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Naturoid

Naturoid (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Neologism promoted by a not notable single author, and not used in any other source.Guyonthesubway (talk) 18:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • PLEASE NOTE: The original AfD was vandalised by an IP that edits this article. The original text is restored above.
  • Delete Looks like an essay or school term paper that someone shoved onto WP. Does a lot of work fluffing up the term, but doing some searches shows that it's probably regurgitation of the book and author which produced the term instead of having sources which actually discuss the term. Fails WP:N. Angryapathy (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete This theory, naturoids, is an essential part of a larger debate worldwide on the nature of the "artificial" - beyond artificial intelligence - similar to the exchanges of decades ago by people like John Searle, Joseph Weizenbaum, Feigenbaum, Douglas Hofstadter, Herbert Simon, etc.

Denis Baggi, Research Scientist in Computer Generated Music —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dlouismusic (talk • contribs) 11:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

  • Do not delete I believe this article about naturoids it's a fundamental contribution toward a better knowledge of human and social sciences, with a special and necessary link to the world of technology. Please do not delete this article.

Giovanni Messori, Social Researcher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.26.41.82 (talk) 00:28, 7 February 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

  • Do not delete While the article could perhaps be improved, it is not badly written, and is clearly not mere hearsay or opinion. Although it regards a neologism, it is one that has obviously provoked discussion and interest within a small but ever-growing part of the scientific community; and if the English science writer Philip Ball feels comfortable using and discussing the term and its related concepts, who are we, in our ignorance, to question its merit? The comment, here above, regarding a "school term paper" is both unfair and unjustified. Care has obviously been taken to write grammatically correct and formal English on a subject that is both interesting and novel, which is more than can be said for a good many WP articles that have not been threatened with deletion. My investigations suggest that the article has been accessed some 18,000 times since June 2009, with an overall increment in the monthly rate, which must say something about its value to some WP readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.147.0.103 (talk) This template must be substituted.

Julian Locke, Ph.D. student in Methodology of the Social Sciences, Florence, Italy.

  • Comment I love the sockfest of people who know the creator of the term. Unfortunately, they haven't provided anything but personal opinions (besides melanie, although I disagree with her). Can we get some evidence that this term has been picked up by mainstream media or science? (Like Guy said, the Nature article only reviews an article by the author of the term). Angryapathy (talk) 14:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note As the author of the theory - and not of the article that I have only occasionally edited - really I do not understand the policy of WP. Is WP an Enc behaving in the same way as traditional Encs do, i. e. reporting only well established and universally recognized knowledge? By the way, such a policy contradicts the habit of WP to report on current events while neglecting the real-time power of the Internet in helping new academical traditions of research, at the only condition that their autonomous take-off is already a fact. I think that the rule of ‘neologism...to promote etc.’ is, in principle, appropriate if the neologism comes from of a teenager’s blog but not when it comes from a researcher who has published it since 20 years worldwide in leading journals, books and university lectures, even if, up to now, his theoretical proposal has not reached a... mass media recognition. And surely never will. Anyway, I used the term naturoid in the invited ‘artificial’ entry for the ESTE MacMillan traditional-style Enc without getting any objections by the editors – though I was known by only one of them. I added myself an ‘Impact and Applications Section’ in which are reported uses and references to my research that are at my knowledge. Nevertheless, I cannot guarantee that the term ‘naturoid’ will spread worldwide and will last over decades as if it were the name of a famous consumer product, of a singer or of an earthquake. But, de facto, it is a continuously published and quoted concept since 1990. Its ambition is to investigate the ‘laws’ governing every attempt to reproduce natural things through technology and, therefore, it cannot involve but a ‘niche of interest’, i.e. exactly what an Enc should be interested to. Thanks for reading and, please, forgive my bad English.

Massimo Negrotti - University of Urbino —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.63.251 (talk) 12:16, 10 February 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

