Topic: Is a mobile phone a machine?

As a bit of background, I have been cleaning up tags on rotom posts where this Pokemon possesses some sort of electronic device (e.g., wash_rotom). This has generally involved adding the animate_inanimate, living_machine, and living_appliance tags where they were missing. The next form on my list is rotom_phone. I wasn't 100% sure whether the living_machine tag would apply in this scenario, so I figured that I'd get some additional opinions before continuing. It seems very inconsistent whether the machine tag is used for posts containing mobile phones.

While I'm posting, I was also uncertain on the correct use of the animate_inanimate tag in relation to rotom_phone. There are a lot of instances where it is just used as a regular phone without any indication of it being animate; often times you can't even see the face. Should I only use this tag when it looks like the phone is an animated character?

Even though a car is 'animate', we still consider the characters from Cars to be animate_inanimate. But there's still the results from cars_(disney) -animate_inanimate. Take from that what you will.

And yes, a Pokedex that is possessed by a ghost (that animates it with a lifelike face) is pretty much like those cars.

Wasn't living machine like the Transformers? Nanotech, son, nanotech! (Pretty much the idea behind them)

I guess it's time to review the Wiki entries and post examples, if you're tagging these.

Thanks. The living_appliance tag mentions the living_machine tag directly in the Wiki, which is what I had used as a basis for updating the Rotom forms based on appliances. I guess it really boils down to what the definition of a machine is. The wiki is vague and internet searches are contradicting. A lot of definitions seem to focus on it being a device that 'controls movement to perform an action', but others seem to just have it as a device that 'performs a task'. The phone tag implies electronics but there is currently no link to the machine tag.

In regard to the animate_inanimate question, here are a few examples:

post #4720718 post #4759441 post #5844413 post #5181809

All these images are currently tagged with rotom_phone. There isn't any indication of it being alive, it's all based on the overall shape (the second image doesn't even have a face). I guess I'm stuck on the 'tag what you see' guidelines. How would I distinguish an 'animate' Rotom from a rotom-like phone case?

ma·chine
/məˈSHēn/
noun
noun: machine; plural noun: machines

an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task.
"a fax machine"

So no, a cell phone is not a machine. The only phone that could potentially be considered a machine is a rotary phone.

de·vice
/dəˈvīs/
noun
noun: device; plural noun: devices

1.
a thing made or adapted for a particular purpose, especially a piece of mechanical or electronic equipment.
"a measuring device"

So a cellphone is a device.

Additionally, all machines are devices, but not all devices are machines.

Interesting idea for a definition: Machines having to have some kind of actuator. Having to have some mechanism (not literally mechanical, though) to activate possibly more but at least 1 actuator. Some means, internal or external, of control. Like, a power saw is a machine, because it has a switch to turn it on, and a blade that the motor turns. In this case, it's a combination of mechanical and electrical. I'm not sure a screen or speaker counts in that manner, then.
But yeah, I didn't really think of RotoDex as being a machine in the same sense as the cars/transformers/a clothes dryer.

Those are both great points. I've been reading up on this a bit more and it sounds like the main distinguishing factor is that a machine relies on forces and movement. An electrical machine uses electricity to create force / movement (e.g., a power saw), while an electrical device doesn't necessarily involve movement (i.e., a digital watch, cellphone, etc.). This should cover both simple machines (levers, pulleys), more complex systems, and robots. If this makes sense, I can tackle updating the machine, living_machine, and electronics wiki pages to point users in the right direction. I'm unsure whether a 'living_electronics' tag would be beneficial for these types of scenarios to avoid mis-tags, or whether it would just add more confusion.

In the meantime, I can work on cleaning-up both the rotom_phone and rotom_pokedex posts based on this discussion, as well as the few other posts with animate mobile phone characters (e.g., post #1842427).

TBH, examples like Rotom PokeDex is so damn rare that I'm not really worried. Even Mal0 has the phone and anthro part separated.