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No notable third-party coverage. Q ^{T C} 06:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would be nice to know why this template above was added. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 22:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That template is often used when an article has been brought up off wiki in a forum or other internet watering hole of folks interested in the article. The purpose is to let folks not familiar with WP policy know what the relevant policies are, most importantly that an AFD discussion is not decided by raw voting--sometimes people new to WP assume that the number of !votes is important, when really it is both the number and the quality of the reasoning in line with WP policy. Let me know if that's not clear. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I get why it's used. Just not why it's been used in this instance. If you could link me to perhaps where this has been linked externally, that would help to clear it up. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep One of Wikipedia's great strengths is its leading-edge coverage of computing developments, greatly outpacing print media. Whilst it is fair to say that Bitcoin and a small number of similar systems presently have unimpressive numbers of users and are not widely known, they are an important innovation that will be discussed within academic literature as well as certain computing / cryptographic spheres. I think the proposal to delete this article misses the significance of this realm of computing which, admittedly frontier at present, is definitely of value for Wikipedia. prat (talk) 09:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC), computing professional, long term wikipedian and elected English wikipedia administrator[reply]
  • "will be" discussed in the literature … "not widely known" — In other words not yet a part of the general corpus of human knowledge and not yet documented. You've just made good arguments to support a case for deletion, per our Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research policies. Uncle G (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • What is 'the general corpus of human knowledge'? In my opinion that's a ridiculous notion to put forward, as most humans know nothing about most things. Fundamentally, since there are real services accepting Bitcoin as payment, it's obviously a real system that deserves reference.prat (talk) 12:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you think that the corpus of human knowledge is a "ridiculous notion", then working on an encyclopaedia is not the project for you. Uncle G (talk) 11:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The project can be verified to exist, everything else is original research. How is a wikipedia article that is a copy of the original website useful? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.236.35.117 (talk) 18:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Just for the record, Bitcoin has made the Slashdot frontpage recently: [1]. 91.32.175.1 (talk) 14:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• This template must be substituted.
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Wait and hold on for a little while. I figured that the deletionists would get ahold of this article sooner or later, and in fact considering the attention it got on Slashdot it surprised me that it took this long. The article has certainly improved substantially since it got the Slashdot coverage, but the issue with notability is something that can be argued per the usual guidelines. For myself, I think the verifiability argument can be thrown out the window as all of the claims made in the article can be verified independently. The original research guideline is a bit trickier and may be more problematic. The same thing that keeps UFO researchers from posting wild theories does keep this from being accepted too, on the same grounds. I think that it will become something much more notable, but that hasn't happened yet and this is bleeding edge stuff. I guess the race is on now to see if anybody else in the next week might publish something, or a hard search to see if there might be some bona fide 3rd party sources of information that are discussing this topic (beyond blogs or other such stuff). --Robert Horning (talk) 17:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'See Uncle G's comments above. The first version came out a a year and a half ago and there still isn't any reliable third party coverage, I wouldn't call that bleeding edge. Q ^{T C} 23:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a Google search came up with several third party commentaries and reviews of the project, but I'll admit that the quality of those sources may seem a bit lacking as they are mostly blog entries. That gets real fuzzy on what is a reliable source. Some of the sources may be considered "reliable" but that is a matter of opinion on the topic. I've also seen where some topics like this will get a commentary like "delete for now, but undelete or rewrite when reliable 3rd party sources are written". Yes, I get that too. Bleeding edge is a relative term anyway and this is all subjective. As per the strictly technical term of two or more 3rd party sources, that can indeed be found for this article. The rest is weighing if those sources are sufficient or merely the blogosphere talking to itself at the moment. They are, however, 3rd party commentaries that are not coming from the creator of the software and that indicates at least a certain level of notability. Now if that is sufficient for the current quality requirements of Wikipedia is where the question lies. --Robert Horning (talk) 01:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - This smells like an ad. Needs a rewrite if kept... Carrite (talk) 19:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Wikipedia is not for publishing "bleeding edge" original thought, or to promote your new software concept or business model. Even computing topics need to show long term historical notability and historical, technical, or cultural significance. Every reference is either internal or trivial. The article is also advertising, and focuses exclusively on the features this product offers and its alleged advantages. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Electronic cash systems are a perfectly valid topic and cross-references to existing implementations allow Wikipedia depth without extending the core article to undue length. This one may need extensive work as an article, but deletion is a bad solution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cb6 (talk • contribs) 12:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, with all due respect, I do not think that's really relevant, as the fundamental problem is lack of significant coverage in reliable sources. I can find no such coverage. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Here is one "credible" 3rd party source that I think would be indisputable: http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/open-source-innovation-the-cutting-edge-582?page=0,2

