Editing Loebner Prize (section)

==Competition rules and restrictions==
The rules varied over the years and early competitions featured restricted conversation Turing tests<ref>{{Scientific American Frontiers |4 |3 |"Machines Who Think"}}</ref> but since 1995 the discussion has been unrestricted.

For the three entries in 2007, Robert Medeksza, Noah Duncan and [[Rollo Carpenter]],<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html|title=Home Page of the Loebner Prize|date=14 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914152327/http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html |archive-date=2017-09-14 }}</ref> some basic "screening questions" were used by the sponsor to evaluate the state of the technology. These included simple questions about the time, what round of the contest it is, etc.; general knowledge ("What is a hammer for?"); comparisons ("Which is faster, a train or a plane?"); and questions demonstrating memory for preceding parts of the same conversation. "All nouns, adjectives and verbs will come from a dictionary suitable for children or adolescents under the age of 12." Entries did not need to respond "intelligently" to the questions to be accepted.

For the first time in 2008 the sponsor allowed introduction of a preliminary phase to the contest opening up the competition to previously disallowed web-based entries judged by a variety of invited interrogators. The available rules do not state how interrogators are selected or instructed. Interrogators (who judge the systems) have limited time: 5 minutes per entity in the 2003 competition, 20+ per pair in 2004–2007 competitions, 5 minutes to conduct ''simultaneous'' conversations with a human and the program in 2008–2009, increased to 25 minutes of simultaneous conversation since 2010.