  • OK, I'm going to assume that you are who you say you are, as the creator of this term. I will first say that just because YOU publish it since 1990 and talk about it doesn't make it notable. Actually, since it has been 20 years since you invented this term, and no one else has picked up on using it, show exactly the opposite: it isn't notable. Also, this article regurgitates your research, which if it really is notable, should only be a paragraph. This article completely fluffs up the term that can be explained in a few sentences. This term is not ground-breaking; all you seem to have done is create another word for "artificial" and then wrote about the history of artificial creations. No wonder no one else uses the term. But, regardless, you are not Stephen Hawking; if he comes up with a term, other scientists (whether they agree or not) will pick up on it. You are not Stephen Hawking. And "naturoid" is not notable. Angryapathy (talk) 14:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Concur. To be very blunt its a made-up word used by single 'researcher' and his clique. I'm a 'resercher' too. Just because I call robot monkeys monkeyoids doesnt mean that I can tell the world thats what the word means. This is not the place to promote your slang. So far your clique has violated several of the 'rules' here (recruiting meatpuppets, editing my entry here) which doesnt bolster your case. I would also have a look at the conflict of interest rules if you are editing this article. Guyonthesubway (talk) 15:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 12:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The article definitely has some major WP:V issues. A Google Web search for "Theory of Naturoids" returns seven results. Six of them are Wikipedia mirrors and the last one is Negrotti's biography page maintained by the book's publisher. — Rankiri (talk) 15:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Angryapathy is right in observing that "naturoid" looks like a synonym for "artificial" according to its inventor. Only the first paragraph of this article seems to be of any worth, and could be placed in the appropriate science article by those who know how to interpret these things. Meanwhile, the reference section does nothing to prove reliable sources; it is just a book list, whereas the lack of inline citations shows the paucity of secondary sources. Yoninah (talk) 16:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It is also not a place to promote a neologism you have made up. Socks or meatpuppets flocking to an AFD lend an air of desperation and an implication of a lack of sound reasons for keeping an article. Edison (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some more remarks Mr Angryapathy begins maintaining that the concept of naturoid isn’t notable, and ends discussing the reasons that should explain why it is not notable. All this is quite legitimate, of course, and also interesting to me, but it would be more proper if you should belong to a prize or chair commission rather to a pool of WPGuardians. Or am I wrong? Anyway, let me add some remarks to the substance of what you say. You – as a researcher - should be methodologically skillful enough to understand that the shift from the term monkey to monkoid would be trivial and clearly useless because the reference class of empirical objects would remain the same. On the contrary, the term naturoid proposes a shift of abstraction level, namely from the many specific classes of existing artificial replacements or reproductions of natural instances, that have their own specific names, to the the general class of such devices. The concept of artificial covers only seemingly the above general class because it is an adjective whose correct meaning is understandable only if one uses it after a noun (e.g. artificial grass or artificial intelligence). Just beacuse in the common worldwide languages ‘artificial’ means ‘man made’ or ‘not natural’, I myself gave up the former name I had given to the theory (in the first presentation of it of 1991 in my edited Springer book ‘Understanding the artificial’ I named it ‘the theory of artificial’ and it is also the title of an authored book of 1999) right to avoid ambiguities. As you know, the introduction of a neologism is a very delicate process that should be avoided as much as possible, but, at that point, it appeared to me as unavoidable, because, to sum-up, All naturoids are artificial objects but not all artificial objects are naturoids. Anyway, what is relevant, in my judgement, is the theory and not the term as such. It isn’t true that nobody has picked-up both the term and the theory (see the section ‘Impact...’) although in many quotations appears the term artificial instead that of naturoid. You are right saying that it is not become a mainstream, and, believe me, this is not my pretension. But the acceptance of it by dozens of journals and publishers in Italy, Europe, Usa and Japan (almost always through peer review process) encourages me in prosecuting on the same road. What is interesting, rather, is the fact that the journals that have accepted my papers, belong almost the times to the ‘general science’ category. This should be interpreted as a clear sign of the general character of my proposal (the character that, obviously, it wouldn’t have if I would speak of monk-oids or of, say, grass-oids, limb-oids or even humanoids). One could say that the theory is false but cannot say that it is unknown, never quoted and regularly rejected by journals and publishers. Therefore, I really do not understand why the visitors of WP should be deprived of the opportunity to take note of the existence of such a theory. You could name the article as an attempt to promote the theory, but, in the end, the promotion doesn’t concern a view published yesterday night only in, say, a college newsletter. In this frame, your role is intellectually very delicate in turn and, in my opinion, cannot be reduced to a pure computation of links, inline quotations, etc. This could be made more accurately by an ad hoc software.

P.S. Today's Google statstics are:

< artificial +negrotti > 3080 < "theory of the artificial" +negrotti > 6520 < naturoid > 10100 < naturoid +negrotti > 167 < naturoids > 5820 < naturoids +negrotti > 2350. This seems to me quite consistent with the above remarks.

