Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Robotics/Archive 1

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[edit] THIS PROJECT IS EVIL AND SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN!

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the nice illustration of the point I'm about to make, Zenwhat :) There's an article in the current SciAm about how Hitachi is moving forward on reducing the size of RFID chips. I was dismayed to see that 90% of the online reaction, even at tech-friendly sites like Engadget, had the flavor of Zenwhat's userbox. (The relevance to robotics is that cheap, tiny RFID chips can communicate to a robot what an object is and how it should be manipulated.) What I'm taking from this is that discussion about strong reactions to advanced technology is just as worthy of inclusion in encyclopedia articles as the technology, if those strong reactions are likely to have definitive consequences. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

-_- I don't believe my eyes. As per WP:AGF, I'll hold my comments. Please stick to objective discussions. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 06:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Technological singularity for the win. :) · AndonicO ^Hail! 19:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll throw some things out to get us started, and feedback would be appreciated. Anyone is welcome to designate anything that I write as useless handwaving and consign it to my talk page at any time, or we can discuss things heatedly and quickly and stick it in an archive and move on. We don't need to WP:AGF from Zenwhat, he's already demonstrated that he's full of it (haha). In particular, User:Zenwhat/Zen_guide is highly recommended. Welcome. Welcome also to AndonicO, who is a polyglot admin with a very funny userpage, and of course Jameson, who re-started this project, and who will almost certainly receive his admin mop in May. In fact, every day I run into someone new on one of the robotics-related pages who is funnier, smarter, and/or more accomplished than I am, generally all before they turn 21. If I hang around much longer, I'll need Prozac.

An observation: robotics-related pages carry some burdens more than other WP pages do. One is the technophile/technophobe divide, a problem that not even the magic of WP has been fully able to dispel. When I have made edits to WP:Robot to help it conform to the Manual of Style, I have sensed distrust from the technophiles, and when I discuss technical subjects on Wikimedia sites and chat channels, I get a strong sense that I'm being given a very short rope, much shorter than if I were talking about something blander and less technical. (Obviously this could have more to do with the presenter than the material.) I've seen evidence on WP that some technophiles who are trying to get upgraded status for their favorite articles feel that admins are useless, bureacratic weasels who cover up the fact that they don't know anything about the subject by making them jump through one useless hoop after the other, and conversely, I've seen discussions by admins that they believe that technophiles make particularly difficult editors, unwilling to play by the same rules that everyone else here plays by. Comments? How can we reduce the heat and get everyone to play nice? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You're all POV-pushing for anti-human\anthrophobe\robophile\pro-robot apologetics. You'll all be sorry when the robots take over and you have to pay tribute to them with human babies (see The Matrix) or through servitude to them (see I, Robot (film) and the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica). This is assuming, of course, that they don't outright EXTERMINATE the human race entirely! (see The Terminator)

Stephen Hawking is a super-genius. He's clearly seen a LOT more movies on robots than you guys. You should respect his authority on the subject and listen to him.

Alter our DNA or robots will take over, warns Hawking.

Robots are forms of property that, like nuclear weapons, must be carefully controlled (if not outright abolished) to prevent our own self-extinction.

The coming Robocracy is NOT something we should look forward to. HUAR! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

OK this has got to end.

This page's objective is to discuss topics of the WikiProject, not to discuss the validity of article subject(s) revolving this WikiProject's existence. Please direct your productive rantings to those respective articles, especially HUAR. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 02:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You're doing a great job of making my point, Zenwhat...this is part of the burden that we robotics editors face. Sometimes it's this blatant, sometimes it's just discomfort with the subject, a lack of support or interest.

Btw, I know my reference to "weasels" above sounds like a borderline violation of WP:CIVIL. I believe it's customary to give people a little more leeway during the brainstorming segment of a Wikiproject (as long as it doesn't boil over into personal attacks). This is a good time to discuss process questions...what isn't working? What would you like to see changed?...as well as practical suggestions for particular articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I guess the most annoying bit for me, and I know the same happens for a lot of people working on robots, is that I just see myself as slogging through a difficult subject, trying to build something useful to make people's lives a little easier, but for some reason, the typical reaction is very off-the-wall...people have a variety of preconceptions that what roboticists are doing is hilarious, or scary, or foolhardy, or clueless and geeky...and for some reason, they are very uninhibited about sharing. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well Dan, I'd like you to know that I'm very serious about kickstarting this WikiProject and you can be sure the major stuff should be nailed out most likely by the end of the week unless my birthday festivities get extended... :D I like the brainstorming, but if users have fundamental issues with this WikiProject's existence, I'd believe that these issues should have been addressed before it was created, not after. Besides, it was sitting in the Village Dump for ages.  :) - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 06:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

My comments were intended to be humoros (with no U's -- that makes it more American) and apparently, they did a good job at stimulating discussion, which is what this page needed. On the contrary, I hope this project goes well. We need more information on robots on Wikipedia...

