please share, I can't claim to know them well, but their tutorials are outstanding. Although their yearly contest is fairly small, I'm thinking of adding it in the "contest" section because of the high value of the tutorials...but I don't have any strong feeling about this, if anyone would prefer we not include smaller contests in this section. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

JIRA vs. JARA

It's wierd, but the anonymous edit was right: I can't find any link to JIRA now, it's JARA. I thought I had double-checked Rocket's link. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, strange. I thought it was right too. Rocketmagnet (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

"Please do not add links"

We have had a hidden message (that is, using <!-- -->) for a while now on the article page at the top of External links saying that links will be reverted if they're not discussed on the talk page first. This is sensible, given the frequency of linkspam here. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of undiscussed wikilinks in See also, which then link to new pages that send people off to new external links ... which is the same problem, so I propose to treat it in the same way: I've added the same hidden message at the top of the See also section, and I intend to revert undiscussed wikilinks, unless anyone has a problem with that. There's been recent discussion on WP:Layout that 60 wikilinks is too many, so that's another reason to ask for new wikilinks to be discussed first. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

On the same subject, several of the external links were never discussed on the talk page, so to be fair, someone (I can do it) should post a nice note for the webmasters, as well as leaving a message for them here, explaining that our policy is to ask people to make the case for inclusion of their link on our talk page, rather than forcing each of the editors here to try to figure out for themselves whether the external web site contains verifiable information and adds something to Wikipedia that's unique, and important, and can't be worked into the Robots article. This is a touchy subject, because many Wikipedians feel strongly that "spashy" sites should never be in an external link for any reason, because such sites are too likely to already be, or turn into, something promotional; but we're talking about robots here, which makes it hard not to come across as "splashy" if we're going to also be accurate and up-to-date. Thoughts? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that this article is intended for inclusion in both Version 0.7 and Version 1.0, which is the printed and DVD version of Wikipedia, and some of the deadlines for Version 0.7 are this month. This makes it very important not to include any links that the general public might perceive as advertising, or even any links which might take advantage of the link from Wikipedia to become promotional at a future time, so I'm afraid the "newsy" links, no matter how well done, have got to move to DMOZ. (And btw, DMOZ isn't just an acceptable alternative, it's recommended by WP:EL.) Thoughts? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Hi Dank55.. the included link has a quite useful content, which is very good for someone interested in robotics, providing a set of good stuff and research papers for free. As you can see it at Robotics Research Papers – DMOZ Directory....#|:C), —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.43.166 (talk) 04:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Two problems with the Tufts Univ. Softbots edits

(Copied at anon. user's talk page) "130.64.177.109", you're more than welcome to collaborate on this article, I hope you are up to speed on the research at Tufts University and will help us write the article. But most people around here will say that "revolutions in medicine, the military and even outer-space exploration" and "Kaplan believes that..." are not sufficiently encyclopedic, in context, and will need some editing. Also, everything has to go if the only two sources you have are web press releases from Tufts. See WP:V for acceptable sources. (Yes, I know there was a press release there and elsewhere originally as a source, but it attracts attention when the article specifically promotes work done at Tufts. Also, there's a lot of work to be done to find verifiable sources for everything ... we tend to pick on whoever was the last to speak up, but sooner or later, all the "press releases", in some sense of the phrase, have to be re-sourced.) This all seems like common Wiki-knowledge to me now, but if I'm wrong or clarification is needed, someone jump in here please. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I am proposing a link

Hello, Thanks for your great effort reducing spam links, it is becoming a serious problem over the web, and i hope soon this 'spam culture' will fade away... (although i am not quite sure!). Anyway, here is an external link i am proposing for the robotics page:

http://www.ikalogic.com/cat_robot_navigation.php

I am not quite sure if this is the right place for that link. but the content is specially authentic and interesting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.50.95.247 (talk) 00:24, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I like it...no obvious ads, solid tutorials, active discussion boards, and a creative commons license for Kamal's work. The products mentioned are robot parts, not robotic toys. Other opinions? One request: if you're going to have an external link on this page, we need to be able to communicate if something shows up we don't like. You don't have to create a username, but it's a good idea. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Human-robot interaction

