# Talk:Automatic scorer

I worked for Brunswick from 1972 through 1978 as an Electrical Engineer developing the Automatic Scorer. I removed the citation request and the reference tag since I am very familiar with the subject and would be considered "the expert." I still have electronic schematics that are dated 1973 and 1974 which I would be glad to furnish by e-mail to anyone that requests them. I was in direct contact with the top executives in Brunswick during this time. I helped install the first Automatic Scorers ever installed throughout the United States. Since I was in the development stages of the Automatic Scorer I am very familiar with the dates. If you need further on this I believe I can furnish, if I knew exactly the request.--Doug talk 18:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia can't rely on the personal testimony of editors. The kinds of sources articles need are outlined at Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. This article doesn't have them. I won't replace the tag at the moment, but it's fully warranted. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I did add two additional references. Do you still need additional references? What specifically do you need a reference for? If I knew what you were doubting, then perhaps I can zoom in on this and get a reference for it?--Doug talk 19:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

All articles need references. The kinds of references needed are outlined at the Wikipedia pages linked above. The 10-K form and patent notice are not appropriate sources; at best, they're primary sources, and Wikipedia is supposed to be based on secondary sources. Bowlingmuseum.com is not a reliable source. If there's a book or magazine article that talks about the design of automatic scoring systems and their impact on bowling, that would be an ideal source. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll look for such a reference and add it when I find it.--Doug talk 19:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Just found such a reference as you are speaking of and added that. Will keep looking and add references as I find them.--Doug talk 20:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Doug, you added another link to a patent. This is not the kind of source the article needs, as I already said above. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

There are several methods used in detecting pinfall. A mid-80s Brunswick design used an oscillating laser as part of the detection system. There are also ultrasonic systems. Most systems today use a CCD camera and some software to detect pinfall. An 80s AMF design had targets you placed at the 7-pin spot on the left lane and the 10-pin spot of the right lane, while the deck was otherwise clear, and then you would adjust the camera's aim with some screws based on some LEDs on the side. Another required and oscilloscope to adjust. Many newer systems can be adjusted by changing some settings in software. I, unfortunately, have no sources other than personal experience with bowling equipment. --Coderjoe (talk) 18:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Attn: 75.5.236.167 - see your Talk page. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell talk 19:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Automatic scorer/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Wasted Time R (talk · contribs) 00:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
A worthwhile article on initial development but needs work after that
It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar):  b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): 
A few MoS issues, see below
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism): 
A couple of claims are not really substantiated, see below
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
Great for the 1960s and 1970s, lacking after that, see below
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias: 

It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.: 

It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):  b (appropriate use with suitable captions): 
Question about one image, another kind of image needed, see below
Overall:
Pass/Fail: 

Re prose and MoS issues:
The lede should have a link to Ten-pin bowling#Traditional scoring so that readers are clear on what is being talked about.
As for The three manufactures of these specialized computers are Brunswick, AMF and RCA., 
I think this should spell out and link Brunswick Bowling and AMF Bowling.  And is this RCA the famous RCA or some other company?

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:09, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

There are several places where contractions are used in article text and need to be expanded out: 
most don't understand and don't know the and 
didn't trust.  
There is one place where there is a space between a period and a footnote:
on October 10, 1967. [22] 

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:09, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

It was first used in national official league gaming on October 10, 1967. It is unclear what this refers to - to the PBA Tour back then?  (Seems unlikely, as they would have had official scorers.)  To local local evening leagues?  To something else?  A link would help.

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:36, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the three short one-paragraph sections "Benefits", "Skepticism" and "21st Century" might best be combined into one section, with a title of "Reception" or something like that.  If not, "21st century" should be in lower case.