  • I will move away from critiquing the theory of naturoids (although I have to ask, what is "artificial" but not a naturoid?) to explain how WP's notability works. See, this is not an academic encyclopedia. There are literally thousands of scientific journals, which many idea and theories being published every day. Do we go through every published article and find every new term and write an WP article about it? No, there is a threshhold. And the threshold which has been agreed upon by Wikipedia editors over time is that a subject, term, idea, etc. must be discussed in independent, secondary sources. That is what Wikipedia defines as notable. This says nothing about notability in general or within a certain field. Upon searching, a number of editors here have found that the term "naturoid" does not meet Wikipedia's threshhold for notability. In 20 years, very few people have used the term outside of you.
    Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites on the internet, and having an article here about a subject definitely increases visibility. But this term belongs in the specific field in which it originated. Also, if you want to discuss your term with academics, then take your discussions to academics. As you have been presenting your case here on Wikipedia, then you receive criticism from the "WP guardians".
    On a side note, after re-reading the article, this article isn't about naturoids; it's about Negrotti's book, "The Theory of Naturoids." Which, still, is a non-notable book. Angryapathy (talk) 18:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no interest in the theory of naturoids or if my 'monkeyoid' example is a resonable analogue for it. Mr Negrotti misses the point. He has coined a word, no one else uses it. Therefore it is not notable. Wikipedia is interesteed in Notable concepts. Therefore Wikipedia is not interested in that word. The more geramane google search is <naturoid -negrotti> which gives us 1500 hits, one of which discussed the word as you use it, and that one hit is a review of one your articles. We aren't guardians, we just interpret the principals that define wikipedia. 20:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
  • My last remarks

1. Dear Angryapathy (and others), I take note that you are not interested in my theory. Nevertheless, just because you do not resist to the temptation to ask “what is "artificial" but not a naturoid?”, I do not resist to the temptation to answer one more time your question, even because maybe it could be interesting for other readers. Artificial means something man-made or not-natural. Therefore, a milling or a cathode tube are artificial objects, because they exploit our knowledge on nature but have nothing to emulate in it, while an art. kidney or an art. rock are naturoids because they are art. objects that try to emulate something happening in nature. This is why, all naturoids are artificial objects but not all artificial objects are naturoids. The theory, starting from this dichotomy, tries to explain and to predict the general constraints and power that will limit and transfigure the natural instances when they become naturoids independently from the field they are designed and realized.

2. I’m sure that your role isn’t that, very impractical, of going “...through every published article...”. Furthermore, maybe that several scholars and researchers are not interested to circulate their theories or hypotheses before they have passed some threshold of notability. If I decided to accept the proposal of a friend of mine to circulate my theory through WP is only because, due to its general nature, I hoped to get some feedbacks from people coming from different fields. In this sense the ‘visibility’ you refer really could be, and has already been, very useful for my research, but, in the same time, also for some reader and surely not for improving the royalties coming from my books. However, at this regard, let me repeat that I wouldn’t insist in the discussion for preserving the article if I were conscious that it is still at the stage of a vague idea, never presented or, even worse, rejected as inconsistent by all referees or publishers. In the end, our discussion concerns the amount (your ‘threshold’) of shared relevance and not its professionally established existence.

3. You are right saying “...then take your discussions to academics”. This is what I do since 20 years, though in the limits of my resources, of course. The fact that nobody – but this is not quite true – has written a book or a paper for defending, destroying or discussing the theory doesn’t imply that it doesn’t exist as a public fact in a lot of ‘places’. If someone discovers a copy of a book of the past centuries reporting some geological or anthropological theory without being quoted by any coeval school of thought, WP wouldn’t be interested in it as a fact? Therefore, the point is: is WP interested in collecting what researchers do or only to what scientific communities (or, worse, mass media audience) place at the centre of some wide controversy or of some wide accepted paradigm? In the next 12 months a very important journal and two of the most worldwide important publishers will publish new papers of mine, but I’m sure that this fact will not modify my notability (wikipedianly speaking) since my theory doesn’t consist of a traditional scientific discovery (or of something provoking and, therefore, appealing for the mass media), but, more simply, propose a new methodological way to look at old things in the hope that new properties or regularities could become visible. Among the many scholars I has been and am in touch, let me report on two who criticized my theory during my lectures or meetings in the late eighties: John Searle from Berkeley and Douglas Hofstaedter from Indiana Uni. According to the former, the theory was too wide since, according to it, a diesel engine should be defined as artificial as compared to an Otto cycle engine; more interestingly, according to the latter – you will agree with him, probably – the concept of artificial (now ‘naturoid’) applies indifferently to all man-made objects, from an artificial heart to the Bay Bridge. These viewpoints are quite legitimate, of course, but being not able to accept the idea of different teleologies embedded in the two classes of objects is, to me, very improvident. You refer to S. Hawking, a very special person that, in my opinion, shouldn’t deserve to be implied in our discussion for deleting a theory... Nevertheless, I’m sure that he will guess immediately the difference which the theory starts from and, perhaps, its possible relevance in setting up a general conceptual frame for designers.

