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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Attack on The DAO

Apparently my changes were deemed editorializing. OK, let's discuss the changes I'd still like to keep, piece by piece:

1. The article currently says:

"On June 17, 2016 The DAO, which had been hailed as a revolutionary use of Ethereum that demonstrated the potential for the platform, was hacked and $50 million in Ether was stolen."

"Stolen" is probably a violation of WP:BLPCRIME, and almost certainly a violation of WP:NPOV (and if it's not, it should be). I am not trolling, I promise - there is a serious debate going on online about whether it was a theft or (as logically implied by the repeated claims that "the code is the contract") a legitimate contractual outcome. "Hacked" is probably a violation too, but I'll let that slide since it's probably necessary to use that word so that non-technical people will understand what actually happened.

So let's change "stolen" to "misappropriated", which is more neutral and not a BLPCRIME-violation.

2. It currently says, in the next sentence:

"Stephen Tual, COO of Slock.it, the company that had worked on the development of The DAO, proposed a rollback or hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain to reverse the transactions, and also said that the DAO would be wound up as a result"

There are in fact several proposals being discussed in the Ethereum community. We have reliable sources mentioning two of them - the one from Buterin, and the one from Tual. So this sentence is misleading in three respects: it gives undue weight to Tual's proposal, doesn't acknowledge the very serious proposal to do nothing at all (there are good reasons for that proposal, by the way), and also can be misread as saying that Tual or Slock.it have unilateral authority to wind up The DAO, which they don't, as I understand it. So I propose:

"Buterin and Tual each made proposals for forks of the Ethereum blockchain to stop the hacker and reverse the transactions. In both of the proposals, The DAO would be dissolved and all its ethereum funds recaptured and returned to investors. Like all proposed Ethereum blockchain forks, the forks would need to be approved by miners controlling a majority of mining nodes."

which makes it a bit clearer that (a) there were multiple proposals, (b) they would actually get all the ETH back, (c) the funds are ETH, not actual fiat money, so the investors could still lose money due to the crash in value of ETH, (d) no-one can unilaterally impose any of these fork proposals. These facts are all very weird and counterintuitive from the perspective of traditional finance and so on, so I think it's worth spelling out and being really clear what's going on.--greenrd (talk) 19:16, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

How "unilaterally" they can do it is a bit of a red herring. AIUI, at this moment the proposal is for the Ethereum Foundation to change the actual Ethereum code to deal with the questionably-appropriated funds in some manner, and frankly everyone just runs their code - it'll be unilateral for all practical purposes, approximately nobody is going to run a fork behaving otherwise.
The actual problem is that this is a current event, and everything about it is confusing and contentious - David Gerard (talk) 19:54, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for coming to Talk. I made changes here to address the key concerns ("stolen", not mentioning Buterin, and the whole others). Jytdog (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
Our sources are saying it was hacked and stolen. What is the point of saying 'diverted'? Not accurate and original research. Its fraud plain and simple. Earl King Jr. (talk) 13:12, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
So David about this - and this responds to Earl above too. The Ether was diverted into another user account where it was locked for 27 days. This is a really important fact here; this is not like a bank robber who physically removes cash from a bank and vanishes into the night, nor like stealing someone's credit card info and committing fraud with it completely anonymously. We know where the "missing" Ether is and the person who took it can't do anything with it. I changed to "diverted" because apparently a serious number of Ethereum users are saying that the move was terrible but a legit use under the "smart" contracts. This is discussed in the sources cited. Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
The sources say "stolen" (which is the big one), the Ethereum Foundation and slock.it are behaving as though the transaction was utterly illegitimate, they're planning to literally rewind or soft-fork the whole Ethereum blockchain to revert this transaction ... I'm not seeing a good reason to euphemise this to "diverted". That this was a legitimate transaction appears to be a fringe (and in many cases trolling) view, not one to put in Wikipedia's voice - David Gerard (talk) 20:04, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
Actually the strongest source, the NYT never says "stolen": it says "theft" once and "thief" once and mentions "theft" again in the context of Bitcoin incidents. It uses "removed", "moved", "siphoned away", "gain control", and calls it an "attack" or a "hack". As for the view that the transaction was legit and should not be reversed, see what Buterin says in the last pargraphs of the NYT article; apparently the transaction ~may~ be left standing. Thanks for having the discussion. Jytdog (talk) 20:32, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm not about to dive in and change it :-) As I said above, the main problem is that it's a current event and a controversial one and stuff is still washing out (and later sources will often be much more considered than earlier ones, as is generally the case with current events). But thankfully we don't have to finish Wikipedia tomorrow - David Gerard (talk) 21:18, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
I dove in a cleaned up a little. I didn't touch the thief word, as that word is in the sources. I did remove repeated use of the word 'account' which is wrong (as the hacker didn't move any funds to his account, or any other account for that matter. He did move some ETH to some sort of clone of the The DAO. This article doesn't need to be summarizing things incorrectly, even if (and especially) we don't really understand it. I think we can do with killing all the content associated with The DAO except for the first sentence. This is enough "On June 17, 2016 The DAO, which had been hailed as a revolutionary use of Ethereum that demonstrated the potential for the platform, was hacked and around a third of the ether held by The DAO, worth about $50 million at the time, was moved." The rest of this issue should be addressed on the The DAO article page, as it really doesn't have much to do with Ethereum (at this point in time at least). Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:50, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Well, it does - it immediately crashed the price, and there are/were serious and controversial plans to fork Ethereum to deal with the problems in this specific smart contract - David Gerard (talk) 23:16, 22 June 2016 (UTC)


Time to start collecting sources on how the events unfolded with the hard fork on circa 20 July, and the event of the following days, including the startup of an alternative blockchain on the non-forked chain (apparently called Ether Classic, but I'm a bit unclear on that) A couple of sources are already used in the article, here are a couple others, including one from after the events of 24 July where the alternative chain got listed on some major digital exchange.

N2e (talk) 04:34, 26 July 2016 (UTC)


Semi-protected edit request on 26 July 2016

Hypthetically is spelled wrong.

Sorryasshere154 (talk) 21:14, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

d'oh! (or The DOH!) Thank you! - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

rm passing Bloomberg mention

I removed "In March 2014, Bloomberg described Ethereum as part of a group of projects it called "Bitcoin 2.0", with the potential to extend blockchain use beyond Bitcoin's peer-to-peer money system." sourced to Kharif, Olga. "Bitcoin 2.0 Shows Technology Evolving Beyond Use as Money". Bloomberg. Retrieved 21 March 2016. - if you look at the source, the word "Ethereum" is used precisely once. It's a passing mention, not something providing substantial usable information about Ethereum specifically. It's bare evidence of notability, but that's not in question - David Gerard (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Not a good source of information, not notable enough to include. While some of the Bitcoin 2.0 startups are using the existing Bitcoin network, many are creating alternate versions that work in the same way to provide verification. The most well-known projects are Mastercoin, Ethereum, Colored Coins, Counterparty, Ripple and BitShares. This is an aside statement in a Bitcoin article and has no flesh on its bones for this Ethereum article. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. @N2e: you blindly reverted, invoking discussion you have yet to actually participate in. Could you please address the above objections? There's a reason my edit summary specifically said "see talk" - David Gerard (talk) 07:37, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
I missed your "See talk" comment David. Sorry about that. So I did simply kick off a WP:BRD with my edit and edit comment so it could be discussed here on the talk page. Had I seen your "see talk", I would have of course commented here right away. Since I did not, I usually let the editor wanting to make a change decide if they want a particular Bold edit enough to come here and comment. Very pleased to see you discussing it here.
As for the second edit reverting my edit by Earl: my opinion is that, per WP:BRD, it is usually best to allow a Talk page discussion to ensue for a few days or more before edit warring and adding back again a reverted edit. In any case, I'm happy to join the discussion on the substantive point.
On the substantive points made:
  • There is no notability standard for sentences. Notability applies to articles, and whether or not there is sufficient notability for an article to exist. There may be reasons to have the info included, or not; but notability is not the standard to use.
  • It appeared a bit odd to me to remove that initial sentence in a paragraph in the Ethereum article, at least in part, because it leaves a disconnected "While there was early ..." phrase at the beginning of the second paragraph of the History section. That is still present in the article, and appears a weird locution, but is probably okay to stay while the discussion of the deletion is ongoing here on the Talk page for a bit.
  • Overall, the Bloomberg source that was deleted is quite clear about the big idea that blockchain technology is (at that time, in 2014) beginning to support more than just money transfers. It goes on to explicate that various projects in the space are doing that, discussing principally Bitcoin 2.0 projects that are on the existing Bitcoin network, but it also supports that some projects are not on Bitcoin, and it mentions Ethereum as is a part of that. In fact, it even mentions Ethereum as one of the "most well-known projects" that are off the bitcoin blockchain. Now that doesn't make it a slam dunk to be in the article, which is why we are having this discussion, but it not beyond the pale to say that the movement of blockchains from money transfer to more-than-money-transfer was noted by Bloomberg in 2014, and that Ethereum was noted in this Historical context. It seems sufficiently important to me to be mentioned.
  • On Earl's point in his edit removing my revert, he said: "Misleading as a source for this especially as written. This bitcoin article mentioned Ethe. only in passing in a remote unconnected way to the article subject." Let me address his point about "as written" I'm certainly not making an argument that the text as written was the "right" or "best" prose. It is clear to both Earl and me that prose could be better written to support the main point that is relevant to this article on Ethereum. That's why I support the discussion here, and not second reverts.
I would think that that exercise to improve the article by improving the History section prose is the most productive way forward, rather than more reverts without discussion (by either N2e or by Earl). Cheers. N2e (talk) 11:35, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
And yet, the Bloomberg reference still only mentions Ethereum in passing and cannot, in fact, be used as a basis for strong statements specifically about Ethereum - that fails source verification. The article wording may end up awkward, but the source still fails verification and shouldn't be in the article - David Gerard (talk 12:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
On what policy basis do you argue that the Bloomberg source cannot, in fact, be used to support any statement about Ethereum?
It rather clearly is a reliable source, and it of course could only ever support what the source makes clear. But it does cover non-money uses of the blockchain, and that Ethereum is one of the non-bitcoin examples of a blockchain (as of 2014) with these non-money uses.
I'm really at a loss as to the opposition on this; just don't grok where it is coming from. But I'm very happy to understand better, and to understand what wikipolicy makes it impossible to source such rather minimal statements with a Bloomberg source. N2e (talk) 01:53, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
It's a passing mention that only includes the word "Ethereum" at all in a list of various related things, so is a bad source to make substantive claims about Ethereum about. This applies even if it's from Bloomberg. Just because it's from an RS and contains the word "Ethereum" doesn't mean it warrants inclusion. (A problem I've noted quite a bit in the past on this very talk page.) - David Gerard (talk) 10:54, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing your logic on that David. So it seems to me we just have a difference of opinion here on existing citation policy. I did not get from your answer that you had any particular reliable source policy that was different from what I've previously understood, through the many tens of thousands of edits we have each made to Wikipedia over the past decade.
I think that the Bloomberg source is adequate for supporting the idea that, by mid-2014, Ethereum was recognized as one of a set of technologies that was coming along to extend blockchains beyond monetary transactions; that the article is mostly focused on coming bitcoin-specific projects that extend blockchains beyond money transactions does not make it a poor source for Ethereum, since Ethereum is mentioned in the article "one of the most well-known projects" that were doing in on non-Bitcoin networks. That is not to say that some even better source might not be found somewhere; just that the Bloomberg source is adequate for this very limited sort of statement. N2e (talk) 12:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I agree with N2e here, there are plenty of other sources that are referring to Ethereum as a bitcoin 2.0 concept. Here are two other RSs for that http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/business/dealbook/ethereum-a-virtual-currency-enables-transactions-that-rival-bitcoins.html "Microsoft and IBM, which have described it as a sort of Bitcoin 2.0" and https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/bitcoin-2-0-sidechains-and-zerocash-and-ethereum-oh-my/ says "Bitcoin 2.0: Sidechains And Ethereum And Zerocash, Oh My!" I think we might as well leave the Bloomberg source. Has the content already been deleted? I see other sources here that are also calling it the same, I don't see how us covering mainstream media's description honestly is a problem. I also agree with N2e that notability has no bearing on anything in this article, as notability is not in question. If it is a RS, then there should be no issue in using it, especially given that there are multiple other sources confirming the use of the 2.0 description Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:34, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
You're literally claiming that better sources are a reason to keep a bad source? There's something wrong with that logic - David Gerard (talk) 00:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
It sounds to me that you and Earl are advocating deleting of content and or sources because of a passing mention. However, if there are other sources that can easily be found (I found in a 2 minute google search) by putting in "ethereum bitcoin 2.0" and got half a dozen hits (2 being strong RSs) it shows that it is pointless to quibble over a source, when you could instead just add a second better RS to the content in question. It is sometimes amazing to me the long discussions that start on this talk page by editors who seek to delete content that they object to stating that the sources are weak, when in fact the sources are fine. It's a passing comment on ethereum being bitcoin 2.0 as it is a common description used in the press, hence the large number of hits i get when I do the google search. Here is the search I did: https://www.google.co.th/search?q=bitcoin+2.0+ethereum&oq=bitcoin+2.0+ethereum&aqs=chrome..69i57.4422j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Happy Editing :-) Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:20, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Bottom line. There is a source. It is a Bloomberg news article and counts as a reliable source. That source does support the minimal two points I summarized above on 19 July. Those two statements can certainly remain in the prose. The fact that it is a "passing mention" doesn't matter for purposes of sourcing these two minimal claims in this article.

I just don't get the heavy and regualar Wiki-lawyering going on by some editors off this article. There are something like 4 million or more Wikpedia articles and at least a million of them have statements made that are not in any way supported by any source, whatsover, passing or otherwise, and certainly not from a Bloomberg-quality news source. Why the WP:DRAMA here? Just don't get it. N2e (talk) 11:41, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is pretty much never a good argument. Your "bottom line" ignores the passing mention nature - seriously, the word is in once as part of a list, that's just not enough to start a paragraph on as if the source is making a strong claim - and that it reads like a bare mention of the sort that routinely gets put into spammy articles to pump up dubious notability. Ethereum isn't in need of such notability life-support - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
Its just not significant as it is mentioned somewhere in passing in relation to something else. Judgement call in editing. As to Why the WP:DRAMA here? I think that probably is in your imagination. While it could be that some editors have a 'horse in the race' or feel close to this subject I don't care about it at all except stumbling on the article a while back and seeing how awful it was put together just made me feel sorry for it so I have hung around a little. BTW, just about all the 'Coindesk' stuff should be taken out of the article plus what ever blog like links from coin sites are still there also. Earl King Jr. (talk) 06:38, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

More sources

Bitcoin connected?

This link possibly could have some pertinence here [2]] as ethereum is mentioned in the article. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:29, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

What I have read is that these are unrelated events. Both the DAO and Bitfinex were hit by hackers, but I haven't read anything that these events were in any way related. In fact they were different in nature. Bitfinex was a hack where Bitfinex left user's personal details exposed (like a security breach on at a bank) and the DAO hack was where a user found a different way to withdraw or gain control of funds that was not anticipated by the DAO's creators. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:58, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Article scope

Seems a good time to have a discussion of the scope of this article. The article might be about any or all of six or eight different things.

Which of the following things is this article about?

  • Ethereum, the software, of multiple versions by many (it seems) different outfits and groups of developers, most or all of which appear to be open source and on Github at present.
  • Ethereum, the formally named organizational entity(ies) that go by, or have gone by, that name. I'm aware of at least two:
    • Ethereum GmbH, a Swiss for-profit entity that existed in 2014 for a while (and may still exist; have not seen sources for it beyond 2014).
    • Ethereum Foundation, aka Stiftung Ethereum, a Swiss non-profit organization that seems to have come into being in mid-2014, pushed the token sale forward, and still exists as a (funded?) research arm of some sort. One source calls it an industry group.
    • Some sources seem to refer to possibly other company entities, possibly one in Berlin, or London, or Florida back during the early days of Ethereum in 2014; but I've not seen clear names on those or clear cites that show they were full-fedged companies.
    • Is this article about all of these organizations?
  • Ethereum the ETH blockchain; the one that went one direction after the recent "hard fork", and is traded on various exchanges, and has a market value that varies over time, etc.
  • Ethereum Classic, the ETC blockchain; the one that has gone a somewhat differ direction after the recent "hard fork", and is traded on various exchanges, and has a market value that varies over time, etc.
  • Ethereum, the "protocol". The technical standard that builds a blockchain available on the internet, and now it seems two different blockchains are growing up. At present, it appears that both of the blockchains seem to use/adhere to the same protocol standard.