Any feelings about DaveFS's new wikilink to Human-robot interaction? No identified sources, but it appears to be a collaboration, and there are potential academic sources in the article. I'm not familiar with the field. The presumption for Robot at the moment is "we have more than enough links", so perhaps we should lean on those guys to at least source the article and make their case for inclusion of the link before we let them keep it? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

While the article itself is weak (and currently, it is), the topic is a major area of research in robotics, involving numerous conferences and meetings, and should be listed in the list of topics. Not that the page is marked for expansion, and that the lack of sources has not gone unnoticed. DaveFS (talk) 08:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Your point is valid. On the other hand, understand that there's a special situation here at Robot: this is kind of a "hangout". I suggested breaking the article up a couple of months ago, and there was no support for that; I'm agnostic about that now, but it might have to happen some time before Version 1.0, depending on what standards are agreed on at that project. But that leaves us with what is called around here a "link farm"; the article has so much material, so many links, and so many references, that it's hard for the typical reader to quickly find what they want. I'm not expressing a personal opinion here; for instance, see the current discussion at WT:CITE#Over-referencing.

I'll concede that your subject is important, but there is a certain standard to be met at Robot for new links. Another way of saying this is: everyone seems to want to link to this article, and there's a limit on the number of acceptable links, so we can afford to be choosy. I hope the guys working on your article will at least give us a clue what the sources for the various statements are (and if you need help with formatting, let me know.) Jimbo used to encourage people to aggressively delete anything in articles that wasn't sourced; people are a little more patient now, but not a lot more patient. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Dangers and fears 2

I believe the section on protests against robotics should have it's own article, for several reasons. Unfortunately, there are so many protest against the advancement of robotics, they can't fit in a tiny section of thier article; it needs it's own page in order to truly be comprehensive. Does any one else agree?The Pink Panther (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

We already had a section in this talk page called "Dangers and fears" so I renamed this one; see above for good information. See HUAR, Cybernetic revolt, Military robots, Machine rule, and Three laws of robotics. But the main place to look is in the astoundingly huge collection of discussions about harmful robots in fiction in general and science fiction in particular on Wikipedia and Wikia. For whatever reason, 99% of what has been said (including some very intelligent and well-sourced stuff) has been discussed among science fiction fans, so that's the best place to go for information. I would support more in-text links in this article to good sources of information. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think other people might get annoyed with so many in-text links. I think it would be much easier to give this it's own article.The Pink Panther (talk) 19:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I need to explain "I would support more in-text links in this article to good sources of information." The main thing I'm saying is that you'll encounter resistance to adding more links in the See also and External links sections, because we have more than enough already. For how to approach working new links into the article itself, the two best pages I've found on the topic are WP:Manual of Style (links) and WP:Context. Whenever an editor gets the idea, "I think we need a link from this article to a new article on a new topic", this is a good checklist:

1. Read this article. Think about whether a significant number of readers will think that your topic and this article are related, and if so, find the place in the text that is the most related.
2. Consider carefully how much you have to say, and whether it's really so much that it couldn't be just worked into this article. (In this case, the article is already very large by Wikipedia standards, so you're right, any major new section should probably be on another page.)
3. This is the tough part: everyone would rather just start writing down their own ideas, rather than seeing what other people have done. Wikipedia serves the readers more than the writers, and the readers are not well-served by having several different takes on the same issue scattered across several different articles. In general, you should look at any link from this article that has any chance of discussing your topic, and also any article that's in the same or similar categories as this article. However ... in this particular case, you'll get a headache if you try to do that much work, so I'm making your job easier. Read the links I mentioned above, and also browse the science fiction categories on Wikipedia and the science fiction wikis on Wikia.com. If you like to chat on irc, drop into some relevant irc channels and ask people if they know where to find more information on your topic.
4. After you've done all that, if you really think no one else has covered what you want to say, and you think it would be interesting to a variety of readers, then start creating an article on a subdirectory of your userpage. (If you aren't experienced at creating new articles, your new article might get deleted if it doesn't conform to Wikipedia policy. Safer to keep it to yourself while you're working on it and asking for help, until you're ready to show it to the world.) Spend more time looking for and reading sources than writing. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The deleted www.personalrobotics.nl link

Just got this email:

"Hi Dan, I just returned from holiday ...