My conclusion. From our discussion I understand that

1_ the position of WPRules-interpreters is that of people strictly linked to a set of rules; 2_ the rules are consistent with WP final aim, that is that of 3_ accepting articles that deal with all what has happened and happens in the world provided it is already known. 4_ Such policy implies that WP will report even on well known theories of any sort – pranotherapy or magic included (by the way, I would be curious to know what you could have said having to discuss articles on this matter) but 5_ imposing to the WPRules-interpreters a great caution in accepting articles on subjects that claim to be rationally established but are not yet widely taken into account, on the basis of a fuzzy threshold of notability.

Being a regular, though cautious in turn, user of WP, I had different perception of it having read, some years ago, its noble mission statements. Thanks anyway to you, for having spent time in discussing the theme, and to the many visitors who have spent their own in reading the article and writing to me.

I have nothing to add, provided you do not have other questions to ask. Best luck.

Massimo Negrotti – University of Urbino —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.33.9 (talk) 22:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Do not delete Well, the discussion has certainly come on apace! I see that we have moved on from the question of the entry's quality to that of its notability. Angryapathy, self-appointed judge, jury and would-be executioner (perhaps soon-to-be executioner), appears to have a fairly hefty axe to grind, and has found a hapless and suitably helpless victim to place upon his block. His intervention seems personal and malicious, as well as being wholly undignified and petty, as if to hide some pent-up feelings of inadequacy and impotence. I'm sure that's not the case; it's just the impression one might get. (I wish him every success with his article or WP entry on Alicyclobacillus.)

Nevertheless, in an ever-more-heated and ultimately vacuous tirade, bolstered by one spurious excuse after another, he appears to be picking on the little guy just because he can. Presumably, Angryapathy is but one of an army (a crusade, if you will) of eager expurgators. I just hope that he is not typical of the breed, and that others take a more measured approach.

For my part, I have spent many happy hours editing poorly written Wiki pages (a thankless and time-consuming task that has now become rather more occasional), and I can say that I've come across many entries, both mainstream and of minority interest, that have little or no encyclopaedic merit. Even some of the entries covering traditional encyclopaedic subjects are awash with personal opinion, partiality and plagiarism, all cobbled together with appalling grammar, spelling and (mis-)use of punctuation (and some of these entries cannot even be edited).

That's not altogether surprising in an encyclopaedia written and updated by its own users, and I can well understand why attempts are being made to clean things up a bit. But why start with the questionable issue of notability, when there are far more urgent concerns to deal with? – such as basic grammar and spelling, for instance.

My own intervention amounts to correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, formatting, and some logical inconsistencies; but I can't correct basic factual content without finding reliable alternative sources, which are not always freely available (and I mean gratis).

Although I have fairly wide-ranging tastes, I have happened upon many an entry that is of absolutely no interest to me; but I should never wish to delete any entry just because it is of no use to me (or, indeed, to 99.9999% of WP users). The inclusion of minority-interest topics (even personally promoted ones), in what has surely become the largest and most eclectic encyclopaedia yet produced by mankind, seems unproblematic at worst and positively desirable at best. Indeed, I would go further, and say that WP's one and only real strength, apart from being free, is its (till recently, at least) ultra-eclecticism.

WP has been referred to, only half-jokingly, as "the world's favourite semi-trusted encyclopaedia", and I can't think of a more apt summing-up. A radical shake-up is certainly needed if it is to gain any real credibility; but why pick on individual articles as would-be victims of a great purge? A quick Google search brings up about 47,000 articles now living in the shadow of the gallows, while millions of others go unmolested, notwithstanding their patent lack of professionalism and authoritativeness.

Turning briefly to the entry in question, I would suggest that an article discussing the term (and its accompanying concepts) in any journal that in turn merits its own WP entry amounts, already, to sufficient notability, irrespective of any further diffusion or lack thereof. Or should the journal Nature Materials also lose its WP entry, for the crime of having included two articles discussing a term that has not been ratified by Angryapathy and his fellow-Bowdlerizers?