I don't know the answer, but it seems that that article is a bit hard to write cogently at least in part because it is not explicit what is in scope and what is out of scope. As written today, it is clearly about both blockchains (although needs copyediting to clear that all up), and seems to be about (some?) of the Ethereum software, and maybe about the protocol, but not (very) much about the company(ies) or non-profit organization. But your mileage may vary on that, and many other views about what the current article scope is are quite possible.

Questions about article improvement arise. For example, if it were to be about organizational entities, then those have founders, and currentBLP-type people active in running them, and might have a company or organization infobox profitably applied. If about software, then a different infobox. Ditto if about the protocol.

Anyway, I think this is worth discussing. Perhaps it is about "all of the above" and we just trudge through endeavoring to encyclopedically cover all of these various aspects. Or not, leaving some for other articles or redirect pages. What do others think? N2e (talk) 12:50, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

At present I'd say it should cover all of these things. They're all hopelessly entwined in a lot of the available sources. (Solidity should arguably be culled of its WP:OR and essaylike content and merged in too.)
ETC vs ETH is still a current event, we can wait for the sources to happen.
None of the particular things this article is/can be about seem large enough to me to make the article feel like it's lumpy and ready to bud right now. They may do later of course - David Gerard (talk) 13:40, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
I suggest we start to add content based on those vary subjects that you have proposed N2e. (SW, backers/foundation, different chains, and the SW). I think we can start with section stubs. SW/Solidity is covered, maybe the jargon can be reduced like David said. But I think the biggest issue is it seems the ETC chain hasn't died the death that some suggested it would. So now that there are two chains (with significant capital and hash rate behind them) & have been in existence for a month or so (if my memory serves), I think it would be useful to at least cover that there is a split subject to some controversy. There must be a lot of readers coming to read about the DAO flameout and click over to Ethereum to read about the two different chains and what the difference between them might be Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, there hasn't been a lot of coverage yet except that ETC is a thing. But note that, e.g., the Ethereum Foundation is not necessarily the official entity for all Ethereum any more, ETH is a forked chain but ETC technically isn't, etc ... it's a complicated mess and there's a lot of semantics that could be argued surrounding the whole issue and how to describe it. So Wikipedia needs to wait for the sources to catch up and give a description of the situation that we can cite rater than having to synthesise - David Gerard (talk) 16:37, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Well i added that both ETH and ETC exist in the Ether section per a WSJ Blogs citation (good enough for this purpose). I think it might be useful to add infoboxes that have both of ETC and ETH price quotes. Is this implemented in some sort of automated fashion on the bitcoin and other stock quotation pages? I think it would be useful to show the users that at least two things exist and have different prices. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Here is a good source that goes over the current drama. Might be useful in the future. http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2016/07/21/a-painful-lesson-for-the-ethereum-community/#681727d45714 Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:55, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
oops, noticed this is a guest writer piece. Anyhow, interesting reading... Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've started to do a bit of work on that. Have updated the statements about the for-profit entity (Ethereum Gmbh) that was used to start work in early 2014, and moved it to the Origin section of the article. It seems that by mid-2014, they decided to go with a foundation (non-profit) setup, and used the Ethereum Foundation to run the sale of the value tokens in July 2014. Still looking for better sources on the for-profit to non-profit transition. N2e (talk) 11:57, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I read today that there is another blockchain running on Ethereum called Expanse. This makes 3, if we also count ETC and ETH. I think we might have an issue with the article coming soon once we can find RS for Expanse (I haven't found yet) in that maybe Ethereum might be a software platform that has multiple blockchains running on it and multiple cryptocurriences associated with it. I have also read that many of the enterprise implementations of Ethereum (such as ConsenSys' R3) are running on private blockchains (not on the public chain). My point in this is that I think we need to get away from the article scope that in the past has focused on this being an article about ETC (the cryptocurrency) as the scope has widened a bit (maybe the article is more like a general linux article pointing to the different linux flavors of the month). Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:17, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
From my understanding, Expanse is a fork of the code base, but not of the blockchain as they started with an empty genesis block. So while it might be worth mentioning other networks such as this one and others (there are a few), I don't think this is really comparable to the ETC fork. Rileyjt (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Traded on exchanges

The fact that the token(s) are listed on exchanges are documented at 4 different places. Why repeat the same fact several times? I removed some of them, but the change was reverted by David Gerard. LarsPensjo (talk) 09:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Lars, I think this issue is mostly related to the fact that we are having challenges dealing with the fact that this page now covers 2-3 subjects (Ethereum the platform/software, Ethereum (ETH) the coin, and Ethereum Classic (ETC) the coin). So I think we might be erring in the side of prudence in giving classic as much play as ETH. Your suggestions on how to improve the page are welcome. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:12, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

New page for Ethereum Classic?

An IP put in a link to Ethereum Classic (which redirects back here), saying this was their way of asking for a separate page on Ethereum Classic. So, how does everyone feel about this idea?

  • Oppose for now - I don't think there's reason to do that as yet - there's not enough material distinct from the official hard-forked Ethereum, and this is a current event that's still playing out - David Gerard (talk) 10:29, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- I also will oppose this, for now. There seems to be insufficient sourced material that indicates a second article is warranted. However, the recent changes to reflect two blockchains that are now running, does suggest a discussion on the article scope might be useful. I'll try to start that convo, below. N2e (talk) 11:21, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral Each fork now has its own code base that will likely start to diverge more significantly over time, so it may eventually warrant its own page. The current "Classic" portions of the article are very haphazard and confusing though, primarily referencing blogs and questionable sources. Rileyjt (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong Support We are faced with a pragmatic choice between the two factions fighting a turf war on this single page, or we can just let each faction have their own page. Wikipedia is not paper Giving the ETCians their own page will make all of our lives substantially easier. As to whether Ethereum Classic can stand on its own as a page, I have complete confidence the ETCians will meet the challenge with gusto. Romanpoet (talk) 14:36, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
    • So far it's been driveby IPs who are quickly reverted. I see you started a fork page, but it was tiny and unsourced. Consensus above doesn't seem to think it's time yet - David Gerard (talk) 14:24, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
    • I've made my argument that creating this page will make our lives easier. I suppose this argument will have to be better empirically demonstrated. I can wait. Romanpoet (talk) 14:36, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
    • In the mean time, I would propose Ethereum Classic have less relevance on the Ethereum page. For example, the Ethereum Classic logo is different. Moreover, so are the release dates, founders, etc. Putting them into as is currently done in the Infobox is misleading. Romanpoet (talk) 14:41, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
      • Roman, if we can find evidence in reliable sources that Classic has a different logo, a different ideology, ect then I think it makes sense to make a new page. Issue is we can discuss making a new page here, but as soon as the page gets made, then it will get nominated for AfD. I am not fixed as Oppose, I just would like to see some evidence that it is ready to make a new page right now. I understand they are different, the issue is do we have enough evidence from RS that supports the second page? In the meantime, let's add the new logo and some details about classic to this page. Agree? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:45, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
      • Agree completely. I added an Ethereum Classic section and moved the Declaration of Independence to it. I'm not sure how to handle the copyright for the logo, http://i.imgur.com/wZIJe9n.jpg . Romanpoet (talk) 15:33, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Moving Ethereum Classic to a section of its own is good. That means the article is consistent, not having uncertain commonality with applications etc.LarsPensjo (talk) 15:40, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Agree, new section is good. About the logo, would be nice to add it. I know there are rules related to adding logos. Maybe David could comment here, or someone else who knows? Normally, I only add logos that I have found in a RS, as I think it also affects the license issues (but I do that as I am not sure on the rules and I try to be careful).Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:19, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Logos is our friend (which I found by guessing that WP:LOGO would be helpful). tl;dr I don't see any barrier to including a logo as long as it can reasonably be treated as the official or accepted logo, which is easy with ETH (centralised Foundation), less easy with ETC (more consensus-like), but if there is in fact a standardish ETC logo already that should be fine IMO. We might even be good on copyright to put it on Commons if it's under a proper free licence, but even then fair-use logos uploaded locally are acceptable - David Gerard (talk) 20:45, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral Ethereum And Ethereum classic are two different blockchains. They share most of the software, but not the blockchain. It is not possible to take one without the other. That means that many facts listed for Ethereum are simply not valid for Ethereum Classic. E.g. the whole Applications is wrong. E.g., You can't use Digix tokens on ETC.LarsPensjo (talk) 14:55, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Now that ETC has its own section, my main objection is no longer a problem, so I changed to Neutral.LarsPensjo (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
My understanding is that Digix's association with Ethereum is that Digix is running ethereum software. I am not clear if Digix is running on the ETC or the ETH blockchains. I think unless there is RS on this, we are opening up a whole can of worms to try to separate this. We can't start doing original research to determine which is running on ETC, which is on ETH, and which is on private enterprise blockchains. I think we can only wait a while and see how this all plays out. One of these (or both) might flame out and solve the problems for us editors, or at least in the meantime maybe we will get more RS that cover the issues and then we cover it here. Certainly is going to be interesting.Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Agree, good to have its own section. Just need to develop a bit more now.Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Refactoring the Applications section

This section currently is mainly a list of products and companies, instead of a list of Ethereum use cases. I expect the list to grow as there will be new additions, which will make it harder to read. A Wikipedia reader is probably more interested in what is possible to do with Ethereum, instead of registered names. We also want to move away from WP:NOTDIR. My suggestions is to keep the current information and references, but make it more readable and group it around functionality instead. E.g. for Digix A value token, called DigixDAO has also been created... the emphasize is currently on the name Digix, but the emphasize should instead be on Value token. There are other implementations of value tokens, which would then be grouped into the same line, instead of adding another line for every one of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LarsPensjo (talk • contribs) 06:51, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

This list has been vetted as a list of ethereum use cases to my recollection. Note that in many cases these use cases are running on private blockchains (R3, etc) so there is no distinction between Ethereum and Classic. This isn't a list of value tokens based on ethereum, but I would like to hear your suggestions. Are you suggesting making a new list called value tokens based upon ethereum? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:02, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
None of these use cases are running on a private blockchain, all of them are running on the current Ethereum blockchain. There is a distinction to Ethereum Classic, in such a way that the corresponding contracts and tokens on classic are not accepted. Take Digix gold tokens, for example. After the fork, there were two sets of gold tokens. But obviously there is only one stack of gold. Digix that operates the business, only accepts tokens from the Ethereum blockchain, making the corresponding tokens on ETC worthless. Many of the applications use special Ethereum tokens to signify owner control. Instead of listing them as Augur, Digix, FreeMyVunk, slock.it, I suggest listing them as "Decentralized prediction market", "Tokens pegged to gold", "Trading video game assets", "Smart locks", etc.LarsPensjo (talk) 21:02, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
I have now done the change as I proposed, feedback is welcome. The main idea is to show for readers what is possible first, and then a link to an actual product as second priority (also to show that it is indeed an application that is in use). LarsPensjo (talk) 19:26, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
Lars, nice changes. I like how it explains clearly what each application use case is, gives an example in the form of a company, and when a second application/company comes about, then we can add that to the relevant group, rather than just make a longer list. I heard gnosis is coming out with a second prediction market, like auger, so I guess when we get a RS for that we can add that too. There might even be an RS around already. Great edits though!Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Chronicled and requirements on the Applications section

I added an application here (Chronicled IoT Registry). The reference I used was from Coindesk, which was rejected as it was a future project. But there are products using this technology, so I added a reference to a review of such a product (http://www.kicksonfire.com/major-x-reebok-phase-one-stars-stripes-official-images). Now the entry was removed again with the comment Coin desk is bitcoin promo site. Not a good source. Primary. The Reebok is promo advert. Do not re add please. Wikipedia is not an advert site.. As a better source than Coindesk, I found one from Yahoo finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chronicled-launches-first-kind-open-120000262.html . So now there is a better source than Coindesk, and we know the technology is not a future project as it is currently in use. Is there anything missing that should reject this from fulfilling the requirements to be added as an Application of Ethereum? LarsPensjo (talk) 09:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Lars, there is nothing wrong with the content you added, there are just some over zealous editors on a few of these crypto pages that like to delete content (FYI, they have even referred previously to NYT, WSJ, etc as non reliable sources ;-) Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
WP:CRYSTAL, per discussions elsewhere on this page, and WP:NOTDIR. Bitcoin blogs don't do critical journalistic coverage at all, there are endless announcements in the cryptocurrency space that don't eventuate - this stuff shouldn't be covered here without good third-party WP:RS coverage that it is actually a thing that actually happened. Filling the section with planned things that haven't actually happened comes across as WP:PUFFERY to make Ethereum look more important than it is - David Gerard (talk) 10:47, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
I take back what I said above and I agree with David here, unless there is some RS to show this is a real live project (not a press release, which is what the yahoo link is), nor the Primary Source, and like David said we are looking for things to backup the content is noteworthy in bigger news sources than only CoinDesk. CoinDesk and other industry specific sources are great for filling in content, but for adding a particular project to this page that lacks any significant news coverage would encourage this section to become a list of 100 projects that might not ever happen, and nobody in the press seems to care about.Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:04, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
I mean, I appreciate that a standard objection to cryptos (that I've made myself) is "the only real life use case is selling drugs", so people want to show otherwise, particularly given Ethereum has all sorts of more interesting technical possibilities, so there's a balance to keep here. The main thing is the problems in estimating the likelihood that a given project is pure vapor .... - David Gerard (talk) 11:11, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
There is evidence this is technology actually being used for some shoes: http://sneakerbardetroit.com/major-reebok-phase-1-pro-usa-stars-and-stripes/, http://coinjournal.net/ethereums-blockchain-secure-sneakers-honor-kanye-west/, http://www.kicksonfire.com/major-x-reebok-phase-one-stars-stripes-official-images/. However WP:NOTDIR, is still relevant. That is why I started a parallel discussion on how to refactor the Applications section.LarsPensjo (talk) 15:25, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
I see Lars and David are doing some reverts of each other's edits relating to the shoes. I really like the new categories and examples of the types of tech enabled as it improves readability. Lars, maybe remove the word 'can' from the sentence about the shoes if it is already doing it. Otherwise if this is crystalball stuff, it is right to delete it. David and Lars, maybe you guys can explain here what is going on? ThanksJtbobwaysf (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
The NasdaQ article refers to Chonicled as a "New Registry". From that POV, WP:CRYSTAL should apply. But there are already products on the market that use this technology from Chronicled (the Reebok shoes). Referring to those, I say that WP:CRYSTAL does not apply as a reason to remove the entry. I agree that the word "can" should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LarsPensjo (talk • contribs) 18:44, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

BRD discussion: SingularDTV

The following was added to the article:

Singular, a science fiction TV series on the Ethereum blockchain, set in the epoch 2021–2045, begins production in October 2016.[1]

User:Jytdog removed it, edit comment said only WP:CRYSTALBALL. So I'm requesting a discussion, per WP:BRD

This is a TV series that is starting production in October, and has an ordinary secondary source that is, as far as I know, not on any suspect list of sources at WP:RSN. So my view is that this is fine for the article, as long as the article only states what is sourced, and doesn't say that the thing is already operating.

There are literally hundreds of articles on Wikipedia that reference film and TV projects that are scheduled to start production in the coming six months. As I understand it, that's pretty much how TV series and film production projects work. Funding is raised, eventually secured, contracts are signed with expensive production resources, and the project is "underway", even though filming has not yet started.

Really seems perfectly ordinary sourced content about a development project that is underway.

References

  1. ^ "Blockchain Entertainment: 'Singular' To Become First TV Series On Ethereum Adventures". CoinTelegraph. 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2016-08-19.

