Talk:Ethereum

Lede

Because Ethereum provides a new framework for transactions, no previously-used description will work in the lede. I'd be happy for suggestions on improving the lede sentence. Sanpitch (talk) 22:06, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Yep, this is a tough topic to describe. Ripple has been similarly challenging. Mastercoin is clearer, but it's a simpler concept for a system. ––Agyle (talk) 05:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Logo

I'm not sure why the blingy warning about a logo was placed at the bottom of the page. As far as I know, no logo (Ethereum or otherwise) has been used on this page.Sanpitch (talk) 20:35, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I see no justification for the logo warning, so I'm removing it. Sanpitch (talk) 00:55, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

"Web 3.0 publishing platorm"??

I don't really buy the "Web 3.0 publishing platform" thing; it sounds like a marketing guy is trying to make it more cool. Ethereum doesn't need to be made more cool. I also don't think 'generalized' is useful to modify blockchain. Unless I hear otherwise, I'll change the lede to something like "Ethereum is a blockchain-based virtual machine featuring stateful user-created digital contracts and a Turing-complete contract programming language." Sanpitch (talk) 19:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The original article read "Ethereum is a decentralized Web 3.0 publishing platform". I increased the clarity of this statement to "generalized blockchain-based virtual machine" without changing the part about the "Web 3.0 publishing platform". According to Ethereum's official documentation, Ethereum is " the generalised blockchain for smart contract development". What "generalized" indicates in this context is the fact that the Ethereum blockchain is taken to a higher level of formal abstraction than a traditional blockchain design. It's scope of application is therefore wider and more complex. Can you express a reason for why their own self-description shouldn't be useful in the lede?

As for the Web 3.0 label, it's been part of the article -- in the opening statement, background, and references -- since January, 2015. As I said, I never modified that part, although I do agree with it which is why I left it in the article. Tim Berners-Lee and the W3C do not have a monopoly on the expression. As such, it has been appropriated by the project in many discussions within and outside the Ethereum community. In fact, the term has been widely used to refer to the prospect of web decentralization in general. If you want me to dredge out the references I can do that, but I don't see why that should be necessary. It's a useful buzzword to understand the general evolution of the web and the particular ambitions and communications of the Ethereum project. There is definitely some form of marketing aspect mixed into all this, but I don't consider the intent of that marketing to be misleading. --Aliensyntax (talk) 22:52, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no need or requirement that we follow what the Ethereum team says about itself. Also, Ethereum is no more a "publishing platform" than Bitcoin is; it sounds like a marketer at work.

"Web 3.0" is a marketing buzzword; I think it distorts and cheapens Ethereum to describe it as such. Ethereum is fundamental technology, and is better compared to TCP/IP or to http. "Web 3.0" is like a Rorshach (sp?) test; it can mean whatever you want it to mean. Sanpitch (talk) 04:48, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

As this article is specifically about Ethereum, what the Ethereum core devs have expressed is in fact directly relevant. Without any strong reasons to believe otherwise, we should proceed in good faith and not automatically ignore or assume their statements are arbitrary or suspicious.

The phrase "distributed application development platform" would be more precise and perhaps less contentious than "publishing" platform. Although, the lede will get a bit long-winded with adjectives. I'm fine with simply calling it a platform, but this wouldn't be all that informative. What do you suggest?

"Web 3.0" is only partially a marketing buzzword. It's also a fairly common neologism. While the term might have a number of ambiguous connotations, that doesn't obscure its specific denotation: namely, the evolution of those functions of the internet that are predicted as extensions of Web 2.0. In the context of Ethereum and related projects, the specific meaning is based on the notion of web service and platform decentralization (not the more common association with the semantic web). That's a useful and economical description most people will have little trouble relating to. More importantly, the term is as I said earlier widely applied in discussions of Ethereum, both by their developers and those reporting on the project. It should therefore be left in to promote a more direct understanding of the content of the article along with the background literature on the topic.

And yes, Ethereum can be related to a core protocol and it has been referred to as such. However, these points are not mutually exclusive. Feel free to edit in whatever other details you wish. --Aliensyntax (talk) 17:36, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed comments. I also don't want to ignore the Eth devs, Wikipedia in general doesn't like primary sources; secondary sources are preferred.

