Implicating bionic_arm → bionic
Link to implication

Reason:

Also:
bionic_leg → bionic
bionic_eye → bionic

As well as:
cybernetic_arm → cybernetics
cybernetic_leg → cybernetics
cybernetic_eye → cybernetics

EDIT: The tag implication bionic_arm -> bionic (forum #266542) has been rejected by @NotMeNotYou.

I"m not gonna go digging into it right now, but there are about a thousand and 1 tags for prosthetic limbs

prosthetic_leg, pegleg, bionic_leg, wooden_leg, mechanical_leg, cybernetic_leg, artificial_leg, robotic_leg, prosthetic_limb, cybernetic_limb, detachable_limbs, cybernetic_limbs, artificial_limb, prosthetic_limbs, artificial_limbs, mechanical_limbs, metal_limbs, robotic_limbs, robotic_limb, holographic_limbs, cyberlimb, augmented_limb, mechanical_limb...\

jsut to name a scattered few.

I started a thread about his kind of thing about a year ago.... but... well, it turned into "snow writes a long thread about a broad topic, arguements ensure, there is too much text, no one is happy, and there is so much bickering. SO much bickering.

I eventually tossed the whole idea out, started a new approach, then lost about 3 hours of work in a computer crash and said 'fuck it' and didn't bother.

The tl;dr is basically, we have a lot of words that we use to describe, for example, a replacement for an arm. Some of these are very different ideas -- a peg leg and a holographic leg are totally different, after all. But some of the ideas are very similar -- what's the difference between a robot arm, a cyborg arm and a bionic arm?

Mmmkay.

So my general thought--in my original post--was that most of the "scifi" themed arms--which should be most of them be aliased to cybernetic_arm, that cybernatic_arm should imply cybernetic_limb, which implies cybernetics. Repeat with legs, tails, wings etc as needed.

The problem came with some of the other 'flavors' of limb replacement. For example, the peg leg and hook hand are one "flavor"... while a steampunk flavored gear-and-cog limb is another.

I think my 'second draft' was basically.. instead of having cybernetic_arm -> cybernetic_limb -> cybernetics, to have something like Prosthetic_arm and cybernetic_limb separately so that you could search for a thing (an arm replacement) and a flavor (cybernetic/futuristic)... but that really isn't intuitive and is over all a bad idea.

soooo... tl;dr -- if we're going to make some aliases/implications here, we should alias ALL of the words, not jsut a few of them.

I think we should make sure that the words we pick are good descriptive words so that the categories are clear (again, what's the difference between cybernetic and bionic? beats me, they sound like different settings words for the same thing.) and we should set up some good solid implications here too.

and if anyone's..... curious... about the original forum thread, it's over here forum #247104 though I don't really advise reading all of it. there's a lot of bickering. but there are some lists of aliases and implications that might be useful.

I can put together new lists as well, *shrug*

SnowWolf said:
again, what's the difference between cybernetic and bionic?

Cybernetics is the field of study. Bionic is technological replication of living features, such as an artificial limb that has a normal (or augmented) sense of touch.

And it is no longer science fiction. First successful bionic eye implant was done in 2015 to partially cure blindness, though those are nowhere near ready for mass market.

When most users tag cybernetic_arm, what they usually mean is bionic_arm.

Genjar said:
Cybernetics is the field of study. Bionic is technological replication of living features, such as an artificial limb that has a normal (or augmented) sense of touch.

And it is no longer science fiction. First successful bionic eye implant was done in 2015 to cure blindness, though those are nowhere near ready for mass market.

When most users tag cybernetic_arm, what they actually mean is bionic_arm.

That is all extremely interesting to know, thank you :) (that is so cool!)

That said, cybernetic arm seems to be the wrong phrasing :) and even bionic seems a little fuzzy.

I see someone recently updated the cybernetic and bionic wiki pages to imply that bionic is life like in structure while cybernetic isn't.... and while that's a really good distinction, it's not really obvious in practice and people will get it muddied up real quick, I think. Just like there are cyborg_arms and stuff like that too.

I wonder if we shouldn't go for something like futuristic_arm_prosthesis c_c but that's probably getting a little too pedantic. Just as long as all of the words funnel down into one set of words, it's good.

I have run into some trouble with tagging when a cybernetic body part has both bionic and non-bionic components.
post #1738487
In the above image, the cybernetic hands and forearms are visually similar to their biological equivalent, so my first reaction is to tag it with bionic_arm. However, the rest of the arm appears mechanical, especially the exposed metal bars/pistons just above the elbow. The lights and the geometric shapes around the shoulder aren't very natural either.

Does a cybernetic body part have to resemble it's biological equivalent in its entirety in order to be tagged as bionic, or is a single lifelike subcomponent enough?

I should also clarify that when I say 'cybernetic body part' I mean a contiguous segment of electromechanical material which serves some purpose such as replacing a lost limb. If a character has an upper right arm which is cybernetic and a lower right arm which is cybernetic, and both of these parts are connected with electromechanical material, then this is a whole cybernetic body part which is independent of other body parts such as the left arm.

There may also be a more nuanced approach, whereby the bionic-ness of a body part depends on the proportion of lifelike to non-lifelike components. For example, if the hand is very lifelike and the rest of the arm is not very lifelike nor overly mechanical, then the overall view of the arm would be considered bionic. However, if the hand was only slightly lifelike and the rest of the arm was very mechanical, then the overall view of the arm would be non-bionic.

You're heavily overthinking this. Anything can be considering bionic as long as it's an artificial "thing" modeled after a structure found in real life. Many wings on airplanes are "bionic" because they have been modeled after wings from birds, many modern paints dry in a way that resembles the outermost layer of skin of the lotus plants to minimize dirt and dust sticking to the paint.

As such, if a cybernetic implant on a character mimics the functionality of a natural bodypart it's most likely bionic. Your kobold example would absolutely fall under this category because the arm + hands appears to be functionally identical to a regular pair of hands. The fact that the upper arm is "barebones" doesn't hamper the functionality at all, thus it's still bionic.
On the other hand, if the character had clamps for hands (Futurama) it wouldn't be bionic because the functionality of the hands is not similar to that of a regular hand.

Okay, I looked into this.

"Experts" on here contradicting themselves while not providing their own concrete definitions for us uninitiated troglodytes to follow. The only right way forward is to ignore everything that's been done so far. Were it not that these forum discussions made me pissy... Here's a crappy copy and paste from my off-site "research" today.

The tag implication bionic_arm -> bionic (forum #266542) has been rejected by @NotMeNotYou.