I'm very sorry to hear this. www.personalrobotics.nl is a news/hobby/ blog site. Knowing that the robot article on wikipedia does refer for instance to "Boe-bot" and its company "Parallax", I don't understand why my site is removed?! Can you explain to me the policy of wikipedia with respect to this situation? On what basis are decisions made to remove one site and link to another? Knowing this policy, I can adjust my site." [name withheld, since I haven't gotten permission to release it]

Well, because I'm involved in a lot of conversations at once and I've gotten behind on link-patrol in Robots, and also because it's common practice on a page like this to suggest the changes first and then wait a while to see what the reaction is. I waited too long, I see, and the current External links aren't at all what we've agreed on; I'll fix that shortly. All the links that either are promotional or could become promotional without too much alteration have to move to http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Robotics/, and notice that we have a link to that site. (I would not be opposed to a proposal to link to some other link farm, if there's a good reason, but dmoz.com is the one that's recommended at WP:EL.) You were asking about "adjusting your site"; roughly speaking, the more a site looks like a collection of people trading information, and the less it looks like a site with pictures of neat robotic toys, the more likely the link is to survive here. See #I am proposing a link, just 3 sections above. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the removal, overlinking to non-notable or irrelevant sites (if not actual linkspam) is a common problem on many articles that have a strong "hobby" component, like this one. Arnoutf (talk) 22:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

External link review

I really like the link to robots.net, even though it's a "newsy" site. The site doesn't just post cute press releases; it selects news that it thinks is important, and then explains why, and I like their judgment, too. Here's a typical example: "Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 16:50 UTC by Rog-a-matic. This nice overview of the differences between biological brains and modern computers highlights important reasons why our digital electronics and even neural network simulations running on them fall short of the abilities we take for granted in living systems. The list of points include content-addressable memory, variable clock rates, pointers as short term memory, lack of separation between software and hardware, unification of memory and processing, the underestimated complexity of synapses, self-organization, and the overall size of the systems."

Anything else people want either in or out? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikilink review

Deleted epigenetic robotics which is a redundant redirect, robot baseball which is a stub, future of robotics which has no non-wiki sources and is unevenly written, carbon chauvinism and Technocracy movement (little to do with robotics), and all references to specific consumer robots. Links to articles that represent a category of consumer robots are fine. Again, we want to make sure that when the printed Wikipedia Version 1.0 comes out, we don't get stuck with any links that could be interpreted as promotional of any product. Suggestions? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Academia

It seems to me Wikipedia is reaching a tipping point of greater participation by academics, and we should encourage that in every way possible. WP:Flagged revisions is coming to Wikipedia, probably in mid-April, and depending on how it's handled, it may deal with the top objection of academics to Wikipedia, that they have to constantly "baby-sit" their work to keep it from being vandalized.

As a first step, I rewrote the Softbots section. It needed it anyway, probably, but one thing that really upsets academics is when some competitor gets a glowing review in Wikipedia and they get no mention. It's better to keep discussions of what any particular group is doing brief, even when it may be significant work. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, the baby sitting is an issue indeed; but I think it is not as much vandalising that is the problem, but good faith edits by editors who lack critical self-reflection and are overly enthused about the topic (who wouldn't be if (s)he were a student of a very good professor (both in teaching and research) in robotics) that is resulting in the bias you dscribe above. Arnoutf (talk) 15:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Howthingswork.org video link and future of robotics