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:44, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Regarding content:
The article has several instances of language that suggest that bowling scoring is a really complex task: as most don't understand the mathematical formula involved in bowler scoring and The Automatic Scorer digital computer was mathematically accurate and Score-keeping for bowling is a complex formula and most people that bowl don't know the mathematical process involved in scoring correctly.
But it's not that complicated a formula! You get the pins you knock down, if you get a spare you add in to that frame the next ball, if you get a strike you add in to that frame the next two balls.  (If you roll a gutter ball you get mockery.)  Back in the day my friends and I used to go to the bowling alley when we were 11 and 12 years old and we had no trouble in scoring it ourselves.  Yes, we were all good at math, but still. 
In fact, the Score-keeping for bowling is a complex formula and most people that bowl don't know the mathematical process involved in scoring correctly. text misrepresents the source given a bit.  What in 21 says is that it's surprising that casual bowlers think it's too hard to learn the scoring, because in reality it is "not-so-difficult" and can be done on your fingers and toes. Now there are scoring systems that can be hard to understand in sports – think of figure skating scoring, or the performance tables in decathalon, or the Fedex Cup in golf (especially before the final event was changed a couple of years ago) – but bowling really isn't one of them.

 Done - The source says, What was surprising was the reason behind their popularity. According to one of largest manufacturers of bowling equipment, "Many casual bowlers don't bowl regularly because they don't know how to keep score ...and think it Is too difficult to learn." It goes on to say, Clarksville will no doubt have such a system but until then if you are staying away from the lanes because of mathematics don't be afraid to ask one of the lane personnel on duty for some help. . "All the houses have brochures which explain how to keep score, Now that things are slow they'd also be glad to give you a personal lesson in the not-so-difficult art of keeping score. It's easier than you think and can be done on ten fingers. You high rollers will have to use your toes! I believe my wording is correct to this source #[21] as the houses have to have special brochures with instructions on how to score and explains that it takes specially trained personnel to give one-on-one teaching lessons on how to keep score. It talks about scorekeeping as an art. To me, that's saying that bowling scorekeeping is so complex it requires the skill of an artist. Most people are not artists and only a few are Michelangelos. Most people would consider the Automatic Scorer computer circuits to be very complex as I show in the color schematic diagram in the article. However if you take a close look at it the 1974 diagram I drew has my name on it, as I repaired these machines throughout the United States. To me it was not-so-difficult electronics. Do the electronic circuits look complex to you? If you are an electrical engineer you will say that they do NOT look all that complex. But to those not trained in electronics these circuits are impossible to understand. To most Wikipedia editors creating a Did You Know article is complex and difficult. To me, they are simple and not-so-difficult an art as I have done several with multiple articles in the SAME hook line. I have created 500 Did You Know articles, so to me they are not-so-difficult to create - since I have done it hundreds of times.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:42, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Added additional reference to support the idea that most people that bowl don't know the mathematical process involved in scoring correctly. The reference says, Scoring sounds simple to those that know how. To you score-keeping is not-so-difficult an art = that's because you have done it hundreds of times. To most editors it is a struggle to get their Did You Know article they just created approved by the reviewer and many times takes weeks (if not months). To me getting a Did You Know article approved within hours is the norm. I even had an article I created put into a DYK queue the same day one hour later. I created this article on July 24, 2015. It became an official Did You Know article on Wikipedia's main page on July 26, 2015, after just 2 days from when I created it as a brand new article from scratch! So, anything is not-so-difficult if you have done it already hundreds of times (e.g. keeping score). --Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:22, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

The two New York Times stories I mention below give a slightly different take on this, saying that people like using modern technology in many cases while some old-timers are resistant.  There's also the point that the scoring systems can save time for league secretaries in terms of tracking and adding all scores, keeping averages, etc.
It had the side benefit of speeding up the progress of the game This is not covered by the source given.  The scoring was often done a person whose turn wasn't up, so it ran concurrently with the action.  So where exactly does the speed-up happen?  

 Done The 3_7_1970 news clip I added says that bowlers can concentrate more on the game instead of watching the "opposing" scorekeeper (which slows down the game). It directly goes on to say that an instance of a bowler being saddled with the score-keeping job made him a sub-average bowler, as he had to spend much time on making sure the scoring was done correctly. It also helped the speed of the game for instructors in bowling programs as they then did not have to teach the "newbie" how to keep score. It also says that bowling alley owners also claimed that with Automatic Scorers their open bowling increased in sales, because a lot of people never figured out how to keep score so stayed away from the game. The article continues by saying that only about 10 per cent prefer the old way of scoring by hand. That means 90% preferred the Automatic Scorer because it took away the burden of score-keeping. The machine made the game faster also because it automatically keeps a running total of the teams frame by frame, that includes handicap. It also automatically indicated immediately for a foul and reset the pinsetter automatically immediately with a new set of pins for the next bowler.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:26, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

This increased the popularity of the sport ...  This is a major claim in the article, but the source given is from 1967 contains only speculation that it would increase the popularity.  If it really did increase the popularity, a cite from some later period would be necessary.  See the 1988 New York Times piece below for one possible source for this, although with a small sample size.