I removed "generalized" as the further content in the lede sentence talks about smart contracts and the Turing-complete language. I also removed "publishing." Sanpitch (talk) 19:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

this should not redirect etherium

etherium is a strategy game and deserves its own article. it is also completely unrelated to this.84.213.45.196 (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Alternatives

The links in the 'alternatives' section looked to me to belong better in a 'See Also' section, which I've created. Sanpitch (talk) 05:30, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I've removed them entirely, unless and until we can find a clear reference to them being such - David Gerard (talk) 19:29, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Advert, peacock tags

The claim that it's not a cryptocurrency is ridiculous. It has an exchange value, it's traded on crypto exchanges, its publicity has been entirely in the crypto sphere, it looks/swims/quacks like a duck. It's a crypto with a smart contract and virtual machine mechanism bolted on. Basically this article reads like a press release and needs a thorough cleanout, hence tagging - David Gerard (talk) 19:07, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I've gone through and tightened up the writing considerably. I've removed most uncited claims. The next step is to go through the references and (a) make sure everything cited is either WP:RS or, if primary, cited for purposes primary sources are allowable for; (b) verify remaining referenced claims - David Gerard (talk) 19:29, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Given it a reference check, removal of gratuitous primary references and a de-peacocking. Also removed problems flagged in the AFD. So I've removed the tags for now - David Gerard (talk) 20:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Group photo?

I’m surprised to see a developer group photo on a wikipedia page. Is that something you’d want in an encyclopedia? --Nomeata (talk) 09:58, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's not completely irrelevant, I see no reason to remove it - David Gerard (talk) 10:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Press coverage

The "Reception" section was just a list of articles on Ethereum. We're not Ethereum's clippings scrapbook. If any of these are useful reference information they should be worked into the article. Here are the articles that were listed:

• Paul Vigna (28th October 2015). Microsoft to Offer Ethereum Based Services. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
• Finley, Kurt (2014-01-27). "Out in the Open: Teenage Hacker Transforms Web Into One Giant Bitcoin Network". Wired. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
• Gray, Jeff (2014-04-07). "Bitcoin believers: Why digital currency backers are keeping the faith". The Globe and Mail. Phillip Crawley. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
• Cox, Ryan. "Can Ethereum kill Bitcoin with self-executing contracts?". SiliconANGLE. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
• Nathan Schneider (7 April 2014). Code your own utopia: Meet Ethereum, bitcoin's most ambitious successor. Al Jazeera America. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
• Soon, the internet will be impossible to control. Jamie Bartlett. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
• Keiser Report: New Crypto Phenomenon Ethereum. Max Keiser. Retrieved 10 June 2014.

- David Gerard (talk) 19:15, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

If they do supply relevant information it would be a good idea, because without the press clippings scrapbook there's literally one non-primary RS - David Gerard (talk) 00:43, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Before you started actively editing the article, there was a more long-form prose section under 'Reception'. Is there a reason that this version was not good enough for you? If you want a shorter article, look to previous versions rather than just removing whole sections of the article.Sanpitch (talk) 00:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The trouble is that that version was hype too. Wikipedia is not a press coverage scrapbook (WP:LINKFARM) - if those articles are worth including, they need to actually be used as references.

I note also the heading is "reception" - none of it is talking about how Ethereum has been received, it's just a list of press clippings. From e.g. the version before I touched it, there's two statements from non-WP-notable people and one from someone notable enough to have a WP article who also happens to do amateur economics blogging, and that was as an involved participant at an Ethereum meetup rather than as any sort of third-party RS.

So if a "Reception" section is to be of value, it needs to actually be about the reception - David Gerard (talk) 12:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

One important task for an article is to establish notability. The references in the version you cite above give a *better* impression of the notability of Ethereum than the ones that remain. The remaining references are almost all by participants in Ethereum, while many in the old version are third-party sources. It seems like you're interested in cutting the article down, which would be fine if you'd keep worthy material and add new content. Sanpitch (talk) 06:21, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

These refs probably satisfy prima-facie notability, but that's actually a different thing to pulling their weight in the article. I'm not talking about prima-facie notability. I'm saying, if they're to go in then they should be used as actual sourcing, as references for claims, not just a press clippings scrapbook - David Gerard (talk) 08:27, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Imogen Heap

One thing that has got a lot of press coverage is Imogen Heap's recent attempts to sell music using Mycelium on the Ethereum blockchain. Although from the sales site's listing of every sale (if you click through to the right place in the unlinkable mystery-meat navigation - Licensing -> Distributions), total sales of "Tiny Human" appear to be ... $97.45 - David Gerard (talk) 11:23, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Summary for lay audiences

The opening summary is very difficult to understand without exisiting technical knowlegde; "Ethereum is a cryptocurrency platform and Turing-complete programming framework intended to allow a network of peers to administer their own stateful user-created smart contracts in the absence of central authority." Phrases like "Turing-complete" and "stateful user-created smart contracts" should be rephrased and/or better explained 82.11.177.11 (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