Hi Mac. At Robot, we're really choosy about external links, you can see the long messy history on the talk page, because everyone wants to link to us. I had to think about it a while, but I'm going to revert your video link from howthingswork.org ... although that's a great site. The first item in the video, the dentistry student, is apparently non-notable, because I could find no hits at all in newspapers (and I tried several different spellings). The second video about the video screen on wheels that makes medical rounds isn't particularly new or interesting as a robot, and we don't really do much with medical robotics in this article. It's also a news story from last July, and I don't see a lot of follow-up in newspapers since then. The third story is about combat robots, and it talks cheerfully about "saving soldiers' lives". A little too cheerfully ... a video about robots that kill people or assist the process should at least be somber and thoughtful. But I do like the howthingswork.org site. If you'd like to suggest other links, please do it here on the talk page, and consider adding links to other articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the article has a big problem: it does not talks or includes a section about the future of robotics. I agree I don´t like combat robots also ;-) --Mac (talk) 06:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

A few days ago, I deleted a wikilink to Future of robotics, which has no sources (wiki sources don't count as sources) and is unevenly written. I'll be happy to help if you want to work on that article. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Are robots necessarily intelligent?

The most recent edit complained that robots are not intelligent. The lead said that robots have "some degree of intelligence or ability to make choices based on the environment, often using automatic control or a preprogrammed sequence". I agree with the new editor that that's a little controversial and a little distracting for the lead, so I removed just "degree of intelligence or". See artificial intelligence for a good discussion. The bottom line is, 30 years ago, most people had a fairly wide view of what demonstrated "intelligence", and every time machines start getting good at something, we tend to "move the goalposts" (sorry for the American slang) and decide that maybe what they can do is not a good measure of intelligence after all. Since the meaning of the term keeps changing, it might be best not to try to use it to define what a robot is. Thoughts? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 00:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The article lead wasn't saying that a robot must be intelligent, it was saying that intelligence is one of the ways that robots can distinguish themselves from normal machines. Although I'm not too bothered to see that line change, it would be a real shame if, every time someone complained about a word in the article, we removed it. Eventually we'll have no content left. Rocketmagnet (talk) 09:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I sometimes lean too far in the direction of inviting participation. A camel is a horse designed by a committee, as they say. Still, in this case, I like the change, Rocket, because I think that your idea that it's a perception of intelligence that is sometimes the distinguishing feature is better covered by your discussion of "agency", which goes into some detail, than by "intelligence", which isn't useful in a definition because of the ever-shifting goalposts. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone heard...

of the reference to the early Westinghouse robots that I just reverted? I left a note on the user's talk page offering assistance to try to find a reliable source for that information. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You appear to be arguing against a perfectly good reference from personal ignorance. Reverted - David Gerard (talk) 12:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi David. That's entirely possible; I have a vast store of personal ignorance. Fortunately, very little gets by the folks who hang out at WP:RSN, so I'll run this by them, and hopefully learn something. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, I've got a problem with the "Oh yeah, I've got one of the original robots in my garage" flavor of the article. Some of these robots may or may not be housed at the Mansfield Memorial Museum in Ohio. Elektro from the 1939 World's Fair is certainly well known, and I can find a picture of Televox, but as to how much "useful work" something that looks like a cardboard cutout did...um. Well, I'll keep looking. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Got an answer at WP:RSN: "Yes, you may cite free newsweeklies. However, they're more typically used to provide background on topics of local interest, local bands, etc. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)"

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Reverted good faith link

I just reverted the IP edit that added a couple of links to Super Why!, per the invisible html comments on the article page asking people to discuss links first, and per this talk page. I also left a message on the user's talk page offering help in finding articles to link to. This issue comes up from time to time, so I'm asking again: does anyone think that we shouldn't revert undiscussed and improbable wikilinks and external links on sight (with a nice message on the user's talk page, of course)? The amount of linkspam has died off recently, so maybe that's a good sign; on the other hand, maybe the reason it died off was aggressive reverting, who knows. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Surprisingly again invented by a Muslim

Can someone please stop the trend in Wiki Articles of important and positive achievements of mankind surprisingly originating from some Muslim inventor or origin?