N2e (talk) 20:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a discussion. Citing other articles isn't helpful - see WP:OTHERSHITEXISTS. WP is full of bad content (along side the good).
For me it is about our mission: WP exists to provide accepted knowledge to the public. Adding content hyping some TV show in development (that may never be broadcast) has nothing to do with teaching people about Ethereum in my view. And in my view in general "X in popular culture" sections are just spam magnets that almost always distract from the matter at hand - just People Magazine gossip or promotion and not substantial. Jytdog (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2016 (UTC)


I don't disagree that Wikipedia pop culture mentions on Wikipedia are out of control. I have made significant multi-year efforts to get only well-sourced and more notable stuff left in those areas. One of my largest successes that I am most proud of was in an article-length Russian roulette in popular culture article which, over a period of four years starting in 2009, was shrunk and shrunk until, finally just the small bit was put into the Russian Roulette article (by other editors) where we've been able to restrict it to sourced mentions only for three years now. I've done substantial multi-year editing efforts to improve this encyclopedia on other fictional-universe book series as well; so we are in agreement on that. (In fact, I'd love to find other editors with interest in improving Wikipedia by eliminating a lot of the extraneous synthesis and un-notable original research that is done to make entire large sets of fictional-universe articles with nary a source from outside the fictional-universe for most of what is stated. If interested in such things, ping me on my Talk page.)
But that is not this case. This is about an active TV series project, that is in progress, and is themed around Ethereum. According to the source, it appears that Singular DTV is also doing a broader "rights management platform for the entertainment industry and a world-wide video-on-demand portal through Ethereum’s blockchain." ... as distributed using an Ethereum blockchain-based system. Bottom line, this is not about a "pop culture" mention of Ethereum; it seems to be a notable use of Ethereum, and should quite ordinarily be permitted to be in the Ethereum article, as long as the source is a standard secondary source. N2e (talk) 20:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
thanks for replying. Let's see what others think. Jytdog (talk) 20:54, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we should see what others think. However, I'll add one bit of perspective from the discussion between just the two of us above. If I were to suggest an edit be added to the article now, it would be more like the following, rather than the particular blockquoted text that started this discussion (after that Bold edit had been Reverted for Discussion):

Singular DTV is building a rights management platform for the entertainment industry and a world-wide video-on-demand portal on the Ethereum blockchain. In addition, Singular has developed a science fiction TV series on the Ethereum blockchain, set in the epoch 2021–2045, which begins production in October 2016.[1]

References

  1. ^ "Blockchain Entertainment: 'Singular' To Become First TV Series On Ethereum Adventures". CoinTelegraph. 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2016-08-19.

Rationale: the item is in the "Applications" section of the article, so the application is the more important part of the statement. The advanced state of the TV series project is, however, also notable and deserves mention, with the secondary source provided. N2e (talk) 03:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I've actually been looking into SingularDTV in depth for an opinionated blog post (and I am totally not in any way a citable reliable source myself!) that I posted last night. There's a lot of press releases, there's a lot of future-looking statements, there's some coverage in the bitcoin press and blogs, there's very little in the way of third-party verification of any of their more questionable claims, of which there are a lot.
At present we can probably say they've announced a future planned project. But even the best available third-party sources don't say they've produced anything more than plans for their technologies.
As for the TV show: principal filming has not been verified as starting. That's a firm barrier to having a separate article on the series, per WP:NFF; it wouldn't preclude mention in a related article, but for me it invokes WP:CRYSTAL: "Individual scheduled or expected future events should be included only if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." ... "Wikipedia is not a collection of product announcements and rumors."
Frankly, the cryptocurrency space is full of forward-looking forthcoming announcements that don't eventuate on time. I don't think we should add SingularDTV or Singular to this to the article until there's firmer evidence that any of it's actually happened - David Gerard (talk) 16:51, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Some of the MED articles have a society and culture section. I think the fact that a television show is being planned, and if that planning has meets the RS test, then the planning of the TV show is noteworthy in itself. Bitcoin also has a significant section on the Arts. I think we might as well create a small section for Arts, and start to build it. Likely other coverage will follow. I think crystalball only applies to the extent that we imply that the show *will* happen. As long as we cover it as per the facts (it is being planned), then it is kosher to add. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:00, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
This isn't arts yet, it's just an announcement of future arts. The relevant section in Bitcoin covers works and events that actually happened, with no future announcements. I'd say when principal filming is verified to have started, it should be mentioned - David Gerard (talk) 11:29, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Remove it for now. These phoney promotion bitcoin ether sites should not be used for information in the article [Blockchain Entertainment: 'Singular' To Become First TV Series On Ethereum Adventures". CoinTelegraph.], those are not news information sites they are self promotion sites. If this subject is reported on in one of the real media sites then sure use it. Other wise it is projection and empty information or cheap free Google advert information. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm happy to let this discussion continue, and see what consensus forms on Singular DTV; but it would appear that, with three editors arguing against, there is no consensus to add it now, with its current limited sourcing. While the single source is a bit weak for now, if this (apparently funded, script-complete, and contracts-in-place for filming) project continues to production, there will no doubt be more sources in the coming few months, and that would clarify the issue with respect to Singular DTV.
However, I take exception to the general idea that opinions of editors expressed on this Talk page have certainty about which news sources are or or not considered reliable sources. Not because what Earl thinks about that source may (or may not) be true. I'm agnostic on that wrt to CoinTelegraph; and I certainly don't know. But simply because this Talk page is not the place to resolve that. If Earl wants to endeavor to get any particular source on the unreliable source list, or not-suitable-for-Wikipedia list, then there is a place for that: the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, where such discussions are held. Until Earl has a call from them, then there is no reason for editors of this page not to accept CoinTelegraph, or any other particular news website about this industry. N2e (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Promotional primary sources with people with a horse in the race, biased promoting of concepts connected with crypto currency stuff is not the way forward. Real news not from vested special interests is better and it looks like some editors are promoting crypto currency things and adding these fake coin sites. Its like adding Kitco the gold site to source gold on Wikipedia. The idea sucks big time. It is irresponsible to Wikipedia readers to serve them warmed over bullshit instead of actual news stories. Do not add those kind of sites. Right now the consensus is against adding them here by the neutral editors. You bring those crap sites to the drama boards if you really want to waste everyones time. Lets have an outing here also of who is involved commercially in these cryto currency things. Has not someone already admitted to being a part of the cryto currency cult and admitted being involved heavily and are they not some of the same people pushing those crap commercial sales sites for bitcoin and Ether? Yes. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:18, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Well Earl, on this point, we obviously disagree. This talk page is not the place to determine whether a general media source is, or is not, a reliable source by Wikipedia standards.
Moreover, I can see that about the same time I was writing my comment on the 29 Aug above, you did start a new section below to discuss that source. The new section was a good idea, as your argument to the effect that the source is a bad source is much more general claim than just about any one use of that source to support a claim, as this section is about. Having said that, two days on, it does not appear that your argument below has gained consensus, since now three editors not including me have explicitly disagreed with your argument. N2e (talk) 11:21, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Conflicts of interest

Maybe we need a fess up here of the level some of the more aggressive editors are at in these crypto currency sites. Just googling editors names brings out lots of editors being heavily involved and that could mean financial involvement in these subjects. I am not involved in these cyber currencies. I seem to remember one person explaining how they had bought into them in the past. Some editors on these articles may be involved financially, and have Wikipedia:Conflict of interests. Thoughts?

Neutral editing is fine no matter what the involvement but all these editors coming up on these connected information sites starts some bells ringing. I have to assume these pages have had troubled problems looking at the top of this page with its broad warning There have been attempts to recruit editors of specific viewpoints to this article. If you've come here in response to such recruitment, please review the relevant Wikipedia policy on recruitment of editors, as well as the neutral point of view policy. Disputes on Wikipedia are resolved by consensus, not by majority vote. Earl King Jr. (talk) 11:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there's quite a few edits to this article from people who have an Ethereum holding and/or are involved with the Ethereum Foundation. These constitute a WP:COI.
Let me remind everyone of WMF terms of service #4: you can edit, but you are required to disclose your affiliation - and you may be banned if administrators consider that you are persisting in editing with an undisclosed COI after a warning such as this. I strongly urge editors to disclose if they have in fact anything that would count as a WP:COI - David Gerard (talk) 17:13, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Specifically which editor is associated with the Ethereum Foundation? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:34, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
As you know, it would violate outing rules for me to post it publicly. But if you looked through the edit history and the Ethereum Foundation people, you'd see more than a few coincidences - David Gerard (talk) 18:05, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Are you also prohibited from opening a COI investigation? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:11, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Jtbobwaysf, this particular thread is about something else. Please stick with the subject at hand, dislosure. Thanks. Earl King Jr. (talk) 05:44, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Another issue of conflicted interest is these coin sites which in my opinion should be treated gingerly as source. Several current editors come up on the internet as being more than casually involved in these sites and it can easily appear as a conflict of interest as these positions are given in these blogs and these are the same coin sites promoted by editors here. Earl King Jr. (talk) 05:49, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Coin desk

Removing most Coin desk references as unworthy of much consideration. Promo rah rah sites for crypto currencies. Also the last revert? Pleade read the 1st. Edit summary. The info was already in the info box right next to it. Is ther some reason to load up Coin Desk? No. Earl King Jr. (talk) 14:00, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I have added the content (reverted your changes) and added two more citations. I think you need to find consensus here before just deleting things you deem to be non-RS. Here is the content you are claiming is offending
"Ethereum's live blockchain was launched on 30 July 2015."[1][2][3] The content sure doesnt look to controversial to me. Now there are three industry news source citations. Good enough in my book.
I think if it is your assertion that any/all CoinDesk content must be removed, then we need to have a larger review of your personal opinion relating to this source. Maybe make your a point on the RS noticeboard and see if you can find consensus. Obviously I disagree that CoinDesk is not-RS. So see if you can find a majority who is on your side...Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Caffyn, Grace (30 July 2015). "Ethereum Launches Long-Awaited Decentralized App Network". CoinDesk. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  2. ^ "Ethereum Launches Frontier; Ether Mining Begins, Trading to Follow". InsideBitcoins. 5 August 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  3. ^ Galt, Juan (28 July 2015). "Ethereum Announces Official Launch Date". CoinTelegraph. Retrieved 29 August 2016.

Number one without really trying to be insulting you are profoundly ignorant, I noticed you were before also about how Wikipedia works. Please educate yourself. Coindesk has been gone over and over in previous threads. There has been promotional special interest groups that have tried to use the article to advertise CoinDesk and other publications. Those publication are not news sources they are buy and sell commodity or in this case 'imaginary' commodities or imaginary stores of value. Understand? Why in gods name do you need to source something three times?!!!!. That does not even make sense. Yes, I have noticed in the past you had a lot of really badly cobbled information strings of Coindesk type non news. Also it not a democracy. A few buddies can not pour in and change the article because they love Coindesk. What happened to the fact that the start date is in the information box right in front of everything? Its redundant. I also think your attitude is pretty close to not really making sense about using the word offensive. Its not offensive, its just not a good source to further pad the article with lots of washed up on the shore meaningless trivia to make the article look important. The article is still pretty bad and needs a lot of further trimming. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:08, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I won't address your personal attack on me, wikipedia is not a venue for that. You mean adding RS to an article is advertising the RS? Do you think editors on this page are advertising CoinDesk. You have any evidence of those statements? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:27, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Agree to treat CoinDesk with great caution. There are quite a lot of these bitcoin blogs that act like news sites. CoinDesk is probably the least worst, but these sites constitute a walled garden - WP:FRIND definitely applies. They need the greatest of editorial caution. There is no scale on which they should be treated with anything like the reliability of NYT, Bloomberg or FT - David Gerard (talk) 10:15, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi David, walled garden is an essay (not a policy) and furthermore cryptocurrency articles are referred to by a broad set of press today. Your mention of WP:FRIND suggests you are claiming that cryptocurrency articles are fringe. 100+ articles link in to Bitcoin, that doesn't sound like fringe to me. Do you haven evidence that crypto articles are fringe, or just your personal opinion?Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:03, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
That's a creative reading of what I wrote. I linked "walled garden" because it's the Wikipedia term for such things. FRIND applies to self-referencing walled gardens of sources, like the Bitcoin blogs. I would suggest that CoinDesk et al be applied with great caution for factual verification (e.g. there is a controversy with a miner threating ETC with a 51% attack) and not as evidence of notability in the real world, because they totally don't work for the latter purpose at all - we already have actual RSes if we want that - David Gerard (talk) 11:06, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
In this case we are talking about the launch date of Ethereum... Is this date controversial? What is the bitcoin blog you are referring to? Coindesk is not a blog. Are you questioning the notability of this Ethereum article? What does notability have to do with this?Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
You misrepresent the walled garden article, David Gerard. According to the article, "On many wikis, Wikipedia included, a walled garden is a set of pages or articles that link to each other, but do not have any links to or from anything outside the group." CoinDesk is neither the Wikipedia, nor a wiki. Moreover, the history of Ethereum is not a fringe theory, to which WP:FRIND could apply. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:01, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
  • No in my opinion. Using promotional advert sites is just a gateway to the crypto currency world. They are primary promotional. It would be like using Kitco [3] to source our gold articles. Kitco is only a buying and selling information site that promotes the buying of gold as do these coin sites. Stick with actual news worthy sources not promo rah rah sites. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi Earl, Your explanation is a Straw man argument. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:03, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

You are not kidding. Jtbobwaysf, I see you are very much in the dark on this. Walled garden also means a little group tries to control information in a slanted way. Coin desk and the other two sources are pathetic. It ain't mainstream. I hate to use stronger words but let me say you have almost no sense of the value and weight of these nearly worthless sale pitch sites. I have to conclude that an editor selling that sh*t is acting out as a representitive of this subject or just super ignorant and thinks without critical judgement. As said you can vote but promoing those sites and promoting a special interest group with crypto coin cult members is part of the problem here that no one cares to ralk about. So its rhetorical tendentiois editing to put three of those promo sites on this question that is already answered in the top box. Its just a rather stupid promo. Wake up or not.