 Done

Going into the twenty-first century automatic scorers are found in most bowling centers worldwide.  This needs a source (I don't see it covered by the Famous First Facts page that cites the following sentence). Is there a percentage of bowling centers that have them that can be given?  Does it vary by country?  Did having automatic scorers eventually just become expected of lanes, such that if you didn't have one you would not be competitive?

 Done

What features have automatic scorers added since they were first developed?  Anything that adds pizzazz to the bowler experience?  The "21st century" section mentions two technological developments for detecting pins, but the sources are patents, which as a primary source are not ideal.  

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
There are definitely sources you can use here. By the time of this 1988 New York Times story, 6 of 58 bowling alleys in Connecticut had converted to automatic scoring.  Two of them say it resulted in a 20 percent increase in business. Then by this 1999 New York Times story, it says automatic scorers had become the norm by that time. Both of these pieces cover the technicological developments in scorers to that point and the costs, which seem to be going higher not lower.  What about today, have costs gone down? Then a current story, such as this 2018 one from The Republic (Columbus, Indiana), can give an idea of what scoring systems are like today, with avatars, social media connections, HD graphics, etc. These are just three newspaper articles I spotted in a little looking, I am sure there are a number of others.

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Regarding images:
The inside-the-console one looks okay and having your circuit diagram from back then is definitely cool.  But as for the top image, File:Automatic Scorer 1971.jpg, is that really a photograph of yours?  It has the look of the kind of commercial photograph, processed to have no background, that often appeared in magazines or advertising brochures back then.
Moreover, none of the current images show the automatic scorer in the context of an actual bowling alley, which is unfortunate as it means readers will not get much context.  I see some other images that would do this, such as File:Automatic Scorer1.jpg and File:Ato 2005-11-18-score1.jpg (there are likely others, I didn't look through the whole bowling category tree on Commons).  I think at least one of these should be added to the article.

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:42, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Regarding sources:
As indicated above, the article makes excellent use of old newspaper stories from the 1960s and 1970s, for the development and initial introduction of the automatic scorer, but there are very few sources from later.  Such later ones definitely need to be found and added.

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Regarding footnotes:
If there is going to be just one book source that is referenced only once, I think it's cleaner to just fold that citation into that footnote and eliminate the separate book source section.  But if other books are going to be added, it could stay.

 Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
Since you do it everywhere else, fn 1 and 12 need the url into Newspapers.com for those stories.  Even if you haven't exported them into clips, the story url is still valuable for people who do have Newspapers.com access.  Also, fn 23 and 24 need date and publisher information including some clarification that they are patents.
I think the article should be added to Category:Automation.  It could arguably be added to Category:20th-century inventions and Category:American inventions.

 Done - Added these 3 categories. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
In sum, I am putting this GAN on hold.  Wasted Time R (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wasted Time R: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:27, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
Follow-up comments:
An automatic scorer is the computerized scoring system in bowling. - The thing being linked to is now good, but he text over the link won't communicate to the reader what the link is there for.  This should be reworked to something like:

An automatic scorer is a computerized system to keep track of [[Ten-pin_bowling#Traditional_scoring|scoring in ten-pin bowling]].
 Done
At first it was skeptical if a computer - It is not clear what "it" refers to here, and people are skeptical, not objects.

 Done
AMF Bowling, competitor to Brunswick, entered into the automatic scorer computer field in 1973 and were being installed into their brand of bowling centers. - this sentence does not seem grammatical to me - maybe replace 'and were being installed' with 'and their systems were installed'.