As to if at least one more credible source could be found.... that is debatable. I do think this does refute the original proposal for deletion that "no credible sources can be found", although I'll admit that just one source is quite weak. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. At least 18 independent third-party businesses accept bitcoins as payment. Every single one should be considered notable third-party coverage. It's easy and risk free to review some random program on the Internet, but these companies have put their money where their mouth is. Here are 15 companies and here are 3 exchanges. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.24.100 (talk) 03:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• This template must be substituted.
• Keep. The sources citing Bitcoin may not be the most authoritative, but I think we should WP:Ignore all rules in this case. Why? Because Bitcoin is a unique innovation in that it's a) an electonic cryptocurrency b) anonymous/pseudonymous and c) fully distributed and doesn't need a central authority to function. The theory of such currencies has been discussed in academic literature for years but Bitcoin is the first working implementation that fulfils all criteria above. And to my knowledge, it is currently the only working implementation in the world. Those two facts make it notable enough in my opinion, and Bitcoin's inclusion in Wikipedia improves the educational value of the Electronic money article. --American Antics (talk) 10:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This template must be substituted.

• Keep. It's hard to get third-party sources for niche software like this. News organizations aren't interested. See, for example: I2P, Entropy, GNUnet, Nodezilla, OneSwarm, and OFFSystem. None of those have a single third-party source. Theymos (talk) 19:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Please. I came here for information and was delighted to find it. That information is both important and verifiable. Deletion is like the death penalty - not corrective at all. If you don't like the content then improve it, but please don't edit it down to zero. Dizm (talk) 22:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, please have a go yourself and see if you can find some coverage in reliable sources. If I had found any when I searched, I would have added them. Also, Theymos, the state of other articles isn't relevant to this discussion, other stuff exists. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that noting other articles which have shaky references is only giving fodder to get those other articles nominated for deletion instead of trying to fix the problems with this article. It is a failed argument. Still, are sources like this one (which clearly is 3rd party) reliable? That fits source #2 for strict notability requirements and something that I've seen in previous deletion discussions be sufficient to save the article. That this is a blog may be true, but is this an expert in the subject area? That is certainly something up for discussion. I've made my attempts at finding reliable sources that aren't blogs, but there isn't much. OK, I just found something else: This article in the Hartford Advocate. Stuff is out there, but it does take some digging. It is not exactly true that there is no coverage in "reliable sources". --Robert Horning (talk) 01:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as per American Antics' comment. Also, Nmap recently added signatures for Bitcoin -- not sure if that counts as significant. Disclosure: I'm a contributor to the project. — DataWraith (talk) 10:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A list of further outside sources can be found on the Bitcoin forum: [2]. — DataWraith (talk) 10:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Ok, it looks like there may be enough, I'll take a look later to see what I think of the quality, but you all should be aware that posting a note to a forum like that to attract attention is verboten, see Wikipedia:Canvassing, since it attracts folks with similar points of view. As editors here we are supposed to be neutral. Contributors to the project need to be very careful regarding conflicts of interest, and how wonderful the software is has nothing to do with it's notability. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I've got to ask.... is this a threat to silence dissent against deletion by intimidation, or is it a genuine concern that there might be some people off-wiki that are discussing the deletion of this article that isn't included here? As editors, I find it impossible to be neutral on all things, and for somebody to make a presumption that we must always be neutral is sort of a joke in many ways. Disclosure is useful and IMHO important in the editorial process, and a reasonable attempt at writing an NPOV article should be made, but that shouldn't stop you from expressing your point of view on talk pages and certainly not expressing a point of view in deletion discussion. There are several problems with the Canvassing guideline as mentioned here, and its application far too often involves what I believe to be abusive mis-use of administrative privileges to promote a certain point of view. Basically that is a very dangerous weapons that is more often mis-used than used properly. I'm sorry if this is getting off-topic, but it is an issue that concerns me and notification to a community like a wikiproject certainly isn't excessive canvassing. Why should notification to a non-wikipedia community be any different? Posting a note to a forum of this nature certainly shouldn't be "verboten". Yes, if you would like, I can take this discussion elsewhere to finish. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:57, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• It was not meant as a threat at all, but rather a caution to those not familiar with WP procs. But I think the policy on canvassing is very important, because making a notification to an interested group of people who normally do not edit WP generally leads to a bit of a mess which usually has the unintended consequence of working against the goals of the interested group. And while I agree that true neutrality may not be achievable, it's still a worthy goal. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, T. Canens (talk) 01:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Relisting comment: A list of sources was posted late in the discussion, so further discussion seems warranted; I should mention that I find most of the keeps above to be exceedingly weak at best. T. Canens (talk) 01:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. All but one of the new sources are either primary, blogs, or trivial mentions, not enough to establish notability. Sorry, but now is not the right time for an article on this. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 02:51, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response to the first keep comment: ...they are an important innovation that will be discussed within academic literature as well as certain computing / cryptographic spheres... The prerequisite for a Wikipedia article on anything is for the words "will be" to become obsolete, with "has been" becoming more accurate. See WP:CRYSTAL. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 03:45, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment, I went through and cleaned up the article a bit. IMO, the only two reliable sources providing any sort of significant coverage are the first two, the Inforworld article, and the article from the Hartford paper (which also appears in another online newspaper). Those of you who have come here from the bitcoin forum should keep in mind that WP's policy is that blogs generally do not qualify as reliable sources, the exception being if a blog is associated with a newspaper or journal that presumably provides editorial review. Passing mentions, forum discussions, and the like don't carry weight. Also, if the article is deleted, the author can request that it be userfied (put into the user's own space), where they can work on it more. Deletion is not prejudicial--if good sources come up with time and are added. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for your effort an at least including those references. I am not sure if the "P2P Foundation" qualifies as something peer-reviewed or by somebody with strong credentials in the area, so I really don't know if that qualifies as a reliable source or not. That is the point.... I simply don't know enough about peer to peer networks to know who is credible in the area. I do know that scholarly research on the topic does go into different circles than traditional computer science research in part due to the legal issues that surround peer to peer networks and a sort of anarchism that also accompanies much of that particular community who works on that kind of software in general. Yes, I know there are ACM Journal articles about peer to peer networks as well, and it would be very nice if there was something specifically about Bitcoins showed up in one of those journals. Perhaps it will some day but it isn't there now which is the point that I happen to agree with you on.