Hi Earl (I think it was you who wrote this, your signature seems to have disappeared). Is your position that using crypto currency news sites as citations is not ok as the citation is promoting the the news site?Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:15, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Disagree that CoinDesk is a promotional site. CoinDesk is about other blockchains than Ethereum. They are not payed by the Ethereum Foundation. They also publish articles that are negative from the POV of Ethereum. LarsPensjo (talk) 18:30, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, but you are heavily involved in this subject [4] Your public persona is that of a explanation man for that blog. Scroll down to read your CoinDesk comments. Its a glorified blog. You are a publicity person involved in their site and now you want to advertise your blog comments here. Your handle is all over the internet in regard to this subject on the crypto coin sites. Too close to advertising your views or promoting your blog views Earl King Jr. (talk) 06:32, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Earl, there are policies on wikipedia relating to cordial editing, in this case it appears to me you are violating prohibitions on WP:OUTING. If you have some evidence that Lars has a conflict of interest and should be prohibited from editing this page, bring it forth. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:15, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I've already said, above in the section prior to this one, that I am agnostic on whether CoinDesk is or is not a RS. I just don't know. But I would say that establishment that it is, in general, for Wikipedia not a reliable source cannot be done on this page. This discussion on the source, as a general reliable source or not, should be done on the reliable sources noticeboard. And I'll add to Earl King Jr. this: let's talk about improving the article. You have at least twice now attacked an editor, their state of knowledge, or character. This should stop, and ought not to have started. Let's discuss content, and sources, and improving this article, without the ad hominem personal attacks. Your arguments are not strengthened by your resort to this rhetorical fallacy. N2e (talk) 22:41, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Strongly agreed Ladislav Mecir (talk) 14:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I have created a RS and Fringe noticeboard discussions. Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#CoinDesk_and_CoinTelegraph_on_the_article_Ethereum and Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Ethereum. If I haven't added the right tags, please also let me know (or messed up some other protocol). Thank youJtbobwaysf (talk) 10:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

+1 - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Jtbobwaysf for discussing the sources at the Reliable sources Noticeboard. However, the fringe theory discussion - how can a launch date of Ethereum, an undisputed fact, be a "fringe theory"? - was unnecessary. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:42, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi Ladislav, I did both of the noticeboards as WP:FRIND was put forth above by David Gerard as justification for deleting the content with a CoinDesk source. There is a long running dispute on this Ethereum page (and also The DAO) about sources, and this is only the latest manifestation. It is my position that industry news cites (coindesk, etc), general news (such as NYT, etc) should all be ok to use. However, other editors often delete this content suggesting that since this Ethereum topic is fringe, a higher standard of sources must be met (and then they delete wide ranges of content). Thus I felt this particular very uncontroversial content (the launch date) was just as good a manifestation as any to have a broader discussion about sources. Make sense now? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:59, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Oddly enough the launch date is not really newsworthy and parts and bits were launched at different times. All the controversial pro cryto coin sites should really be removed. Now there are four of them sourcing this non event which the mainstream though so little of that it barely created a blip. Because there are a few people above that are directly involved in these endeavors extreme caution is better, not a scatter gun shoot out of documentation with barely any real import but for these crypto sites. The launch date stuff should be restructured a bit and this source can be used for giving an idea of when this thing started and how it started [5] Lets not make Wikipedia into a promotion contraption for all these industry non news sources. Earl King Jr. (talk) 10:54, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
As a part of the history, I think the genesis block of the Ethereum blockchain is one of the biggest milestones. Compare with Bitcoin, where there is a lot of references to the genesis block, and the "age" of Bitcoin is considered to be the time since the genesis block. It has the same significance as the birth date of a person.LarsPensjo (talk) 04:44, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Answer to Jtbobwaysf: yes, thank you. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 14:07, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Earl King Jr.: You now just deleted the CoinDesk references that were/are the exact subject of this discussion, and now a larger discussion (You have an ANI noticeboard related to these edits, and there is another RfC in place to study the industry rag publications relating to this subject. [[6]] How about you allow a discussion on the talk page to come to a conclusion rather than just deleting whatever you don't like. Wikipedia is a platform for collaboration, discussion, consensus... (the opposite of edit warring). I am going to revert your changes. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:46, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I've removed them again, If we already have a quality source, then there is absolutely no reason to add a fluff of dubious sources - David Gerard (talk) 14:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Mmmmm. A lot of the things going on here are not making sense. Right now the drama board is saying CoinDesk and such are iffy. I can only conclude that some editors are pushing the poor industry promotion press release type sites because....? Conflicts of interests seem to enter the picture or possibly an over sensitive belief in what could end being a crypto currency bust. Is it possible that some editors are invested in a quasi real world way in this stuff? We have proven that to be the case by remarking on the Wikipedia editors that seem involved off Wiki. Are 4 coindesk bloggy press release sites for sourcing a virtual non event better than a new york times tagline? Walled garden attempt springs to mind again. These are not reliable sources. Many of our links to these journals are actually citation spam. The notice board has pretty much red flagged these sites. Earl King Jr. (talk) 07:39, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
Well then, Earl, you are concluding prematurely. Someone has started the discussion on the WP:RSN, links above, which is exactly where it should be discussed. That will carry on; some will no doubt take a wide variety of positions on the questions of whether or not those sites are, or are not, to be considered reliable sources for the purpose of Wikipedia. It will conclude, in due time. When that is done, we'll have something to work with.
In the meantime, you can just stop taking positions here on this Talk page that presume the outcome of that other meta discussion.
As has been said before, Earl, we'd all take your arguments more seriously if you stuck tonon-fallacious modes of argumentation. Your style to regularly revert to argumentum ad hominem continues to demonstrate to the editors here who have advanced their rhetoric beyond middle school (US term: junior high school) level that you are not to be taken seriously. N2e (talk) 13:15, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Tapscott TED talk as source?

Should Tapscott's TED talk be treated as a RS? I've read the transcript, and it was at blog post level at best. Is there some good reason this passes WP:RS? Because I can't see it - David Gerard (talk) 23:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I watched the video and it seemed a bit too high level for our purposes here. Much of it was crystal ball stuff. Is there something particular in mind? I think his book "Blockchain Revolution" is a good detailed source. "distributed+ledger+technology"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqpMeS6fDOAhVOzGMKHdSdAdIQ6AEIKTAC Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:50, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
It seems like industry promo material and a bit like a crusader that thinks it is somehow a great political innovation that will make everyones lives better, so seems trite at least to me. The issue of his information is pretty clear: the agenda is not to neutrally document facts, but to promote an ideology. Industry insider probably with loads of insider bit cash. It really smacks of the ponzi aspect of trying to get people to buy in. My take, do not use. Earl King Jr. (talk) 06:46, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
I would think Wikipedia is unlikely to need to use an audiovisual source like the TED talk to source anything, simply because there are other better sources available that are written, including his recent book, Blockchain Revolution. I've read about half of that book, and have used it to source a few things that were contentious or contested in the article. N2e (talk) 13:19, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Fringe theory board

Has laid to rest about the CoinDesks type of sites. The site was loaded with those as reliable sources before and now I have started removing some of them. The neutral observers from the board have said, not good sources or reliable sources for Wikipedia. A few people from the page itself, Wikipedia editors argued that it is good to use those sources, but the experts say no. I agree with the expert on the notice. I hope this stops the acrimony about those sources. It should Earl King Jr. (talk) 07:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Earl, neither the Fringe discussion on Ethereum, nor the Reliable Services Noticeboard discussion on CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph, have been closed. It is therefore premature to to a mass removal of those sources as you just did. I have reverted for now.
Moreover, as an experienced editor, you surely know that—should a source be found by WP:RSN to not be a reliable source for Wikipedia—the correct approach for initial remediation would be to removed the then-!sources and replace with {citation needed} tags, to allow interested editors time to remedy the situation. Your large removal of the prose with the sources (which have not yet been adjudged to be (in general, for any use) as defective, is over-the-top disruptive to the process of improving this article and borderline vandalism. N2e (talk) 12:18, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
That's not a plausible accusation in this circumstance, nor a plausible course of action. If they could have been cited to mainstream non-cryptocurrency RSes, they would have been already. That they haven't been strongly suggests no such references exist. As such, I would strongly suggest not restoring them at all until high-quality mainstream sourcing is in place - this article's sourcing has vastly improved since it was {{citation needed}}, {{primary source inline}} and {{unreliable source?}} from sea to shining sea, it's almost completely sourced to mainstream sources that actually meet RS, and there's really no convincing reason to go back to the way it was - David Gerard (talk) 14:20, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
A clearly factual claim that is actually notable will also be covered in mainstream sources, whereas a factual claim that is considered notable only by a site like CoinDesk is probably not significant for inclusion in Wikipedia. Lets step back from the brink a bit and leave these industry mags that are actually seemingly promotion advert sites alone. Reacting to a controversy before about a fact that no one really cares about in the mainstream with four coindesk type of citations sort of ruined any good arguments and really stopped a lot of logical discussion on this. Its a given now that we are not going to use those poor sources that seem tangled up in the baggage of promotion. Its interesting on the board to get the opinions of the people editing the article but the reason for the board was to get overview outside our opinions. We have that now. No one is going to celebrate. They were just bad sources for Wikipedia and have been acknowledged now as such. Time to move on. Earl King Jr. (talk) 05:38, 7 September 2016 (UTC)


All, I think I'm the only one of the 2 against 2 that has, to this point, remained agnostic on whether CoinDesk is, or is not, a reliable source.

On this page, there is no consensus yet, with Ladislav and Jtbobway arguing it is an acceptable source for some claims; while David and Earl are arguing the opposite. So, no consensus.

Beyond that, a more correct process was followed by someone to open a WP:RSN noticeboard discussion to really settle the issue. I've not participated in that either, but am becoming tempted to do so by the intemperate and non-collegial actions by editors who are deleting reasonable article content when they remove sources that (they believe) are not RS, rather than leaving the content for a week or two with {cn} tags on it.

Net: there is no consensus yet—on this page, nor on the incident on the RSN—so the material should not be removed by that source rationale.

Moreover, Earl's bold edit was originally reverted by me, so per WP:BRD, it should be put back in the article until the issue is resolved on the sources noticeboard, to allow discussion to proceed. N2e (talk) 05:50, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you arguing that we should use bad sources in the article, I don't think you are but it appears you are now. Are you arguing that we should have used four CoinDesk-uesqe sites instead of one New York times site? You do know that the board thing has been used to determine the value of those promo advert sites and they were found inappropriate? How is it that these promo sites have captured the involvement of several editors who seem to be having difficulty accepting that they are pretty much not good sources? The board aspect was to get outside the 'local' opinion on these issues of citations from industry mags and that the board opinion differs from people involved here and its better to use opinion from people outside the loop or box of editing the article. Earl King Jr. (talk) 06:27, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
No, Earl, the "board" has determined no such thing. Both the "is Ethereum fringe?" discussion on the WP:Fringe board and the "is CoinDesk acceptable as a reliable source in Wikipedia for some material?" on the WP:RSN board are both still ongoing. They've not been closed. Ditto on the discussion on this Talk page: it simply has not yet reached a consensus. (and I say that as the one involved editor who has not taken a position on the matter). N2e (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Any thoughts on what I note about the improved sourcing quality of this article, and how there isn't really a need to go back to how it was previously? - David Gerard (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
I very much want to in general, talk about sourcing quality. Unfortunately, this page has many moving parts, and it is extremely difficult to focus on just that one issue when so many other meta-issues are in play. For example, this section title is about the Fringe board, and so conceivably, that is what ought to be discussed here, especially since their was already a section specifically devoted (above) to talking about CoinDesk, and then CoinDesk etc. came up (once again) in the section that started the Fringe discussion before this one.
I doubt there is sufficient mind share to get a calm convo going on sourcing quality in this section. And with nerves frayed, I suspect that, just like in this section, it would be nearly impossible to keep all editors focused on that single topic. Still, if you start such a section; I'd try to participate. But this section is about the OP's creation of yet another new section on Fringe; but it quickly conflated RS issues with the "is Ethereum fringe?" issue.
Best course for everyone, in my opinion, is just to slow it down for a while. Let the Fringe discussion conclude on the Fringe board; and let the CoinDesk as an RS discussion conclude on the RSN board. Then it would be easier to have a calm discussion on this page about general sourcing quality. Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:45, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes David Gerard now the sourcing is almost o.k. and the article is shaping up. As far as any emotional aspect probably that is on the part of the pro coindesk editors and that should cool down now that the process is pretty much over of determining just how good or not good the Crypto coin sites are for usage. I like the crypto sites for general information and insight, just not as sources of information for using on Wikipedia. Earl King (talk) 05:08, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Repeat of thread about conflicts of interest

Just to simplify things this also applies to the same editors that edit at Bitcoin that also edit here. No one responded previously to a call to mention conflicts of interests and I know there is some conflict of interests going on. One more time. Its not a big deal if you are neutral editors though even a small seeming conflict of interest can lead to being blocked from editing this article and the other, Please review WP:NPA, and if you have a financial position in Ethereum/Bitcoin then WP:COI. Please note that if you have a financial interest in ETH/Bitcoin, including a holding, or close involvement with the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum development or any other substantive conflict of interest, you are required by the Wikimedia terms of use (section 4) to disclose it before editing. Earl King (talk) 06:14, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Unclear redirection

I was redirected to this article after searching for "Vinay Gupta". It's unclear why or how this is related to him; he's not mentioned anywhere in the text. What's going on?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.111.180.3 (talk) 15:57, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

As of 2015 he was release coordinator for Ethereum, presumably someone thought this would be the most useful redirect. Not clear it's actually a helpful redirect, though, since I'm pretty sure he's not individually notable enough even within Ethereum to mention in the article - David Gerard (talk) 16:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
He's clearly more notable (or at least as notable) in the context of the Hexayurt project which also has its own wikipedia article; and yet someone thought it a good idea to redirect here instead of there - that's odd even assuming you should redirect somewhere instead of using the link as a placeholder for a non-existing article to be written in the future (which I'm not sure I'd agree with).
Anyway, as a general note, it's a nasty phenomenon in wikipedia (I've seen it elsewhere before) to add redirections from X -> Y without ever editing Y so that it even mentions X (let alone in a way that's relevant to someone who might be looking up X). That's never useful for anyone and should not be done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.111.180.3 (talk) 09:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Founders

The founders of Ethereum entities, both the orginal Swiss for-profit entity, and the Ethereum Foundation, are not clear in the article.

The article as it stands today lists only "Original author(s): Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood" and "Developer(s): Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke, Vitalik Buterin, et al." in the infobox. Not clear if "developers" would make the founders cut, or under what circumstances; as well as what sources might support it.

The article is fairly clear that Buterin is an inventor and founder from early on. Others would seem to be Charles Hoskinson (see Talk page section above) and Joseph Lubin who is identified in his Wikipedia article as the COO of the original Swiss for-profit company, with a source. There are no doubt others; I believe I may have read somewhere that there were originally some seven involved, but I don't have that source or know how to find it.

In order to make article improvement possible, let's start collecting any sources where a "founder" or initial executive/company officer of one of the Ethereum entities is identified.

Thanks Earl. Indeed. But useful to help future searches where all this is perhaps put together with secondary sources for who are the founders. Interestingly, these "first person" recollections (like the one you found on the reddit AMA from Di Iorio) can often be quite at odds with other first person accounts from the same founders. I was formerly involved in the unfortunate war on the Tesla Motors article over who was, and who was not, a founder of Tesla Motors, and specifically, if Elon Musk was or was not. In short, different founders, and various secondary sources, said differing things on the matter. Not fun. N2e (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
One of the sources that came up there was a Dutch De Week van Bitcoin web media interview with four folks from Ethereum recorded on 5 June 2014. This was prior to the creation of the non-profit Ethereum Foundation entity, when the Ethereum Switzerland GmbH (EthSuisse) was still around, and the Ethereum developers were still working for the for-profit entity. The four folks (and what they were doing for Ethereum GmbH) are: Stephan Tual ("in charge of communications"), Taylor Gering ("focus on infrastructure work around the website and tools for the development team" moving to more operations of the organization, working effectively, ...), Mihai Alisie (focus on the social side of the project; transitioning into interface) and Joseph Lubin (in charge of operations). Interestingly, they refer in the interview to being influenced by the Wikipedia article on Collective intelligence. Notably, at the time, they were planning a 4Q2014 rollout of version 1 of the Ethereum software (actual was July 2015) but caveated the plan with 'only if it is ready...'.
Here is a bio on Alisie. While a primary source, terms there could be used to search for other sources. http://blog.akasha.world/2016/07/18/moving-forward-on-all-fronts/ 17:35, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
Here is a more standard source on Alisie being a founder.[8] : "ethereum co-founder Mihai Alisie" N2e (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I have removed the content from the Founders and Developers fields for now, until we have solid sourcing on which to base claims. This kind of thing also becomes a fount of endless debate; let's fill that in when we have very good sources upon which to list names and include the citation when the content is added to the infobox. Jytdog (talk) 16:21, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Exactly. That's why I started a collection of data, names, sources on the Talk page. When we have sufficient info to make for sourced prose on the founders or execs, it will go into the article. That's all. N2e (talk) 18:08, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Agree with N2e's approach here. We can discuss and then add the content when we have some consensus and good sources. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:41, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Staying clear of coin desk is probably a good idea. Perhaps a tiny bit of sourcing to it but no large scale information ideas. Too primary, too promotional. It is a big advert site for the subject in the article. Earl King Jr. (talk) 03:55, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Ethereum Classic community two months on

Just saw this morning a summary article by Charles Hoskinson on his survey of the Ethereum Classic community a couple of months after the hard fork situation that gave rise to two chains. I've scanned the article; it may be the best source we have on the state of this new community that is forming around the ETC blockchain to this point.

(Hoskinson is an academic crypto researcher of some kind, and was one of the original founders of Ethereum back in early 2014 when the Swiss company Ethereuem Gmbh was going, prior to the creation of the Ethereum Foundation in mid-2014. Some sort of breakup between Hoskinson and the Ethereum founders happened before June of 2014. [That is based on other sources in the article and on sources above on the talk page trying to figure out a more definitive list of who the founders were for improving the article.] He is now very active as some sort of spokesman involved in Ethereum Classic.)