 Done

Score-keeping for bowling is based on a complex formula - Regarding your response above on this issue, for the record it did not take me hundreds of times going bowling to be able to do the scoring, it took me about two times.  And that's the same for my classmates that I went with.  Equating it with making great art or understanding circuit diagrams or even creating DYKs seems kind of absurd to me. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter whether you think bowling scoring is as hard as electrical engineering or I think it's as easy as sixth-grade arithmetic.  It only matters what WP:RSes think.  Is there a source that says bowling scoring is a complex mathematical formula?  The two cites that you are currently using don't use those terms or terms like them.  Instead, they say that some new or infrequent bowlers seem to be put off by having to learn the scoring, which I will grant, and that some league bowlers are relieved by not having to burden to do all the scoring in addition to trying to bowl their best, which I will also grant. So I suggest that the best way forward here is to not have this article say anything in Wikipedia's voice about the complexity or simplicity of bowling scoring, and instead just describe the reasons why most people like the automatic scorer and a few people do not.  Once we have the link text "scoring in ten-pin bowling" at the start of the lede, it will be easy enough for readers to click it and judge for themselves how complicated or not the scoring is. 

 Done
An additional argument about automatic scorers that you can add to the Reception section is bowlers who have never done scoring themselves are clueless about how the scoring works.  As this site says, "Most bowling alleys are equipped with machines that take care of the scoring for you, but you should still know how the bowling scoring system works. Otherwise, the scores the machine gives you will seem arbitrary and confusing."  A similar sentiment is expressed on this site.

 Done
in our high-tech society - this use of first-person plural is against the MoS, see WP:PRONOUNS.

 Done
 Many centers show that business has increased since their introduction. - This sentence is not quite right, maybe replace 'show' with 'state' or start with 'The financial results of many centers show'.

 Done
The increase success rate of bowling perfect games is attributed to the introduction of the Automatic Scorer technology.[1] - The source you give does not say this.  It says that the increased success rate is due to changes in technology overall, not the automatic scorer in particular.  

 Done
Yes, there definitely has been an increase in the frequency of perfect games, but it is due to changes in bowling ball technology and bowling center lane oiling practices.  See this New York Times article from 2000 for a good discussion of this.  This 1996 article from the Chicago Tribune also talks about it, as does this Advance Media piece from 2011.  Not one of these articles mentions the automatic scorer as a reason for more perfect games.

 Done
And by what mechanism would the automatic scorer cause an increase perfect games?  Were people rolling perfect games before, but they got confused in keeping score and didn't realize they had 12 strikes in a row?  That seems unlikely.  

 Done
Regarding images, the new ones are good, but they are both from the 2000s whereas the two later ones are from the 1970s.  Are the internals of the scorer still the same?  If not, the image captions should state the decades that they are from.

 Done
The article is still too weak on post-1970s developments in terms of what bowlers see. You have one sentence on color monitors in the 1980s and then one sentence on avatars and social media today.  There needs to be more.  Otherwise the article is not weighted appropriately.

 Done
fn 26 is missing author and date information.

 Done
fn 31 is missing date information.