One last point: for someone who claims to be so talented at correcting mistakes, Angryapathy seems less than meticulous in spotting his own. For instance, the plural of bacillus, as any biologist should know, is bacilli, and therefore "Alicyclobacillus are of special interest" is catachrestic. Moreover, well-written and well-sourced are correctly hyphenated when they precede the nouns they qualify, but should not be hyphenated when following the noun. A well-written book is well written (or written well). Also, editing has only one t.

Finally, that which is so readily perceived as "vandalism" is often just the result of unfamiliarity, on the part of a would-be contributor, with the seemingly endless list of rules governing the editing of pages. I wish those in the know would just correct the resulting errors without making accusations of malice. We cannot all be Wiki-experts, and we cannot all be expected to know the minutiae of the correct procedures for every type of intervention. Some of us have other things to do.

Julian Locke, University of Florence (The views expressed here are entirely my own, and do not represent, in any way, those of any other person, organization or institution.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.147.0.120 (talk) 15:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your personal attacks are rather humorous to me. You have resorted to discussing an article in my userspace that I haven't worked on in over 2 months and also critiquing my spelling and grammar. Your insults are silly, and you should be ashamed of yourself for spending so much time on it.
This page should be used for the debate of this article, not your research into the cabal against this article or that I didn't dot my lower case i's. Please stick to that topic. Otherwise, you are wasting words. Angryapathy (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it doesn't surprise me that you respond only to my criticism of your "talent", rather to the various other issues I raised. Perhaps it's time to come clean and make the accusation that I withheld in my lengthy comment. You are guilty of rallying your friends to support your cause. Your hypocrisy is outweighed only by your single-minded need to win a battle all of your own making, against an opponent armed only with naïve bewilderment. You'll win, of course, but I pity you. J.L. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.147.0.120 (talk) 16:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Correction to previous: "rather to the various" should read "rather than to the various other". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.147.0.120 (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When you mention "bias", you seem to ignore that fact that the vast majority of people supporting the inclusion of this article on WP are friends of Negrotti (including yourself). The other editors are judging the article's merit objectively based on their knowledge of WP policies. You are supporting it because you personally know the creator of the term. That is what we refer to as WP:COI. And I ignored your other comments because if you are petty and juvenile enough to criticize my spelling and grammar, why I should I bother treating the rest of your comments like an adult? Angryapathy (talk) 16:58, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Notability is the accepted criteria for Noatbility. Go read it. If you'd like to redefine it, start there. I nominated this article for deletion because it doesn't meet those criteria. You had a venue to argue the article's case, instead you decided to cry like a child. Lots of good grammar and spelling, but no ability to read the rules that govern. Go cry somewhere else. Guyonthesubway (talk) 17:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to