Article here: Ethereum Classic: An Update, 10 Sep 2016.

The article is not perfect, nor does it cover all aspects of this emerging blockchain, but there is more here than we've had as a source for this second chain and community. Cheers. N2e (talk) 10:37, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't that count as WP:NOR? LarsPensjo (talk) 16:38, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
No way. That is a content generator, primary, self published, blog, forum site [9] As far as the community you speak of that would seem to be a group of crypto predators who try to outdo one another by trying to capture the most of those pretend currencies. Not a good source. Do not use. It is easy to see why the article has been so challenged in the past, from over sourcing to some single book made by a promo advert guy to these types of basically primary worthless sources. Earl King (talk) 05:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I negated my statement. I meant it as a conflict with WP:NOR.LarsPensjo (talk) 08:00, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
And I did not use this as a source in the article. Pointed out that it has useful info, on a topic that several other editors have previously added to this article (and I don't believe I have edited on the topic of the classic fork version). Thus, it was worth mentioning here on the Talk page. Oftentimes, other more-reliable source media will report parts of such stuff in later days, and this may provide help in forming search terms to locate such media. This is all assuming that we are working to improve the article; not always clear for all partcipants; and also that (as of now) Ethereum Classic is even in-scope for this article, which is, I believe the current case per earlier discussion on this Talk page. Cheers. N2e 19:49, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Updated the above to add my signature, as it was I who commented on 20 Sep 2016, and the "N2e" somehow got left out. N2e (talk) 19:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

RfC RS/Fringe Re:Ethereum

Hello, I created two different discussions (maybe should have made one in retrospect) over on the noticeboards relating to a long standing (ad nauseam) discussion on this talk page (and archives) relating to if this page is WP:FRINGE (as is claimed by @David Gerard: and thus higher standards WP:FRIND sources must be used (largely excluding industry rag publications such as CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph). This ongoing dispute relating to sources results in possibly biased editors (see above talk page comments) such as @Earl King Jr.: deleting all sorts of content, down even to the the launch date of Ethereum (a non-controversial fact). Please comment on these noticeboards, or here Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Ethereum and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#CoinDesk_and_CoinTelegraph_on_the_article_Ethereum Thank you Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:37, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Right now the people 'out of the immediate loop' or so I will call it are mostly saying these are not good sourced. That is the reason I removed the four coin cyber sites and replaced that excessive blast of industry non news sites with one good reference which I would guess people might be pleased with. Source [10] So how is it that the good source was removed by an editor and replaced with the over sourcing of four of those coindesk type citations? Third party over site is saying on these boards that the iffy sources are iffy and should be either not used or used very very sparsely, as in virtually never. Does not the NewYork Times trump four special interest coin cyber sites. So lets return that edit. Earl King Jr. (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Summoned by Bot. I spent a little time reading the article and made a few edits to familiarize myself with the material. I also looked at the edit history to try to understand what the sourcing controversy was all about. I'm not in the bitcoin or ether industries, and can only claim a cursory knowledge of the technology, but I can sense when unreliable sources are being used to push incorrect information. This does not seem to be the case for three edits that were removed. I pulled them from the edit history:
  • Decentralized prediction market: Augur.[1]
  • IBM ADEPT, an IoT system using Ethereum for smart contracts support.[2]
  • Innovate UK provided 248,000GBP in funding to Tramonex to develop cross border payments prototype using Ethereum.[3]
Regardless of any decision as to the value of coindesk.com for independent reporting, in this case the articles are simply rehashing the press releases that the various companies released. This can easily be confirmed with a quick Google search. Also, I did see other sources mention these items. I have no problem with them being added back to the article - I can see no agenda here except a desire to share news of the industry.Timtempleton (talk) 22:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Its not a Wikipedia job to use rehashed press releases or to share industry news. Just because some other media used the sources that is not a good reason to also use them. Adding them back into the article will insure problems and their removal again, and now that the notice board pretty much concluded that they were not good sources for the article, perhaps you missed that, it is not a good idea to add those promo advert sites again. One person on the board looking at those sites described them thus: The issue with these sites is pretty clear: their agenda is not to neutrally document facts, but to promote an ideology. They may indeed be "mostly OK" for clearly factual claims, but a clearly factual claim that is actually notable will also be covered in mainstream sources, whereas a factual claim that is considered notable only by a site like CoinDesk is probably not significant for inclusion in Wikipedia. Thanks, Earl King (talk) 07:26, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
There seem to be two arguments here. One is whether the source is reliable, and two is the information readily available elsewhere. Even the NY Times cites the IBM coindesk article. [11] So I stand by my original opinion.Timtempleton (talk) 12:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment RFC call. This one is outside my comfort zone, but from what I can see, I incline to agree with Timtempleton When sources are just one step away from cast-iron peer-reviewed scientific publications, that is nice, but it neither is commonly possible nor even commonly necessary. The sources that Tim mentioned seem perfectly acceptable and adequate in context. I say accept them until someone can present something plainly better. Simply deleting them on the basis of puristic distaste when we cannot get the original tablets from the mountain, is definitely unconstructive and unjustified.JonRichfield (talk) 06:12, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Summarizing what I see from editors above. First off, the Fringe question/discussion (mentioned in the subsection heading and OP) seems to have been moved to the separate subsection on this Talk page, entitled: "Fringe theory board".

On the question of Reliable Sources brought up by a formal RfC at Reliable Sources Noticeboard: The RfC can be found in the archive there at the specific link for section CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph on the article Ethereum. That discussion was not formally closed—but three editors discussed it there on that forum; two taking the position of the OP (that CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph, etc are acceptable as WP:RS on these articles) and one arguing the other side. Only one of those editiors User:Ladislav Mecir, did not also comment on the matter here is this section also. However, the RfC request did bring in some outside editors to comment here on this Talk page. It appears to my reading that both Timtempleton and JonRichfield supported the general position of the OP Jtbobwaysf: Coin Desk and Coin Telegraph sources are not unacceptable as WP:RS's across the board, and that deletion on sight and removal of article prose supported by these sources is disruptive to improving the article. Only one editor, Earl King, has taken the opposite position.

Thus, I see no consensus having formed to support Earl's oft-repeated assertion that Coin Desk and Coin Telegraph sources are unacceptable sources, in general. N2e (talk) 12:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Is ether a token??

@David Gerard: you reverted an edit changing ether to say it is a token and not a cryptocurrency. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethereum&curid=41754003&diff=746655105&oldid=746600480 That's a good question. Is ether a token? I have no idea... Is Ethereum a cryptocurrency and ether is the cryptocurrency's token? Comments? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:19, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Ether is quite clearly a cryptocurrency. I don't see how someone could reasonably claim it isn't. ethereum.org uses both terms, RSes call it a cryptocurrency (and Ethereum a cryptocurrency platform), etc. This is an example of what I've noted earlier on this very talk page about the strange aversion Ethereum proponents have to the word "cryptocurrency". I realise Ethereum aspires to so much more, but Ether is still a cryptocurrency - David Gerard (talk) 11:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, as I've read much material on this, "ether" is the name of the value token for Ethereum. It can be spelled either "Ether" (the ordinary form of a proper noun in English), or "ether" as was previously discussed by some previous discussion on this Talk page. I can live with either approach; but I suspect (I don't know, of course) that a part of the confusion of the OP might be that a proper noun was spelled with lower case, which I could see some confusion to the readers of the encyclopedia.
"Ethereum" is not the name of the value token. Ethereum is a currently-running distributed/decentralized "world computer" (some sources) and also is the name that is used to describe the network protocol for all of the various computers (running on many different operating systems), running any of four or more different software implementations (Getg, Parity, J-ethereum, Pythereum, C++ ethereum, etc.) that implement that world computer. In other words, like many words in the English language, words may have more than one sense. Ethereum definitely has at least those two senses.
"Ether" is also clearly a crypotcurrency, where the token is traded etc., but it is clearly more than merely a cryptocurrency. It is also used as the fuel to keep the world computer operrating, and performing computational transactions that implement contracts, as nothing happens on the world computer without paying the decentralized operators to process transactions and record results in the blockcahin. Hope that helps. N2e (talk) 19:19, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Ether is the internal fuel for the smart contract system, sure. But the smart contracts it's fuel for are typically concerning very cryptocurrency-like use and movement of ether too. Purging the word "cryptocurrency" still strikes me as more aspirational than present reality - they're not just tokens, they're tokens that are being treated like money. Compare DAO tokens, which were also transacted on the chain but were treated like shares ... shares that were bought for ether - David Gerard (talk) 18:47, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Tapscott source

There has been some discussion, if I remember correctly here as well, about Tapscott as a source. Maybe it was archived. Since the discussion is flaring up again over at Blockchain (database) I have created a RS Noticeboard for Tapscott, feel free to comment there. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Book:_Blockchain_Revolution:_How_the_Technology_Behind_Bitcoin_Is_Changing_Money_..._by_Don_Tapscott Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:14, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Merger suggestion

An editor suggested Solidity be merged into Ethereum. Please see the discussion at Talk:Solidity#Merge_with_Ethereum Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

R3 - is this Ethereum per se?

"R3 did a blockchain trial with 40 banks. The trial represented the trading of fixed income assets between 40 of the world’s “largest” banks across the blockchains" - but I can't find anything saying this is actually running on the Ethereum blockchain - only that the Ethereum Foundation is involved. What actually are they doing? Buterin says it's a new chain, Lizardcoin - David Gerard (talk) 12:54, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I have read that it is running on a private Ethereum chain. This blog post reads like an April fools day practical joke to me. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
I've read up on R3. It's "Business Blockchain", and the secret turns out to be: actual customers with money don't want any of the things Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies have to offer, so R3 Corda, in its default configuration ... doesn't even include a blockchain.
When dealing with anything that's touting a "business blockchain" or similar words: 1. It probably doesn't exist yet beyond proof of concept - aspirational writeups in CoinDesk turn out not to be good evidence of existence. 2. It's probably not a blockchain as you know it - David Gerard (talk) 11:16, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
David, the source you are citing is an april fools joke. If you can find better sources, by all means let's include it in the article that they are selling vaporware. But this source doesn't cut it. Why am i even responding to this? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:30, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
The R3 source isn't. R3 is a separate piece of software that isn't linked to Ethereum, and actually doesn't contain a blockchain (unless you want it to) - David Gerard (talk) 13:31, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Hmmm. I won't comment for now on the Ethereum/R3 connection, as I don't know (or don't recall, if I've ever read anything on that). But R3, pretty clearly, in the stuff I've read, is using a blockchain database as a rather key part of the implementation of their technology. I believe it was some sort of a "permissioned blockchain", meaning only open to those in the group/consortium, and not open to the public like Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. N2e (talk) 19:32, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
This promotional blog post from R3 is an interesting read on the topic. At the top of the page you'll see the description "R3's Blockchain platform", and if you read through the essay you'll see their explanation of why they think blockchains proper are an absolutely terrible fit for the sort of customers they're looking for, and below where they're explaining what on earth R3 Corda is, "Notice some of the key things: firstly, we are not building a blockchain." - David Gerard (talk) 14:37, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Hey David Gerard, not sure, but I'm thinking you might have inadvertantly placed the paragraph immediately above into the wrong section of the Talk page. (since whatever R3 is has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of Is ether a token?) Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:34, 1 November 2016 (UTC) now in the correct section; N2e (talk) 19:20, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
whoops, thank you! - David Gerard (talk) 18:47, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I think it was I that added the original reference to "trial with 40 banks". Looking at comments above, I have to agree the Ethereum connection is vague (or plainly misunderstood). I propose I replace this with an older test, based on 11 banks (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/r3-connects-11-banks-distributed-ledger-using-ethereum-microsoft-azure-1539044), which has a more clear connection to Ethereum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LarsPensjo (talk • contribs) 16:17, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
R3 (company) has a wikipedia page Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism, lock requested

Yesterday and today there were different IP address edits that vandalized this page to change it the subject from Ethereum to Ethereum Classic. I request we consider an administrator to place a temporary (or permanent) autoconfirmed user edit lock on this page if this persists. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Source

  • http://silicon.nyc/blockchain-fintech-startups-bitcoin/, includes this relevant bit: "More investors are rallying away from Bitcoin due to increasing privacy and profitability concerns. The first 3 months of this year showed investment in other blockchain technologies overtake investment in Bitcoin, the biggest one is Ethereum. It is a blockchain decentralized framework that can allow for smart contracts, control of your own identity, payments and much more." N2e (talk) 03:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Functionality

This article lacks information about how Ethereum functions. How is its blockchain different from the first? How is the block structured? How is the data parsed by clients? - Shiftchange (talk) 23:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Regarding how Ethereum functions, the article does describe how Ethereum's blockchain allows Turing-complete 'smart-contracts'; it could more clearly describe how these 'smart contracts' or programs rely on a per-contract state which is encoded on the blockchain. I do not think it is especially appropriate for this article to go into technical detail on the Ethereum blockchain (how the block is structured, how the data is parsed); that may be appropriate for another article if Ethereum continues to grow in adoption. Sanpitch (talk) 22:11, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Echoing my comment above, I think you adding anything on how the SW works is quite useful. Seems the notability discussion relating to this article has died down now the platform is more mainstream, so it might be a good time (as you are mentioning here) to start to build out the basic SW concepts so readers can understand a little. Unfortunately SW is maybe beyond my expertise to assist in editing. But I'm still happy to chime in on it. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:42, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Connected contributors

The header contains a list of contributors declaring their investments in Ethereum. Even though it is of interest when evaluating contributions, I propose we delete this list for the following reasons:

  1. It is generally not recommended to declare officially that you own cryptocurrencies because of the risk of becoming a hacker target.
  2. The template shall be used when a person has a "close connection to an article topic". People from the Ethereum Foundation would count as "close connection", but I disagree owners of ether is enough.
  3. It is unknown if these persons still have the same investments, and it would be a strange requirement to have to update every time you change your investments.
  4. All contributions shall have good sources. That is more important than who adds a contribution. LarsPensjo (talk) 11:07, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
There is no support for your proposal in our COI rules, and weight against it.
  1. This would suggest they should not edit Wikipedia on the subject of their conflict. If they need to keep a COI secret, then they need to not be editing with an undisclosable COI.
  2. Having a direct financial interest in the success of Ethereum would definitely count as a COI per WP:COI: "An editor has a financial conflict of interest when they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship. This includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other stakeholder."
  3. WP:COI does not specify an expiry time. In any case, if they no longer have a COI they can remove it, noting why; it's not up to a third party to do so.
  4. The point of the COI rules is that they are for when a connected contributor in the history is indeed connected. Ideally the contributor does not matter; WP:COI is for precisely when it does matter.
WP:COI really isn't very complicated in its intentions, and guidelines in how to meet the Foundation terms of service - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Clients

In the past we've had various versions of a description of the software clients that can run Ethereum. For example, the following:

The Ethereum Foundation funded reference implementations of the Ethereum client in Python[4], C++[5], Go[5], and Java[6][7][5]. Implementations not funded by the foundation are available in Rust[8][9], JavaScript[10][5], Haskell[11][5], and Ruby[12].

The multiple clients that support Ethereum are an important part of the ecosystem. I think this would be a valuable part of the article. Yes, there was a discussion about this under the heading "SW Languages" in the archives of this talk page. I think it's an important topic to revisit. Sanpitch (talk) 01:52, 26 March 2017 (UTC) .