 Done
Finally, it's a minor thing, but regarding the suggestion that it's cleaner to just fold the sole book citation into that footnote and eliminate the separate book source section, you marked it as done but it was not done.   Wasted Time R (talk) 00:36, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done
@Wasted Time R: All additional issues done. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:08, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
You've introduced at least two more contractions in your latest changes.  Maybe you disagree with Wikipedia's house style on this, but MOS:CONTRACTION is pretty clear that they are a no-go.
The Women's International Bowling Congress in 1970 recorded 15 perfect "300 games" - the highest score possible in bowling. The increase success rate of bowling perfect games is attributed to the introduction of technology.[1] – These two sentences should be completely removed from the article, as they have nothing to do with the automatic scorer and their presence implies that they do.  (It would be a good topic to get into for the Perfect game (bowling) article, however, which doesn't seem to address the big jump in frequency.)
I think it's a stretch to call bowling scoring a 'formula' – very few sources call it that, and how would you even write the formula out in algebraic terms?  But I guess it's okay.
You marked my comment about the article still being too weak on post-1970s developments regarding new features in automatic scorers as being done, but you don't seem to have added anything in that regard.  Wasted Time R (talk) 23:08, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
@Wasted Time R: All additional issues done. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
With this edit you took out one contraction in the text, but then you took out one that was in the title of a source.  That needs to stay as it was ("Please don't mention ...").  The other contraction that you introduced in the previous round is in Some bowlers didn't trust automatic scorers, that's the one that still needs to be removed.
 Done
Also, that same edit took away a footnote – was that intentional?
 Done = yes.
With the changes to the article that have been made, I think the sentence They were first used in national official league gaming on October 10, 1967. is now out of place.  I think it would be better if it were moved into the History section, immediately after the sentence The scoring machine received approval for official use by the American Bowling Congress in August of that year.
In the lede, it says ... keep score manually by hand ....  You only need to say 'manually' or 'by hand'; saying both is redundant.
Even by flexible standards, somebody's post to TripAdvisor (fn 26) is not a WP:RS.
The source dates on fns 23, 24, 27, and 32 all say 2020, which is incorrect.  They all have individual dates, for example one is November 4, 2019, another is August 21, 1988, etc.
You can add that QubicaAMF Worldwide is a major manufacturer of scoring systems now.  A company called Steltronic seems to be another one.  The amount of functionality in them now is immense – see this brochure of QubicaAMF for example.  If you look at announcements like this one, you see that the automatic scorer now is considered a "bowling scoring and entertainment system", with touchscreen panels, adaptive skill levels, the ability to run non-traditional games for children or skill games for advanced bowlers, and so on.  The article needs to convey a bit more than it does now what the modern-day systems look like.  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
@Wasted Time R: All additional issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 15:51, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
Well, I still don't think this article does justice to the current state of automatic scorers, and I don't understand why your last set of changes removed the material about how pins are constructed now with fluorescent coatings for better detection, I thought that was interesting.  But these back-and-forths have reached the point of diminishing returns, so I will pass this article for GA.  Wasted Time R (talk) 00:50, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how difficult it would be to find sources on this subject, but it is something I am personally quite curious about and I would've loved it if this article had answers for it. Automatic scoring screens often feature ridiculous/absurd animations. I found at least one recent source that confirms that much: [1] (also [2] if it's an RS?). I am very curious where this pattern originated, who creates these animations, and why they are always like that. Is there a chance this article could cover that? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 15:19, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

This article is part of Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 and the Good article (GA) drive to reassess and potentially delist over 200 GAs that might contain copyright and other problems.  An AN discussion closed with consensus to delist this group of articles en masse, unless a reviewer opens an independent review and can vouch for/verify content of all sources. Please review Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/February 2023 for further information about the GA status of this article, the timeline and process for delisting, and suggestions for improvements.  Questions or comments can be made at the project talk page.  MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:36, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Wasted Time R, one of the frequent issues found in DC's work is that he took text from one source, but cited it to another.  Are you able to verify this text:

The Automatic Scorer digital computer was mathematically accurate, however the detection system at the pinsetter mechanism sometimes reported the wrong number of pins knocked down. The computer could be corrected manually for this as well as handicap figures added and late arriving bowlers tallied. The automatic scoring is directly connected to the foul detection unit so that foul line violations are automatically scored.
to this source?  I've frequently found that content shows up in another source, sometimes copy-paste.  SandyGeorgia (Talk)  19:46, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: That source supports most of that, but a couple of implementation details – wrong scores from the system being due to reporting failures at the pinsetter mechanism and foul line violations being scored via a connection to the foul detection unit.  I looked through the existing sources in the article and did not see these discussed.  In these cases, I don't think they are due to copyvio from other sources but rather DC was in part leaning on personal knowledge (he is an engineer who worked on automatic scorer systems in the 1970s).  And these implementation explanations make sense to me, so I've annotated the article with a couple of comments to this effect.  I don't think they should put the GA status in peril (see WP:GACR and WP:GACRNOT, it's a different world from FAC/FAR), but if necessary, I can keep looking or take them out.  Wasted Time R (talk) 00:35, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Not to worry; just wanted to make sure you were aware that he largely either made stuff up, misrepresented sources, or mis-attached citations, so you have to thoroughly comb over every bit of text.  Now that the bot run is done, I'm returning my focus to work on the CCI, as I'm sure you've got this one :) SandyGeorgia (Talk)  00:39, 27 February 2023 (UTC)


### Automatic scorer