But I don't mention "bias" anywhere. Is this a three-way conversation? Am I missing a part of it? Getting back to the discussion, I do know Professor Negrotti, but he has not recruited me to support his cause. I just happened to consult the Naturoids page because I occasionally check pages that I have helped to edit. I am nobody's meatpuppet, and my interest was initially impartial; but when I saw the nature of the attack you and your friends were mounting against an essentially helpless individual, I felt that somebody needed to speak out for the underdog. I also wished to point out that Wikipedia seems to be contradicting its own fundamental philosophy. If it tries to match other encyclopaedias for authoritativeness, succinctness and style, it is destined to fail. Its real strength, as I have suggested, lies in its openness and eclecticism.
 Fumihiko Satofuka,Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
  • The Theory of Naturoids is prominently mentioned throughout the entire article. The very first sentence suggests that this rather elusive theory plays an important role in the development of the term. If we can't confirm the very fact of its existence, it probably means that the article has a big problem with WP:V. — Rankiri (talk) 01:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • To Rankiri again Yes, the term naturoid is central of the related theory, of course. But the article concerns the term, not the theory. In fact, I never used the expression 'Theory of naturoids' in any title of books or papers (apart the book "Theory of the artificial", 1999) but only within the text. This is why the article's title is Naturoid and not Theory of n. The section 'Impact and applications' reports on many places from various fields in which you can find references to my work both regarding the artificial and naturoid, that are the same topic. However, remember that the "The term theory has two broad sets of meanings..." (quotation from Wikipedia article 'Theory'). In my case, it means only a set of integrated coherent and non-contradictory statements, describing a class of empirical facts, from which one can derive verifiable hypotheses. This is the most diffused way to speak of a scientific theory. As far as the 'elusiveness' of the theory is concerned, please remember that your role is to discuss the acceptability of the article, not the theory (anyway, if you want, see my answers to Mr. Angryapathy). Best, M. Negrotti, University of Urbino —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.51.81 (talk) 10:57, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If your decision to give a proper name to "a class of empirical facts" is not supported by any sources, you really shouldn't make it a centerpiece of an entire article:
A naturoid, as defined by the Theory of Naturoids...
The Theory of Naturoids (originally Theory of the Artificial) attempts to investigate the human predisposition to imitate...
The Theory of Naturoids begins with the assumption...
A number of central concepts and principles lie at the heart of the Theory of Naturoids...
The Theory of Naturoids leads to an unambiguous conclusion...
By the way, you seem to be confused about the nature of my earlier comment. I didn't make any keep/delete recommendations based on the subject's notability. I merely pointed out the fact that a good portion of the article—at least the first three sections—is dedicated to a seemingly nonexistent theory and that other parts of the article appear to have similar problems with verification and proper sourcing. — Rankiri (talk) 16:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: WP:N, WP:NOT#OR, WP:SYNTH. I don't think that the Nature article alone is evidential of the subject's notability. Google Scholar and Google Books results, which are mainly written by M. Negrotti himself, show no signs of nontrivial coverage by reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. As discussed above, some parts of the article are misleading and unverifiable. The article has the appearance of being well-sourced, but from what I can tell, practically none of the independent sources discuss the subject in any detail. A number of pruned Google Web searches like [2] return about 150-200 unique results with no apparent signs of significant coverage by WP:RS sources. — Rankiri (talk) 16:18, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again to Mr. Rankiri: Really I do not understand what you mean with 'non existing theory'. Maybe you think that a theory exists only if there are books written to analyze, defend or to attack it and not when it is presented and published in dozens of books and papers, ::though poorly discussed::? What you have read in the article, is only an abstract, of course, but, anyway, it is neither a novel nor a newspaper reportage: it is, and will remain, an abstract of an existing theory. The same is valid for your phrase "some parts of the article are misleading and unverifiable". Misleading for whom? Unverifiable by whom? Do you have never heard of hypothetical theories, waiting for a complete experimental test? Being clear that one cannot test anything if the theory is not published. In this case, WP would delete an article on that theory or, simply, state that "it doesn't exist"? Do it, if you want. But you should be careful in distinguishing the article from the theory. The only good reason for deleting the article (not the theory, of course) due to WP rules, could be that of the diffusion of the term naturoid and related theory, but not their existence. If 'notability' is not ensured by the quotations the article reports, then delete the article. But you cannot pretend that I, the author of the theory, agree with you about the non-existence of my work. It is simply illogical. It should be more nice if you would say::dear professor, your work is very ineteresting, but, due to WP rules, an article about it cannot be accepted in WP. Best wishes for your future work!:: This is the usual style publishers and even referees follow for denying, say, the publication of a paper. It happened to me also, of course. But the publisher (even of an... Encyclopedia, like MacMillan ESTE, for which I was requested to write the entry 'artificial') or the editor never told me ::we cannot publish your theory bacause...it doesn't exist',::. As I said in a previous comment, the theory in question will be published in the next 12 months by four or maybe five leading journals and publishers, strangely persuaded that the theory, bad or good, however...exists.

It should be enough to read carefully the 'Impact and applications' section for understanding that the therm and the theory of artificial (now of naturoids) have been used, quoted and discussed in many occasions. This is not to maintain that my own theory is a universally known one, but only to defend the idea that a good, general encyclopedia shouldn't neglect theories at this stage of development.

P.S. My decision to give a proper name to a class of empirical facts" has a precise name in turn, within the scientific methodology: definition. Best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.167.90 (talk) 17:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • You're still having trouble wrapping your head around the fact that Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and not a publisher or promoter of original thought. Would you be so insistent if this were the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica? My opinion is that the existing article shouldn't be currently accepted in Wikipedia's main namespace due to its noncompliance with the generally accepted standards of the project. If by any chance the article will get deleted, the decision should not diminish or impair the existing scientific value of your research as this entire process has absolutely nothing to do with its quality. I hope you'll realize this sooner or later. — Rankiri (talk) 15:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not deleteThe concept of naturoid (as well as of technoid) by now occurs throughout a body of scholarly literature by various authors. For example, Nissan (2000) discussed meat surrogates, Burmese choreography that imitates a puppet-show (thus, as a technoid emulating a naturoid), and a culture-bound, calendrically determined writing surrogate. Nissan (2008a) developed a classification of kind of explanation, and his examples made use of naturoid theory. Nissan (2008b) — analysing a nasty political cartoon by Thomas Nast, The American River Ganges, from 1871, New York — contrasted the half-human, half-crocodile monsters that Nast drew (the miters worn by swimming bishops were drawn as crocodile jaws about to devour children at Catholic schools in New York), to the following: zoologist Dr. Brady Barr, while preparing a documentary for the National Geographic television channel, approached crocodiles while dressed up himself like a crocodile, with his human body odour disguised by means of hippo dung. This representation was in turn dissected, by resorting to naturoid theory.