There has been no response to my comments above in three weeks; I'll take that as indicating that adding the sentence above is acceptable. I added the sentence above about the clients to the page. Sanpitch (talk) 22:20, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
I think adding the details on SW is useful. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:39, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
just randomly passing through but as a Linux user i consider this info very useful Elinruby (talk) 01:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Blockchain Prediction Market Augur Enters Beta". Coindesk.com. 14 March 2016. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
  2. ^ "IBM Reveals Proof of Concept for Blockchain-Powered Internet of Things". CoinDesk.
  3. ^ "UK Government Awards £248k for Ethereum Prototype". CoinDesk.
  4. ^ ethereum. "GitHub – ethereum/pyethapp". GitHub.
  5. ^ a b c d e http://www.ethdocs.org/en/latest/ethereum-clients/index.html
  6. ^ Roman Mandeleil. "Ethereum J". ethereumj.io.
  7. ^ "Ethereum(J) — Ethereum Homestead 0.1 documentation". readthedocs.org. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  8. ^ "Press – Ethcore". ethcore.io.
  9. ^ "Ethereum Venture Company Releases its Flagship Blockchain Suite". forklog.net. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  10. ^ "ethereumjs". ethereumjs.github.io.
  11. ^ jamshidh. "GitHub – jamshidh/ethereum-client-haskell". GitHub. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  12. ^ janx. "GitHub – janx/ruby-ethereum: A Ruby implementation of Ethereum". GitHub.

In need of another source cleanup

The article appears to have decayed into unreliable sourcing again. I went through and tagged dodgy sourcing, can any of these be backed with verifiable third-party reliable sources that are actually apposite? (There's a few that are RSes, but fail verification because they're tangential at best to the claim.) We could leave this a week before clearing out the unacceptable sources - David Gerard (talk) 12:50, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

I went through and removed a lot of repetitive tags, and the overall article tags. These edits made by you were WP:OVERTAG. There was essentially one section that you tagged every single claim, I added a refimprove section tag to that section. Some of the other tags were nonsense, such as arguing that bloomberg is not a RS. Last, there are a few remaining claims substantiated by primary sources, such as the launch date of Ethereum, hardly a controversial subject (note no other editor has even responded here). Jtbobwaysf (talk) 00:20, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
Bad sourcing remains bad sourcing. In particular, undiscriminating corporate directories routinely fail RS - David Gerard (talk) 10:35, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Agree with you David, the lists of companies with their latest gizmo on ethereum should have the same RS requirement. But I disagree with the tagging of the entire page, just because of some sections that don't comply. Let's just see which sections don't comply, tag those sections (or companies) and then delete that content. Jtbobwaysf (talk)

Contentious editing

David Gerard, I don't believe your edit is supported by the policy guidelines. The lead only summarizes the "most important" content in the article. You are giving undue attention to a minority view point and lesser controversy that has no direct bearing on the subject at hand, which is Ethereum; not Ethereum Classic. You are running afoul of WP:NPV, WP:WEIGHT, and possibly WP:PSCI. That is, by its very nature, the official fork of Ethereum represents the dominant consensus and majority viewpoint of the article. You are treating two separate viewpoints as being in effect equal to each other. They are not. This obfuscates the mainstream understanding of the Ethereum platform and incites unwarranted contention.

As I said, the DAO / ETC hard fork controversy has received fair and balanced coverage in the section on criticism. If you wish to expand on this issue, you should direct your edits to that particular section of the article. I'm prepared to discuss our respective points of view at length if you still disagree.

I have also restored the remark on gas as it is essential to the design of the Ethereum platform and intimately related to the topic of ether. What the article needs is an expanded description of the gas metering system in the features section. There is no reason to omit it from the lead. As it stands, the smart contracts section is the only part of the article that mentions gas. I suggest we further improve the article's content by adding these valuable details rather than cutting them out arbitrarily.

- Aliensyntax (talk) 22:04, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

The DAO collapse got considerable news coverage mentioning Ethereum - it's part of the mainstream understanding IMO. The fact of a major fork being left out of the intro also leaves it incomplete. If it gets a whole section in the body, it warrants mention in the intro, per WP:LEDE. One really can't claim to be summarising the story of Ethereum without even a mention of ETC and the split that led to it - David Gerard (talk) 11:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
The article is not an attempt provide "news coverage" on "the story of Ethereum". It is first and foremost an engineering and technology article. The lead paragraph has already identified the topic and established the context of the article in the opening:
"Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality."
We should be concerned with summarizing the most important points with respect to this technical description and avoid the careless introduction of ambiguous, largely peripheral, politically-charged, and potentially misleading issues.
The particular edit you wish to add reads like a "news-style" headline and scandal mongering public relations attempt. It does not merit the relevance or significance you attribute to it. You'll note that the issue has not received a "whole section in the body" but has rather been treated as a subtopic in an undeveloped section devoted to criticism. It has been assigned there largely because it has been marred in various conflicts of interest, ideological opinion pieces, and propaganda campaigns. A simple summary would not capture the required nuance of views on this subject. As such, it should not be carelessly or uncritically added to the lead. Doing so, as I argued in my previous remark, would violate WP:NPV, WP:WEIGHT, and possibly WP:PSCI.
I do not believe you have addressed these concerns fairly or sufficiently to warrant your attempt to reintroduce the edit. I believe the reasons brought to your attention are stronger than the ones you have provided to this point. Accordingly, I must move again to override your contribution. It is not my intention to get into an edit war with you or any other editor. I would prefer to reach a mutual and reasonable consensus. However, I do think this issue carries sufficient weight to pursue dispute resolution if that need should arise. I suggest we seek a sensible agreement instead of engaging in this course of action. I'm very much prepared to hear out your standpoint.
- Aliensyntax (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

The purpose of the introduction is to summarize what Ethereum is and provide a basic overview, to ignore Ethereum classic or a dao fork, in which a 150 million dollars organization got hacked and leave it to the END of the article is being ignorant, ETC is the biggest thing to happen to Ethereum so far, nothing even comes close to it. To be so offended and off put of the mention of the dao hack and to leave it to the end, makes it appear that Aliensyntax has a personal interest in ethereum and that mention of ETC is against it.

Warzuckerberg22

I agree, it is a significant enough item to be mentioned in the lede and removing it rather than improving it is an odd editing choice. ClareTheSharer (talk) 23:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Warzuckerberg22 and ClareTheSharer, have either of you read and (actually understood) my concerns? Neither of you are addressing the points I brought to bear to support my point of view. I have explained to a reasonable extent why this particular issue is problematic. I have also explained, as clearly as possible, why the policy guidelines would recommend caution and sensitivity in this instance. Perhaps you did not think critically about what I said. I will aim to be more explicit.

As per WP:ROC, content pertaining to matters of history and public perception should be plainly apparent: "If they are not, additional context is needed". As per WP:NPV, the content should be represented "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias". In particular, one should be careful not to use "prominence of placement" (i.e. the lead), or what can be interpreted as an equivocal juxtaposition of statements, to displace the primary subject in a manner that amplifies the relevance or significance of minority views or fringe opinions, as per WP:WEIGHT and WP:PSCI. Editors are also expected to exercise good judgment with respect to controversial material or potential conflicts of interest (WP:COI), including but not limited to covert advertising (WP:COVERT) and political campaigning WP:COIPOLITICAL.

I believe all these factors, and perhaps a number of others I have yet to consider, are in play with the proposed edit. In regards to the first factor, viz. relevance of content, no effort has been made to clarify the principle significance or implications of the fork or its widely perceived status among reliable sources. The statement is devoid of the most pertinent details. This ambiguous lack of context is liable to create a misleading impression of the severity and noteworthiness of the event. It is not "plainly apparent" what is being said. For example, stating there was a hack of The DAO could imply to some readers that Ethereum itself was the victim, that the platform itself is flawed, when in fact it was a badly designed contract that was at fault. Stating there was a separate blockchain created for those who rejected the fork says nothing about the proportion of users who rejected it. What exactly is the reader expected to infer here? Are they to be given the impression that the correct version of Ethereum is now Ethereum Classic? Should they be confused about which version of Ethereum is the real or legitimate one? As I said, the relevant context is non-existent and for that reason the edit itself could be very misleading.

This situation is further compounded by the failure to observe a neutral point of view. The proposed edit cannot be called "fair", "proportionate", and "without editorial bias" on account of the fact that it aims to assign undue significance and relevance to the pretensions of a disaffected ideological minority. It's well-known that Ethereum Classic broke off from the consensus majority of the official Ethereum network and its established ecosystem. According to most conventional metrics, they represent less than 7-10% of the original Ethereum community. They're a splinter group with dubious conflicting motivations. In part, these motivations are parasitic on the Ethereum project. The group is a hostile competitor with a demonstrable financial and political interest in conflating Ethereum with Ethereum Classic. They have a strong incentive to make Ethereum Classic appear larger and more important than it should otherwise be from a neutral point view. On these grounds, I have to contend that there is a fairly high probability that the current edit conflict is not the result of a simple disagreement over the reasonability of what should or should not be included in the lead paragraph, but is rather the result of a covert attempt to misdirect attention away from the primary subject in order to bring unjustified public visibility to Ethereum Classic.

In my view, the proposed edit exaggerates the significance of the DAO / ETC controversy by using the prominence of placement of the lead paragraph. The insistence that this disconnected peripheral topic should deserve pride of place in the lead is incongruent with a non-partisan technical description of the primary subject. The remark is jarring, detached, and evidently out of scope with the content of the lead. There is also a strong negative connotation being implied in terminating and overshadowing the lead with a mention of this issue. Why is it again that the section on criticism is insufficient for this discussion? Why exactly should a nuanced issue such as this one be foisted on the reader at the earliest opportunity? It doesn't make very much sense. Unless, of course, we assume there is a powerful bias at work.

Simply put, I believe this edit is a very WP:BADIDEA. I fail to see the intellectual merit in adding it.

Aliensyntax (talk) 11:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Counting the original editor who added it, it looks 4-1 in favour of it from here. Restoring - David Gerard (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:CONS: "Consensus refers to the primary way decisions are made on Wikipedia, and it is accepted as the best method to achieve our goals; i.e., to achieve our five pillars. Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity (which, although an ideal result, is not always achievable); nor is it the result of a vote. Decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines."

I've escalated this issue to dispute resolution as I've not observed an "effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines": link to DR noticeboard

Aliensyntax (talk) 03:00, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

User:ClareTheSharer - I appreciate you joining the dispute resolution process and being slightly more explicit about your view. You said: "I'm not especially involved, just a bystander, but did express the view that David_Gerard's reasonable addition to the lede is not as obviously toxic as Aliensyntax asserts and would be better improved than (repeatedly and rapidly) removed. I still hold that view." I understand and would like you to carefully consider my standpoint.

I did not assert the issue was "obvious". I provided an extended argument to explain why the issue was not "plainly apparent". What you say should be better improved is precisely what is obscuring the controversy. As I've said previously, the controversy is complex and cannot be easily summarized. To add the required level of detail would draw the lead out of focus and oversimplify the issue. I cannot fathom why you would think it rationally justifiable to expand on a complicated, highly politicized, controversial subject in the introduction. Given your objection, it would appear to me that you do not fully appreciate the nature of my concerns nor the disturbing scope of this controversy. I cannot do your research for you. I can only say that I've read most of the relevant literature and have concluded the following:

1. There is a profound difference in notability between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. In particular, Ethereum Classic has not contributed to the Ethereum ecosystem. They're merely a fork of the Ethereum protocol stack. In truth, they share none of the mining, investing, development, or social infrastructure with Ethereum. Their technical output and status is orders of magnitude below Ethereum. They have sub-zero notability, in this respect. This could be confusing and highly misleading to some readers. Sensationalist news articles and market price are no indication of exceptionalism. Their notoriety is a simple result of the excessive media coverage over the DAO. That does not make them intrinsically worthy of mention in the introduction. This leads naturally into the second point:

2. There is a perverse financial and political incentive involved in using Ethereum to promote Ethereum Classic. There is sufficient evidence to my mind to surmise that Ethereum Classic is the product of external interests seeking some form of parasitic hostile takeover of the Ethereum trademark and its innovations. Its financing and development are easily traced back to Ethereum's most natural competitors, i.e. Bitcoin and related cryptocurrency markets. These conflicts of interest are abundant and would be evident to anyone who did their research. I believe this may be clouding editorial judgment.

3. Most importantly, there is consistent and pervasive illicit behavior and manipulation with respect to Ethereum Classic. The Ethereum Classic community is responsible for enabling the theft of millions. They're responsible for producing biased media coverage, historical revisionism, social media propaganda, and various other marketing ploys to dupe investors. They could also be said to be involved in various trademark violations and open-licensing disputes. Their status is disgraceful and deserving of proper criticism. There is no legitimate reason to mention Ethereum Classic without also mentioning these other relevant details. Evading this content in the lead by trying to conceal and trivialize the issue is unacceptable. As I said, this is too controversial. The only responsible place to have this discussion is in the section on criticism. Even better would be to reassign this content to the Ethereum Classic article itself or possibly a completely separate article.

I'm mainly focusing my attention on the controversial nature of Ethereum Classic. There is clearly a controversy regarding the details of the DAO hack itself. My immediate concern, however, is not with this event as such, but with how this event has been used on Wikipedia and elsewhere to artificially inflate the public profile of Ethereum Classic. I've argued these concerns at length and have done what is my power to persuade you of their legitimacy. I recommend we leave the article as is without the offending edit. I see no reason for your opposition. There is strong evidence of an extensive controversy. Controversial issues demand critical judgment. The lead is an inappropriate place to expand on this form of criticism.

Aliensyntax (talk) 01:04, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Aliensyntax insists on repeatedly removing all mention of The DAO and Ethereum Classic from the article lede, on the basis that it is mentioned lower in the article (it's been shoved into a section titled "criticism", which is in itself inappropriate for history). Multiple editors have added it, he keeps removing it.

I believe this is inappropriate on the basis that, per WP:LEDE, the intro section should constitute a complete short article in itself, and The DAO achieved widespread mainstream press and caused a fork of the chain and breaking of the smart contract promise of immutability, which was discussed in RSes at length, so not mentioning them is excluding relevant information. It's one of the most important events in the history of Ethereum, and there's lots of RSes concerning it.

When I noted it was 4-1 against him, this was after also reiterating my points above; this is misrepresented by Aliensyntax in his summary of the dispute.

Aliensyntax's reasons for wanting to exclude Ethereum Classic are, per the talk page, his belief that it is immoral and mentioning it would blacken the good name of Ethereum:

there is consistent and pervasive illicit behavior and manipulation with respect to Ethereum Classic. The Ethereum Classic community is responsible for enabling the theft of millions

(there's several paragraphs more of this)

Of course, this is not a Wikipedia criterion - we document reprehensible people at length if they are relevant and in RSes, and his claims above are not documented in RSes present in the article. However, he wants to exclude Ethereum Classic from the lead contingent on his RS-less critique being added to the article:

There is no legitimate reason to mention Ethereum Classic without also mentioning these other relevant details.

I'm pretty sure that's not how our sourcing policies work.

He also advocates a WP:POVFORK:

Even better would be to reassign this content to the Ethereum Classic article itself or possibly a completely separate article.

Again, we don't do POV forks.

While I don't question his sincerity, I do believe he is slipping into advocacy rather than documentation. Wikipedia is not for righting great wrongs.

