Talk:Robot/Archive 7

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... &lt; DREAMAFTER &gt;&lt; TALK &gt; 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?
 * 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) 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? &mdash; 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.  &mdash; Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's 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.  &mdash; 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.  &mdash; Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The guidelines are not there just to be followed. See . 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." &mdash; 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 Manual of Style, 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)