Nissan, E. (2000). Culture-bound Technological Solutions: an Artificial-theoretic Insight. In The Culture of the Artificial, special issue of AI & Society, Vol. 14, No. 3/4, pp. 411–439, 2000. Nissan, E. (2008a). Chance vs. Causality, and a Taxonomy of Explanations. Yearbook of the Artificial, Vol. 5 (2008), pp. 195–258. Basel, Switzerland, & New York: Peter Lang. Nissan, E. (2008b). Ghastly Representations of the Denominational Other in Folklore, II: Thomas Nast’s Crocodiles in The American River Ganges (New York, 1871). La Ricerca Folklorica, 57 (2008), pp. 148–154. E. Nissan, London —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.48.107.147 (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

  • Delete. The originator of this concept has been trying to get it accepted as a field of study for nearly 20 years, but his most cited work on the subject has been cited, according to Google Scholar, a grand total of three times by other people, probably because the fact that some human inventions seek to emulate nature is so obvious that there is no need to pay anyone a professor's salary to point it out. I can't believe that anyone intelligent enough to become a professor would wish to draw attention to the complete failure of his grand project, so can only conclude that those arguing for keeping this are enemies of his wanting to have an article which can only serve to bring him into disrepute. If, on the other hand, any of the commenters above really are colleagues of Negrotti, then I would urge them to have a little academic integrity and tell the emperor that he has no clothes, rather than to support this vanity. What will potential future employers think of you when they find that you make such ridiculously illogical arguments as that unrelated grammatical errors by a supporter of deletion mean that an encyclopedia article should have an article about your professor's pet project? Phil Bridger (talk) 22:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dear Angryapathy, Rankiri and Guyonthesubway I hope very much that you have not 'recruited' allieds like Phil Bridger! Beware: he works against your cause! For the content of his evaluation: no comment. Best, M. Negrotti —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.48.134 (talk) 22:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have been recruited by nobody, and work against nobody's cause. Is your comment what passes for academic discourse at the University of Urbino? If so, it places that institution in disrepute. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • LOL. Yes, the guy that came to clean up the mistake I made with the formatting of this page is a meatpuppet but all the SPA's from Italy are not. Really... if this is what passes for analysis in your mind, you should consider a career change.Guyonthesubway (talk) 13:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • I feel I have made my position clear in this AfD, and it is unnecessary to continue reiterating the same comments. I see one issue that many of the SPA's are confusing is that we are not judging the "concept" of naturoid, we are judging the "term" naturoid. And I, and others, have found that the term is used very infrequently outside of the creator of the term. And just for the record, I have not recruited anyone to this discussion, and I doubt any of the supporters of deletion have canvassed in any way. Angryapathy (talk) 23:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete. Negrotti's analysis of the theory, concept and philosophy of the artificial, in which the neologism 'naturoid' is central, makes an important contribution to the intersection of the philosophy of technology and the artificial sciences (including AI, A-Life etc). His work is seminal, even if, unfortunately, somewhat obscure in academia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.107.4.97 (talk) 11:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]
  • Please try to be more observant. Two of these citations don't even mention the term, at all. "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. — Rankiri (talk) 12:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The second source is written by Massimo Negrotti himself. As for the first one, are you really convinced that the following paragraph alone is sufficient for fulfilling the criteria of WP:N? You can see the entire article here.
Negrotti wants to develop something akin to a philosophy of the artificial . . . To this end, Negrotti has coined the term ‘naturoid’ to describe “all devices that are designed with natural objects in mind, by means of materials and building procedures that differ from those that nature adopts.” A naturoid could be a robot, but also a synthetic-polymer-based enzyme, an artificial-intelligence program or even a simulant of a natural odour. This concept was explored in Negrotti’s 2002 book Naturoids: On the Nature of the Artificial (World Scientific, New Jersey). Can one say anything useful about such a broad category? That might remain a matter of taste. — Rankiri (talk) 00:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, can one somewhat inconclusive article—one paragraph, really—adequately satisfy the requirements of WP:N and WP:NEO? I believe the guidelines specifically ask for multiple sources of independent nontrivial coverage, not just one. And for the record, I haven't found any evidence that suggested a close connection between the two authors. I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one after all. — Rankiri (talk) 02:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What WP:N says on the multiplicity of sources is currently underdiscussion, with mysefl involved. Feel free to weigh in there. I have asked the participants at WT:N to weigh in here, because I believe that this is one of few decent articles so close to the line. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Use of the term The quotation by P. Ball is important, but in the 'Impact...' section there are many other examples of usage of the term OR to the theory. Let me collect some examples below (only non-Italian). The term naturoid appears only in some of them because the early formulation was 'theory of the artificial' (as it is clearly said in the introductory section of the article). Nevertheless, if a quotation refers to Negrotti's work on technological reproductions of 'natural objects or processes' clearly it refers to naturoids.