He also seems to take others' edits as evidence of hostility, but not his own similar editing. His lengthy posts about morality on the talk page should be read by all interested in this dispute. - David Gerard (talk) 11:17, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

David Gerard - I welcome your participation in the dispute resolution process. This is the clearest statement of your views I've encountered to this point. Thank you. However, I must challenge a number of your claims:
1. You claim my basis to remove your edit is due to my moving it to criticism.
This isn't the basis for the removal, but a result of the argument I've presented about this issue. I summarize this argument in my opening statement. My proposal to use the criticism section is to ensure the neutrality of this article.
2. You claim "multiple editors" have introduced the offending edit.
There have been 2 editors who have explicitly added the offending edit since I've entered this discussion: yourself and 92.237.175.241. You have both done this repeatedly, for a total of three times each. I reverted 5 of these edits since May 7th. You'll note a 4th editor stepped in to support my decision: 129.15.41.148. So, in reality, the conflict was 2 editors-for and 2 editors-against discounting the number times we made our edits. You've claimed a greater degree of consensus on this tenuous basis and characterized my revisions as being extreme. The revision history would not support that interpretation. Regardless, a simple tally of "votes" is no ground to assume rational justification.
3. You claim the DAO and Ethereum Classic are vital to Ethereum's "history".
This is a minority view and also factually incorrect. The DAO was an application built on the Ethereum platform. Its relation to Ethereum is equivalent to pets.com to the internet. It wasn't created by the Foundation or the "Ethdev" consortium. Slock.it, an independent and for-profit business, created it. The "hack of the DAO" is no more relevant than the defacement of pets.com. Obviously, you aim to argue that the "DAO hard fork" is what is critically important to Ethereum's history. But again, I have to disagree. There have been several high-profile forks in the history of Ethereum. Why are these not also mentioned in the lead? They aren't in the lead because we all know they're irrelevant to the primary subject. The DAO controversy is only asserted as "relevant" because of the role this event plays in the Ethereum Classic community. It's only from their adversarial and non-representative point of view that this event would matter. The event carries very little actual relevance in the Ethereum ecosystem itself. Again the primary subject of the article is Ethereum; not the DAO, not the DAO hack, and not Ethereum Classic. Your assumption that it should be such is misguided.
4. You claim the lead should include the offending edit because "The DAO achieved widespread mainstream press".
As above, so below. You're equivocating the media coverage of an application with the platform it was hosted on. You're conflating this media coverage with the notability of the hard fork and the development of Ethereum Classic. But these are all separate events. Ethereum Classic wasn't covered as widely as the hard fork. The hard fork wasn't covered as widely as the hack of the DAO. The hack of the DAO wasn't covered as widely as the DAO itself. You're mistakenly imputing notability to a controversial issue on account of nothing more than hearsay and insinuation. WP:LEAD clearly advises against using the news-style -- "Tabloid, magazine and broadcast news leads may be 'teasers' that intentionally omit some crucial details to entice readers to read or watch the full story, and may even 'bury the lead' by hiding the most important fact. This style should never be used on Wikipedia." Your proposed edit is a scandal mongering news headline whose only effect is to cast a false light on the primary subject and further mislead the reader by deliberately burying the most critical details of the issue it mentions.
5. You claim that a "promise" was broken with respect to "immutability".
Well, this is precisely what I've been referring to. The fact that you'd bring up immutability is evidence of your bias for the minority view. This issue is only brought up by people who misunderstand the nature of Byzantine mining consensus. In particular, it's the talking point of the Ethereum Classic community. Your so-called RSes are heavily disputed by other RSes. It's an irrelevant and factually incorrect argument. No "promise" can be "broken" with respect to "immutability". In what possible world would that be the case? Immutability is only a property of blockchain systems on account of consensus. This property cannot be "promised" by anyone as it requires the collective social agreement of the network majority. Where did you ever get the idea that Ethereum can promise anything? You do realize Ethereum is a "decentralized" system, correct? It'll do whatever the community of users decides it should do in virtue of the consensus protocol. This is the mainstream view on the immutability debate. It's not based on opinion, but cold technical fact. I can provide you with a long list of RSes if that'll persuade you stop making these covert and biased edits in favor of Ethereum Classic.
6. You claim I misrepresent this dispute in my summary.
To my understanding, I have yet to misrepresent a single detail. As can be seen in the revision history, you said: "per talk page discussion, it looks 4-1 to include this". You assumed the support of "the original editor who added it" but who was the "original editor"? For all I know, you could've been the original editor. And even if you weren't, it's misleading for you to suggest that someone who wasn't privy to the talk page discussion should count as support. It's also misleading for you to claim the support of the two users who commented. They expressed a single short remark each and had not engaged in further discussion. You hastily assumed that this would be sufficient to support your view and that no other editor would agree with my side of the dispute. But in fact, there was another user who supported it: 129.15.41.148. There may very well be others who will express their position on this in the future. Clearly, you exaggerated the nature of your support to mislead others about the consensus. My summary was fairly accurate, in this respect.
7. You claim my concerns are invalidated because they are moralistic.
I've certainly argued we should be more explicit about the reprehensible moral, legal, and political issues involved in this discussion. I've provided more than a few paragraphs about this. However, nowhere have I said this content shouldn't be covered. My claim has always been that we should expand on this material in the relevant section. The policy guidelines don't discourage such topics, nor would I want them to; they emphasize caution and critical judgment, as have I.
8. You claim my critique is contingent on reliable sources being added to the article.
I'm more than willing to share my extensive references to support the claims I've made to this point. Would you care to tell me which claims in particular you think should be reliably sourced and linked to the article?
9. You claim that I advocate a WP:POVFORK.
This is yet another equivocation of Ethereum with Ethereum Classic. There is no WP:POVFORK. The primary subject has no reason to split into a separate article as that separate article already exists: it's called "Ethereum Classic". I fail to see why the lion's share of the criticism shouldn't be on the Ethereum Classic article itself. That's common sense. The Ethereum article, as the primary subject, is only required to outline the most relevant details. I don't expect the article to provide a lengthy exposé on Ethereum Classic.
10. You claim that I'm slipping into WP:ADVOCACY.
This is a highly ironic statement. Please elaborate on the nature of my "advocacy".
11. You claim that my concerns are an attempt to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
That's an interesting characterization. Do I believe there's a great wrong involved here? Not exactly. I simply believe your edit serves to undermine the integrity of the article and is not supported by the content policy guidelines you're so fond of citing. I also believe your evident bias has clouded your judgment about my motivations.
- Aliensyntax (talk) 23:51, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with David here that it should be included in the intro. The largest news event relating to Ethereum was The DAO event, and the subsequent fork. Aliensyntax, your long winded answers here on this subject look like WP:OWNERSHIP and/or WP:TENDENTIOUS editing. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:37, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Jtbobwaysf - You don't appear to be assuming WP:GOODFAITH. I've expressed a firm conviction that this edit is unbalanced and inappropriate and have supported that conviction with significant and legitimate argumentation.
Wouldn't you agree that it's dismissive to trivialize and brush aside my point of view by calling it "long-winded"? I've explained with abundant clarity why your side of this dispute is problematic. Have I been concise? Certainly not, but I have been explicit. This is a complex issue to communicate to the rest of you. I take no joy in being the only one to argue in favor of the revision, but I have to stand by my judgments.
It's not my intent talk over you with my extensive onesided comments. I have no wish to draw this dispute out ad nauseam. I simply think we should be taking this issue more seriously. You don't seem to be doing that when you ignore the concerns of other editors and evade your responsibility to engage in the process of forming a fair and reasonable consensus. With that said, if you feel strongly about opposing me you're welcome to express your position on the dispute resolution noticeboard.
- Aliensyntax (talk) 23:25, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
You write the same opinions repeatedly, several paragraphs each time. I'm afraid I concur with Jtbobwaysf on this. (And if we agree on something, that's remarkable enough it might be worth consideration ;-) ) More at the DR - David Gerard (talk) 23:38, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I have made a few changes:

1. I moved the content up into history, and deleted this section called controversy. I don't think there is any controversy on this subject, besides the controversies between editors.

2. I have moved the excess content out of the intro section into the same history section, and left a small statement that acknowledges The DAO and Classic (both important and required in my opinion in the intro).

3. I deleted the outrageous sentence that has 12 citations. Aliensyntax then reverted my edit. Rather than reverting your revert, please fix the sentence, or it will again be deleted as a violation of WP:OVERKILL. I also question if classic is really controversial, and if it is controversial the discussion of it being controversial probably belongs on the Ethereum Classic page. This page is about Ethereum, not classic, and the purpose of this page is to discuss Ethereum, not disparage Classic. Here is the sentence that needs to be fixed.

The project has been considered controversial in a number of respects[23][24][25][26][27][28] and is generally not supported[20][29][30][31] by the official post-fork blockchain[19][21] and its network of developers, business partners, miners, and users.

Feel free to comment. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Jtbobwaysf - I accept your moving the DAO fork into history. Unfortunately, this lengthy section was starting to overcrowd the primary subject. My rearrangement of the section order is a response to this lack of logical precedence.
I also accept your gutting of my lead edit. As I've said before, the issue is complex and cannot be easily summarized. The attempt to do so is likely to mislead the reader per WP:NPV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:FALSEBALANCE, and so on. I've provided the relevant context and RSes for the disproportionate nature of the hard fork in the main article. This isn't a prejudice on my part, but a factual and relevant description of the consensus mechanics of the network. It can't be omitted from the lead without obscuring the fact that there's a profound difference in notability between the two networks. That said, I'm satisfied with my current edit to protect the NPV. I suggest we stop warring over this.
I further acknowledge your concern about WP:OVERKILL. This is the result of trying to collapse an extensive controversy into a single brief sentence. As such, I've rewritten the DAO section to elucidate the nature of the references in more accessible terms.
To respond to your question about whether Ethereum Classic is actually controversial. I obviously submit that it is. My conviction, to be perfectly honest, is based on direct and largely unsourceable knowledge of this controversy. I know all too well this can't serve as a sufficient ground for my claim that it is in fact highly controversial. Fortunately, there's enough coverage on this in RSes to support a lighter version of this claim. My only interest is to provide an objective account of the situation. I'm restricting myself to the role of documenting the most reliable and relevant facts. I'll be sure to add stronger sourcing as these enter the literature.
What I'm calling the "controversy" is highly relevant to the Ethereum Classic article. It's also directly relevant to Ethereum. These two communities are intertwined in a complex technical, economic, and psychological conflict. Their relative connection to each other should be explicit. The fact that they aren't supported by the Ethereum Foundation, for instance, is an important point. Many readers aren't aware of the basic differences that exist between the development, business, software, and social infrastructures of these two networks. I believe, for the sake of the reader, they should be informed about the nature of this relationship. I've updated the article to support this consideration.
- Aliensyntax (talk) 00:55, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
First, unless you can support some sort of controversy relating to Ethereum (this is the Ethereum article, not the Classic article) leave it out. Or a passing mention in one sentence since you think it is really important, but it can't have a dozen citations, otherwise it is WP:OVERKILL.
Second, it looks strange to me to see the history at the end of the article, dunno when this happened. I will move it up to the top, as that is the standard used by bitcoin, Microsoft, and Oracle Corporation.
Third, I have deleted for a second time your text that you stated Ethereum is the "majority chain" and Classic is the "minority chain," your citations do not support that claim. It is starting to appear the purpose of your edits is to slander Classic. Wikipedia is not the place for that, we just add content that has WP:RS, that's it...
Happy editing...Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
To reiterate my statement on the dispute resolution noticeboard:
Jtbobwaysf - This is a technology and engineering article. It's about a platform, not a company or corporation. You're simply conflating "Ethereum" with the "Ethereum Foundation". If you take a look at the Bitcoin article, the most legitimate comparison for the current article, you'll notice that "design" is the the top-level section relative to "etymology and orthography". Stop fishing for reasons to prolong this conflict. The architecture and ecosystem of Ethereum dwarf the notability of "history." You have no logical basis or precedence to assume it should be otherwise.
On to your second point, the citations I've added refer to the hard fork chain. There was overwhelming consensus for the hard fork by the miners, coinholders, investors and users, as demonstrated in a wide variety of empirical metrics. I've added several citations establishing that fact and can provide more if necessary. You've exhibited a rather clear failure to understand the consensus mechanics and social nature of the two networks. You've also exhibited an unwillingness to accept the reliable sources I've offered on this issue, choosing instead to ignore and delete the relevant context. Your stance on this matter is demonstrably biased and is typical of my reason for seeking to establish consensus on the talk page and dispute resolution notice board.
I strongly oppose your most recent contentious edits and have reversed them. Your editing at this point, after all that's been said, is simply unreasonable. I'd like to open this dispute up to a request for comments, as suggested by the moderator. I advise that the page be protected until a neutral third-party can assess the situation.
Aliensyntax (talk) 18:42, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Your recent edits have been every bit as, if not more, contentious, and you have followed it with contentiousness on the talk pages and in your interactions with other editors. Please stop, keep to the subject - David Gerard (talk) 19:29, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
David Gerard I think you mean "conscientiousness". Your opinion is noted.
Some basic references on the hard fork for those interested in this discussion:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
- Aliensyntax (talk) 19:46, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Aliensyntax, please provide WP:RS that support your claim that Classic is the minority and regular Ethereum is the majority. I have looked at all 4 sources you have listed in the content you reverted, and none of them support that claim. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:14, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
In relation to Ethereum, the current citations establish 3 facts:
1. The miners voted "overwhelmingly" for the hard fork. It would be on this basis that the network split. The hard fork required a minimum of 51% of the hashing resources to establish the protocol update. A "conservative" estimate of the aggregate vote of the mining pools is that 85% of the miners supported the hard fork.
2. The Foundation has declared a commitment to support the community consensus; to "focus [its] resources and attention on the chain which is now called ETH (ie. the fork chain)". This support of the community consensus extends beyond the miners alone to include the developers, stakeholders, and business partners in the Ethereum ecosystem. This is explained further in the DAO hard fork references and clearly establishes the official nature of the post-fork Ethereum.
3. The result of the hard fork had little negative impact on sentiment. Most industry entrepreneurs and enterprise executives believed the Ethereum developers displayed better governance practices. It shows they continued their interest in the "post-fork" version of the network despite the split with Ethereum Classic. This further establishes the mainstream understanding and legitimacy of the Ethereum project and supports the fact that there's a very notable inequality between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
These references provide the minimal reliable sourcing required to establish the incommensurate nature of the consensus at the time of the fork in addition to the dominant public perception of authority and legitimacy after the fork. Clearly, the very implication of these facts is that Ethereum Classic failed to secure the consensus, technical leadership, and public interest of the community. The market inequality between the price of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic merely reinforces these facts.
This doesn't necessarily have to imply that one is inherently superior or inferior to the other. However, it's clear the pre-fork Ethereum is still a "minority" in all these relevant senses with respect to Ethereum itself. The continued insistence and insinuation that these two networks are equivalent or identical is what breaks the WP:NPV. By analogy, this is nearly equivalent to saying that the heliocentric and geocentric models of the universe carry the same validity; or saying an elected official is on the same footing as their non-elected opponent. It doesn't make any sense. It appears very biased when the situation is painted this way.
To further allay your concerns, I've added one further reference regarding the informal and influential vote that took place on Carbonvote. This is forcing my hand on the WP:OVERKILL issue. You be the judge if this should be included.
I'd also appreciate an idea of where the other editors stand on all this before I make a request for comment. Are we still in contention? Do you all still think I'm crazy or are we ready to move on?
- Aliensyntax (talk) 00:20, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
You have added the following text to the article: "The DAO incident created a schism between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic that has, according to some observers, spawned a bitter economic and psychological rivalry between the two networks." As far as I can tell is your edits are bringing this rivalry to wikipedia, where it has no place (assuming arguendo that this rivalry even exists). If this page is going to become a political rivalry page, then we need to implement a much stricter WP:RS on this Classic section. David was advocating this earlier to for the entire page, and I was opposed to it, but maybe he had more foresight than me of where this would lead to... BTW, the admin over at the dispute resolution board already asked us to stop editing, so I am going to leave it for now (as comical as the page now looks)... Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:23, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I find it entirely reasonable that ETC is the minority fork in any reasonable sense of the term - lower trading volume would be the obvious indicator of interest - but finding an RS to note it is another matter. ("Market cap" is a meaningless number that I dislike strongly, though again even the FT has mentioned "market cap" of cryptos as if it means something.) The mining power did vote for the DAO hard fork, pretty sure that's already in sources.
and yeah - nobody who's ever been quoted in the press could give anything other than a hollow laugh at the Wikipedia jargon term "reliable sources" (I've been flabbergasted in the past at some of the stuff attached to my name) and our epistemology is pretty shallow and easy to break on the edge cases, but it does give mostly usable results on most subjects, or enough for readers not to complain much, and does deal handily with a lot of editor arguments ... - David Gerard (talk) 12:46, 18 May 2017 (UTC)


Why is there a mention of the DAO in the very first part of this article on Ethereum when there is section designated for the DAO at the bottom of the article? The DAO is not "what' Ethereum is which is what the introductory paragraph of an encyclopedia should describe. History should go in a subsection. The following line should be removed and any information that isn't already provided in the DAO section should be added there: "Ethereum in 2016 was forked disproportionately into two blockchains, as a result of the collapse of The DAO project. The minority fork was renamed to Ethereum Classic,[3] while the majority fork has retained the name Ethereum (the subject of this article)." Dopamine soup (talk) 22:36, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