...if only to prepare for their inevitable rise to power.

So long as you guys are "robotics" editors and not "robotic" editors (I will follow WP:AGF but I still have my suspicions), I wish you luck with this.

Also, expanding\writing some articles on the military robots they've been using in the Iraq war would be a neat first task, with lots of sources on the internet about it. [1]

The TV show, Futureweapons, have also had several episodes on killer roobts. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

o/~ Sometimes I feel the weight of the world, it's so heavy and it's gettin' me down... - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An interesting problem with technology-related articles

The culture at Wikipedia, and the rules at WP:NOT in particular, might not be as supportive of robotics editors as we might want...and maybe it would be a good idea to fix that problem before we start wrestling with admins over robotics articles. There is a constant tension among three groups...and many people (like me) are in all 3 groups, so let's say, 3 different focuses. One focus is improving Wikipedia articles...there's no problem there, we know how to deal with this.

The second focus is anxiety about broader implications of technology (see above), and there's no easy fix for that. Sometimes this leads to intrusive behavior, but the bigger problem is it usually just makes people give up and go away. In the case of robotics, the problem is that everyone cares. Cars are robots, robots are used in war to kill people, food is cheap because of modern farming robots. We need robots, we can't get rid of them, but we don't know how they work, we don't trust them, and we are all suspicious of the people pulling the levers. This anxiety intrudes constantly and forcefully into WP robotics articles...not just with vandalism, although there's a lot of that. Mostly, the problem is that we don't get the same level of wiki-love and support that makes WP work so well. If you are still reading this, but your eyes have started to glaze over and you're having a strong desire to go read something else, then you understand exactly what I'm talking about.

The third focus is the desire to get something done in the real world, as opposed to writing good WP articles. This would include a student sharing information helpful to other students, a househusband who has played around with robotic vacuums and has very useful things to say about what works and what doesn't, or an expert in a particular field who knows exactly what software works and what doesn't. The most relevant WP:NOT rule here is the one about unsourced material...which works really well when dealing with, say, history, but not when the relevant subject material is being updated every month, and usually by people who are not academics or journalists.

The bottom line is that, although WP policies have done magical things in other subject areas, they aren't working as well for robotics articles in particular and technology articles in general. The person who wants to know what bird he just saw can come to WP with confidence; the person who wants to know if he can buy a robot to fetch a beer out of the fridge is going to be disappointed, because the WP process only does really well with the simplest and most well-established technological questions. It seems to me we ought to be able to do better.

I'm not looking for the magic answer to all this, but I am inviting comment, and it would be great to know where in WP similar issues have been hammered out before. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an example would help. If you want to know the color of the tail feathers of some extinct bird, Wikipedia is wonderful for that, and for lots of other facts which are probably of interest to only a few people. If you want to know the names of the 3 most common robots in US or European homes, and what they can and can't do, you're out of luck if you search Wikipedia...and you'll only find out that you're out of luck after reading something over 600 pages trying to find what you're looking for. There are in fact communities of people who have good insight into what robots are popular, what they can do, how to train them, where to buy them...but these communities are not attracted to Wikipedia as much as some other communities are. That's an understatement...I have tried to get hobbyists more interested in Wikipedia, Wikia and Wikiversity (as appropriate) and failed completely. That's partly because I haven't tried for long, and partly because they don't already know how great and how important Wikipedia and sister sites are. But it's also because they feel that they would have to put up with a lot here that they don't have to put up with on their own sites. I could go into detail but I won't...I'm just trying to sketch the problem and invite people to share their perspective. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

For anybody who gets too caught up in this... If you're either extremely pro-robot or extremely anti-robot, and it upsets you when there are POV-pusher on the issue (with all due respect!) you should see the essay Wikipedia:Don't be a dork.

If any of you have any examples of people fighting over POV-pushing relating to technology (especially robots), let me know, because that would be a GREAT addition to the article! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Motion to move "An open letter to our new members" to Outreach page

I believe the "An open letter to our new members" section is a very nice touch, but it is more geared towards the objectives of the outreach page. I'd like to motion to have this section moved as well as attach a copy to the Invitation template. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 00:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)