R. Harle, Leonardo, (Oct. 2003) “'Negrotti has succeeded in outlining a basic theory of artificiality which he methodically and systematically expands throughout the book'

S. M. Ali, ‘The Nature of The Artificial: Augmenting Negrottian Artificiality with HeideggerianWhiteheadian Naturality’, Yearbook of the Artificial, Peter Lang, 2002. “Recently, Negrotti [1] has developed a sophisticated mimetic theory of the artificial grounded in three notions - observation, exemplar, and essential performance - that attempts to articulate the former.”

M. Morris, Cornell Uni (during a workshop) "Morris urged the panelists to define the Reef in a critical context beginning with definitions for a model versus a mock-up and offering the term “naturoid” as something crafted to imitate a natural object or process. Panelists discussed the project’s role as a pavilion representing a bundle of contemporary architectural interests including more traditional notions of craft."

Robotic Librarian, http://mechanicrobotic.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/all-your-automata-are-belong-to-us/ “As Massimo Negrotti hypothesizes in his 2001 paper Designing the Artificial: An Interdisciplinary Study, “as a matter of fact, since the dawn of civilization, man shows a great, twofold constructive ambition: one, the Prometheus syndrome, aims at inventing objects and machines able to dominate the nature grasping its laws and adapting itself to them; the other, in turn, the Icarus syndrome, aims at reproducing natural objects or processes through alternate strategies,’ as compared to those nature follows.”

Daniel Mittelholtz, Metacognitive Cybernetics: The Chess Master is No Longer Human! Univ of Saskatchewan, http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/Mittelholtz/MC.pdf “Massimo Negrotti has stated that there is an urgency in defining theories in this field. “The need for a theory comes both from scientific and from practical interests. According to the former we have to understand the artificial in order to discriminate it from the purely technological activity and try to understand also their different anthropological roots and intellectual motivations. According to the latter, we have to understand the different requirements needed for the use of conventional machines as compared to the 'use' of artificial devices. The intensity of today's technology, both artificial and conventional, makes such theoretical work legitimate both on technical grounds and also because of its urgency socially and culturally.” (Negrotti, 1993).

Gregor Schiemann, Nanotechnology and Nature On Two Criteria for Understanding Their Relationship HYLE--International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 11, No.1 (2005), pp. 77-96. “"Nanotechnology […] can be oriented either to reproduce natural things or processes, exhibiting different features, or to produce new objects or materials" (Negrotti 2002, p. 4).”

Gesine Lenore Schiewer: Zur Diskussion des Künstlichen in KI-Forschung und Ästhetik, Conference, Kassel, 2000 „Massimo Negrotti muß noch 1991 darauf hinweisen, daß außer Simons Ansatz aus dem Jahr 1969 kein wesentlicher Versuch unternommen wurde, den Begriff des Künstlichen als solches zu klären (Negrotti 1991, Preface). Er knüpft hier mit verschiedenen Publikationen, zuletzt Negrotti 1999, an. Negrotti bindet seine Überlegungen u.a. an einen "funktionalen Dualismus"

R. Capurro, ‘Ethics and robotics’,2009, IOS Press,Amsterdam “There is a tension between technoid and naturoid artificial products [Negrotti 1995, 1999, 2002]. The concept of artificiality itself is related to something produced by nature and imitated by man. Creating something similar but not identical to a natural product points to the fact that anything to be qualified as artificial should make a difference with regard the natural or the “original” (Negrotti).”

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