In active discussion, if you read the rest of this page - David Gerard (talk) 08:49, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

David Gerard, You have not included any discussion in response to what I've said. As explained, you are placing a redundant sentence in the introductory paragraph of this article that is a historical note and belongs in the history section titled DAO. The introduction is to describe what Ethereum "is" succinctly. You should not be including this by default while an ongoing discussion is occuring. Historical details do not belong in the introductory paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dopamine soup (talk • contribs) 22:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

David Gerard, you appear to have downvoted my editor rating which is abusive and by placing out of context historical details in the introductory paragraph of the article you appear to be vandalizing the article to emphasize a historical item for an unknown reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dopamine soup (talk • contribs) 23:00, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

David is just helping you as you are disrupting the in-progress RfC process with your edit. Please do not make any further changes to the lede of this article until the RfC immediately below this section has concluded. Thanks! ClareTheSharer (talk) 23:20, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Another Reddit brigade cooking

with personal attack! I've tried to be as helpful as possible, with actual guideline/policy links. But regular editors should keep an eye out both here and on Ethereum Classic and The DAO for overenthusiastic new editors. Previous brigading was covered in Talk:Ethereum/Archive 1 - David Gerard (talk) 09:10, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

It's always unfortunate when this happens as it leads to a lot of unnecessary negativity towards Wikipedia as a whole. The discussion could have been great and might have lead to great contributions if only they had a basic understanding of WP:POLICY and not an isolated interest in this article. Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 14:43, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
Apparently I'm also another user, or perhaps two other users, and totally have a huge COI which they can't quite find in WP:COI at present - David Gerard (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Call for POV on ethereum subreddit

Here htps://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6dkc8w/why_do_we_keep_letting_david_gerard_who_obviously/ there was a called for editing this article in the way to please to ethereum lovers. Xavier Combelle (talk) 00:40, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't approve of this Reddit post. I've argued for my side of this dispute without external support. The last thing I want is to have my legitimate concerns undermined by tenuous suspicions. I believe this dispute should be resolved strictly on the strength of the arguments, evidence, and content guidelines.
With that said I don't think it's justified to treat the thread as a POV conflict to please "ethereum lovers". This is a rather uncharitable and lopsided interpretation. The thread is clearly an attempt to bring more visibility to the lack of neutrality with respect to Ethereum Classic in the present article. If you read through my remarks, you'll see I've carefully supported this position from the beginning. I firmly believe the users of the Ethereum subreddit are merely trying to express the facts of the matter. Their point of view should be carefully taken into account, not uncritically dismissed with suspicion.
It goes without saying that there are potential biases and conflicts of interest on both sides of this dispute. It's very difficult to discern who is truly acting from a neutral point of view. I've certainly focused my attention on the prejudice coming from Ethereum Classic and so it could very well appear like I'm being partisan to Ethereum. That shouldn't suggest the absence of similar prejudices in the Ethereum community. I'm very conscious of these as well. However, I've yet to observe an indisputable instance of this prejudice in the main article. What I've observed, to be perfectly frank, is the rather conspicuous lack of understanding of the contentious nature of this situation and a powerful unwillingness to fairly address the legitimate concerns which have been routinely brought up by myself and others.
While I don't agree with the creation of the thread, I do firmly support its contents. Aliensyntax (talk) 04:55, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
You totally don't support a personal attack thread with a call for brigading, you just support it? ok - David Gerard (talk) 00:21, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
David Gerard - The thread is calling you out for being a disruptive influence with respect to the neutrality of the article. Framing this as a personal attack and call for brigading does not make it so - nor does it invalidate the claim that you do in fact have a long history of disruptive editing.
It is this "claim" that I firmly support. My considered judgment is that your editing is not done in the spirit of a free encyclopedia. There is no "personal attack" here. Such criticisms are not based on ad hominems, prejudice, doxxing, or anything of the sort. They're based on reasoned evidence in relation to your heavy-handed mistreatment of the relevant content. I'm not concerned with you personally as an editor, I'm concerned with the extreme editing practices which have been carried out in your name. Playing the victim card in this case will likely backfire.
To be perfectly clear, I've analyzed your revision history in depth and concluded - based on all the available evidence - that you 1) lack competence in treating the subject-matter of the article, 2) have a very pronounced and non-representative negative bias, and 3) distort the content guidelines for the purpose of carrying out an illegitimate personal crusade against Ethereum. The vast majority of your edits are highly destructive and non-objective in nature. They could very well be interpreted as vandalism. I can support these particular claims at length.
I've tried to be civil with you. I've tried to assume good faith. However, you have tested my patience with your intransigence and obvious personal and ideological agenda. You should know that I've reviewed my options to have you locked-out of the article and am prepared to bring this case to the Arbitration Committee and Administrator's noticeboard if necessary. I would rather not go down that road. I would suggest we cooperate. Aliensyntax (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
I think insinuating threats to another editor like that is probably not prima facie evidence of wanting to work with others. You've been similarly combative on this page at length. Have you considered addressing the issues and not the editor? - David Gerard (talk) 00:36, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
At wikpedia we (all of us as volunteers) address the content, not the other editors. Sure we have differences of opinion, but us finding consensus is part of the process of building something great. Ethereum is just one article on wikipedia, and no more important than another. Wikipedia is not a place for editors to promote why Microsoft stock is better than Oracle, nor why Microsoft's ERP is better than Oracle's ERP. That same thinking also applies for Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Counterparty, etc. Let's focus on building good content and leave the discussions of which token/blockchain is better/faster/bigger/strong/original/etc for reddit... Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Smart contract question

I asked this over at Talk:Smart_contract#Examples_with_running_code_that_people_use.3F as well, but ... as far as I can tell ... Ethereum is actually the first smart contract system that isn't just hypotheticals that people actually use at all. I recall there was XCP/Counterparty on the Bitcoin blockchain, and a few other things on Bitcoin, but they seem to have seen negligible use.

Monax is apparently Ethereum, or uses chunks of Ethereum. (primary source)

What non-hypothetical smart contract systems were there before Ethereum? Is there a list?

To be clear: I don't mean taking past things and saying "well, it's sort of a smart contract system if you squint right" - I mean something that wore the label "smart contract" and was running code used by parties other than its authors - David Gerard (talk) 07:44, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Source, with a lot of detail about the status of Ethereum as of 1Q2017

The DAO hard fork section

I propose to delete content in the DAO hardfork section that doesn't comply with WP:RS, given the prejudicial nature of the content and the resulting failure to comply with WP:IMPARTIAL. I know this will be controversial, given the discussions above, so discussing here first. The content is often identified by with WP:OVERKILL citations (most or all of which don't comply with RS). I also added a little bit of content with major RS if the comparison section needs to stand, to keep NPOV. Maybe the rest of the primary sourced content needs to be deleted, especially where it contradicts more mainstream sources. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: - The number of references could probably be trimmed and I would have no problem with that insofar as the content is accurately and objectively portrayed. The number of references is a simple consequence of the controversial (not "prejudicial") nature of the content. It complies with RSs to the highest degree. All primary sources (a total of 3) are backed by reliable secondary sources (a total of 26). The only bias here is your continual assumption that Ethereum Classic deserves some special non-objective marketing treatment to artificially boost its profile in the Ethereum article.
The section is quite balanced as it stands. It provides a factual pro-versus-con stance to discuss both projects in the context of the DAO hard fork event and it further supports that stance with significant, reliable, and largely secondary sources. If you want to trim out certain references, that's fine with me so long as aren't doing it to deliberately twist, remove, or obfuscate factual claims. At any rate, this seems like a pointless discussion. The section provides an objective critical summary of a notable event and conforms to the relevant content guidelines. The fact it disagrees with your personal values and/or beliefs wouldn't make it false or inappropriate. It goes without saying that I strongly object to your proposal. Again, nothing personal, but you're not demonstrating your common sense or competence when you make these sorts of suggestions.
` Aliensyntax (talk) 01:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
There is no need for the primary sources, if they are backed as you say by a secondary source. Citations must comply with WP:OVERKILL and WP:PRIMARY. Do you want to delete the extra citations, and unsupported content (if it exists), or do you want other editors to do it? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
@Jtbobwaysf: - I don't believe WP:OVERKILL would apply in this case. Most of the sources are unique to the claims they support; they aren't "redundant"; nor are they overly reliant on primary sources. As I said, there are only 3 primary sources in this section. Their relevance to the paragraph has been very well corroborated by secondary sources and serves to further establish the validity of claims made.
My application of the primary sources is minimalistic and perfectly legitimate per WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. You're simply assuming the primary sources are inherently "unreliable" or "unusable". In this situation, to the contrary, the sources provide an authoritative, fact-checked, high-quality, and necessary account of the event. Consider, for instance, the claim that Ethereum Classic is not officially supported by the Ethereum Foundation. The primary source (citation #9) provides a direct statement from the primary source stating why this is the case. On that ground, it's the "best possible source". The secondary sources only corroborate this fact.
I don't think you understand the primary sources policy or the overkill policy. As I see it, you're merely grasping at straws to promote your personal agenda.
You've spoken in generalities and assumed the guidelines are on your side, but you have yet to provide a specific and legitimate content objection. What are the particular references you have a problem with? And what would be your rationale for removing them? Does that rationale respect the content guidelines? That's all I want to know. With that said, you're free to edit out any citation or material you want, just be sure you have a proper justification for doing it. You should realize I've made every effort to prevent biased coverage and ensure all relevant claims are supported. If you doubt that, the burden proof is on you to demonstrate it.
- Aliensyntax (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Add news? Enterprise Ethereum Alliance grows in size

"Corporate support for the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) is growing after 86 firms including State Street, Toyota, Merck, ING, Broadridge and Rabobank joined the collective that is seeking to use blockchain technology to run smart contracts at Fortune 500 companies", cnbc.com/2017/05/23 --Krauss (talk) 21:46, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Remember:
  • ETC forking Ethereum = WORST AND MOST EVIL OCCURRENCE POSSIBLE, delete from article
  • Companies forking Ethereum = CORPORATE ACCEPTANCE, WORLD DOMINATION IMMINENT, include at length
;-) - David Gerard (talk) 08:45, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
Agree with both of you, it is useful content and we will see how the partisan's like this addition given that it doesn't run on public ETH, hence no need for the token. Couldn't find an RS to state it doesn't use the ETH token, maybe one will show up in time. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:37, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Definitely rates at least a mention, particularly having made mainstream press - David Gerard (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
@Aliensyntax:, your recent edits about EEA inputting a large amount of promotional text that you used a citation from a press release wont fly. This violates Wikipedia policies on reliable sources. Please read WP:RS. I appreciate your attempt to expand the enterprise ethereum section, but you have to do it with RS. Second, you replaced some content I had added (fine) but then replaced a citation that was discussed in this talk page section that is more recent (May 2017) with an earlier citation from the NYT (Feb 2017). CNBC on May 23 said there were 86 members of EEA. I also note that you are using 3 citations when only one is needed, and in some cases it appears the claim is not supported by the citation. I can't find in your citations (I didn't bother to look at the press release), support for the claim of 116 members. Be aware of WP:OVERKILL in use of citations and let's keep the PR out of this Ethereum article, it doesn't help wikipedia, or the reader. Please edit your content and remove the content that doesn't comply with wikipedia policies. Thanks Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
@Jtbobwaysf: - Please explain what you believe is "promotional" about the edit. I included a press release from ConsenSys; the primary source in relation to the EEA. The citation provides the relevant context to support the claims of the secondary source, i.e. the Forbes article by Shin. The reference is more or less to confirm the factuality and notability of the preceding statement. What is your objection to it?
I included one further press release from Market Wire for fact-checking purposes at the end of the paragraph. The claim at the end of this paragraph has two accompanying secondary RSs that establish the EEA's interest in pursuing interoperability between the public and private Ethereum implementations. I think this detail is often overlooked and misrepresented, which is why I've sought to reference its factuality with three independent sources. I fail to see why it would constitute WP:OVERKILL / WP:ADVERTISING.
I replaced the content you added as it was worded incorrectly. You said: "Ethereum has a project called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance". Ethereum is not the creator of the EEA. The EEA was established independently by many independent parties. I also object to how you framed the content in order to emphasize an exclusive concern with the private Ethereum implementations on behalf of the EEA. The stated mission of the EEA is to cooperate on Enterprise solutions with the Ethereum community and to investigate points of interoperability with the public network. In relation to your CNBC citation, it was removed as it was redundant and added no new information to the paragraph. I had no particular problem with it. Factually speaking, it was simply weaker than the references I selected. Likewise with the CoinDesk article by Hertig.
There are a total of 5 unique references in the EEA section. We could use less if you truly insist, but I don't see why the current sourcing would be excessive given the notability and potential for disagreement over this content. I must also point out that there are certain claims in the paragraph which are synthetic. For example, the claim about there being 116 members is based on sources 85/86 + 87/88. According to 85 or 86, the EEA was formed with 30 members. According to 87 or 88, the EEA added 86 new members: thus, there are at least 116 members.
If you have a legitimate objection that I cannot adequately respond to, I will, of course, be more than happy to alter my contributions. I have no intention to make factually incorrect statements or to work around the content policies. I'm trying to be fair and reasonable with you and the other editors to the greatest extent possible under the circumstances. I hope you don't take my judgments or editing decisions personally. I'm not here to irritate you. I'm here to contribute what I can to improve the objective quality of the article.
- Aliensyntax (talk) 00:47, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
How would a CNBC article be weaker than a press release? Press releases are WP:PRIMARY, and your math about the number of members is WP:ORIGINAL. None of this is kosher. Delete it. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:34, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
@Jtbobwaysf: - I didn't say it was weaker than the "press release" in particular. I said it was weaker than the "references I selected", which would include the New York Times and Forbes articles. Again, the "primary sources", as you call it, which is only the primary source in relation to the EEA, and not Ethereum itself, are corroborated by reliable secondary sources. Your objection that they should be deleted is invalidated by the fact that they are 1. authoritative and 2. non-exclusive. Please read WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD and reread WP:PRIMARY. As for your accusation of WP:ORIGINAL, are you even serious? Basic arithmetic is not ""original research". You're simply being confrontational and disruptive for no good reason at this point. - Aliensyntax (talk) 16:32, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, your math is in fact original research. We let the reliable sources do the math and we add it after. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
@Jtbobwaysf: - You're splitting hairs about a trivial issue. At any rate, it doesn't matter, the Shin reference does indeed provide an explicit quote for the 116 figure. - Aliensyntax (talk) 01:28, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Missing references to immutability

I am missing a key concept. The idea of Ethereum is to provide an immutable storage. This is mentioned nowhere in the article. Without this attribute, there is no meaning with Ethereum. You could as well use a centralized SQL DB, and it would have been cheaper. The immutability principle is the reason for using a distributed ledger. Without that principle, a distributed ledger is just very costly and ineffective (which is pointed out, without mentioning the benefit). I know the word immutable has political ramifications, but suffice to say that it is not a question of only black or white. It is a question of being immutable enough. The ETC split was to a large extent motivated by immutability principles, which looks strange if Ethereum itself would have no such aspiration. LarsPensjo (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

There are significant inconsistencies in the article presently. Immutability is one of them and I agree it should be discussed. I think this principle should be featured in the Design Rationale of the platform (a section that still doesn't exist). Do you have any thoughts about how this material should be treated? - Aliensyntax (talk) 01:30, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
A Design Rationale would be good! The problem with the immutability aspect is that I couldn't find good sources for it. The same goes for some other of Ethereum's heritage from Bitcoin, e.g. consensus mechanisms. It seems this is less well understood or of less interest "out there". LarsPensjo (talk) 08:33, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
And immutability being broken was why The DAO fork was controversial ... we should have sources to talk about it - David Gerard (talk) 14:15, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree, would think there are sources out there for it. Lot's of discussion and coverage around the DAO event. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:57, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
As the article states Ethereum is blockchain based, it would inherit those design goals. If so, maybe there is no need to explicitly reiterate the same things for Ethereum? The blockchain article doesn't explicitly mention immutability, but it states "By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data". LarsPensjo (talk) 08:06, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
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