    I happen to agree that the quality of the sources is currently rather weak. It may get better, but that isn't a guarantee. I wouldn't object to a deletion with the presumption that when better sources do come along that it can be re-created or undeleted without prejudice.... presuming that better sources are found that fit better with Wikipedia policy. This is a borderline notability issue, and it is notability that I think is the only legitimate argument for deletion. Other reasons for deletion (lack of NPOV treatment, etc.) are not reasons for deletion but are a case for re-writing. --Robert Horning (talk) 13:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's look at Robert Horning's first source in detail. It's not, in fact, written by Michel Bauwens at all, so Michel Bauwens is not very relevant to the reliability of the source. It's credited to "Aran, of Organic Design New Zealand". It turns out that it comes from a wiki, this page on this wiki in fact, written only last month, by someone with the pseudonym "Nad". A quick perusal of that wiki reveals no mechanisms in place for ensuring that people really are who they claim to be on their user pages, or that their autobiographies are accurate. So identification of "Nad" for the purpose of evaluating xyr credentials is stymied. And then there's the timing and the linking. Notice that the article links several times to Wikipedia, and post-dates this article by more than a year. So it's hard to rule out the possibility that Wikipedia is the source here. Returning to Michel Bauwens, I note that xe isn't writing originally on this subject, from expertise, but repeating others. In this article that xe wrote (leaving aside that this is another wiki with identification of pseudonym problems) xe explicitly cites this Wikipedia article as xyr source of information.

  So where is all of this information coming from? It seems that it's coming circularly, from sources derived from Wikipedia itself, and thus based upon unsourced and unverifiable contributions made by this article's creator (Pratyeka above, notice.) and others over the last year; from sources that aren't independent (such as the material sourced to the inventor of the scheme); and from sources whose authorships, and thus whose reliability, are not satisfactorily determinable.

  The Advocate article would be a better source. It's written by an identifiable person, whose credentials and reputation for fact checking and accuracy can be determined. But it devotes just over 100 words, 1 paragraph plus a sentence, to this subject, before talking about its main thesis (electronic cash in general and who controls Internet); and those ~100 words are, it transpires, a simple regurgitation of the description of the subject by "Its creator Satoshi Nakamoto". Non-independence strikes again. Uncle G (talk) 12:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm at least trying to provide an argument in support of notability, and will admit I'm straining at gnats here. Thank you for at least looking at these sources as that is the debate I was hoping for. --Robert Horning (talk) 13:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm entirely with you on that point. Uncle G (talk) 09:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Notability has been established. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 02:15, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you elaborate on that, please? -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 13:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No -- I think it's evident that this article is backed by sources that show notability if you look at the References and External Links of this article. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 22:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I see there are references that establish nothing more than mere existence. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 05:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good for you. 80.195.252.114 (talk) 00:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Blanchardb says that no references here are viable. Uncle G established that some references come from Wikipedia by being re-written and then sourced back to Wikipedia. This is bad referencing and nothing establishes notability. Miami33139 (talk) 17:17, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]