That's because advocates keep trying to put the entire aspirational press release into the intro and never mind if it's comprehensible to people who aren't technically knowledgeable on cryptocurrencies. I'll try to make it more comprehensible - David Gerard (talk) 20:19, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Tried to clear out the excess jargon again (I'm a techie myself and this level of detail straight out of the primary sources is totally inappropriate for a Wikipedia-level summary), let's see how we go - David Gerard (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Cryptsy

How much Ether was stuck in Cryptsy? - David Gerard (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Article relies too much on primary sources

This article may need to be rewritten entirely, as it relies too much on primary sources. Instead of using secondary sources to list the different media organizations that have covered the subject, the sources should be used to support (and possibly expand) the article itself. Material available from sources that are self-published, or primary sources, or biased because of a conflict of interest can play a role in writing an article, but it must be possible to source the majority of information to independent, third-party sources. Reliance on independent sources ensures that an article can be written from a balanced, disinterested viewpoint rather than from the subject's own viewpoint. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 11:02, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

As you can see from the history and this talk page, this has been done a few times. Cycle goes: advocate fills article with puffery, outsider cuts it down, repeat. The new stuff should be given a few days for cites, but it will need cites, and they will need to be third-party ones - David Gerard (talk) 14:36, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hacked it back down again. The intro really doesn't need to say "smart contract" then define it twice, and it doesn't need to state twice that it was launched in 2015. I removed the timeline section because the past events are redundant with the intro and the future events violate WP:CRYSTAL.

And really - it's a cryptocurrency. Most of what happens with it is trading on cryptocurrency exchanges. It recently had a pump'n'dump bubble. The most prominent "smart contract" on the Ethereum blockchain is a ponzi scheme. Claims that it's primarily a smart contracts platform and only incidentally a cryptocurrency are aspirational at best - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The timeline I added certainly doesn't make Wikipeia into a crystal ball. I'm happy to remove any mention of dates for the future releases. This is definitely something that people want to know; Is your concern that there wasn't a reference for every noun and verb used?

Nick Szabo presented at the Ethereum DevCon and buys into the idea that Ethereum is at it's heart more than a cryptocurrency. In the future you will likely be able to pay miners with other currencies than Ether, so at a minimum you should acknowledge that it's 'multiple cryptocurrencies'  :-) But poly-crypto-currency is awkward; the rest of the world is happy to call it a smart contract platform. The whole point of the blockchain craze now is that banks and others can do the sort of things that Ethereum allows.

Fiat currencies have been the focus of pump-and-dump schemes, and there is certainly bigger ponzi schemes using the dollar than any on the Ethereum blockchain. I think Dodi 8238 has some valid concerns; rather than just removing the edits, why don't you just tag the article? I'm sure in Wikipedia's massive list of rules there's something like 'if at all possible, keep newly added info'. Sanpitch (talk) 04:06, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Why don't I just tag the article? Because bad article content that should never have been here should just be removed, not tagged, and when a pile of bad and uncited content is added it was noted here on the talk page as badly needing citation and wasn't cited.

If you go to a news site, e.g. news.google.com, and enter "ethereum", the only news coverage above bitcoin blog level in the last several months is about the pump'n'dump on the cryptocurrency and its value as a commodity; there is no evidence in WP:RSes that "the rest of the world" give a hoot about its aspirations to be primarily known as a smart contracts platform. "In the future you will likely be able to pay miners with other currencies than Ether" is pure WP:CRYSTAL and is certainly not sufficient grounds to "acknowledge that it's 'multiple cryptocurrencies'"; I don't see how that reasonably follows from mere aspirations to maybe write code for something in the future. "The whole point of the blockchain craze now is that banks and others can do the sort of things that Ethereum allows" - well no, that's not what "blockchain" deployments seem to be for; in VC terms "blockchain" is a buzzword to attract funding, and the actual products seem to be Merkle-tree ledgers between parties who basically trust each other and don't have to use adversarial proof-of-work or similar. Some seem to be just git repackaged.

"Fiat currencies have problems too" (ignoring the curious cryptocurrency jargon misuse of the term "fiat", which in economics means any intrinsically useless object or record accepted as payment, which certainly covers all cryptos) is irrelevant here. This article is about Ethereum - David Gerard (talk) 08:41, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Sanpitch: Wikipedia has a policy against publishing material that hasn't first been published elsewhere: Wikipedia:No original research. If you can't provide reliable sources for the future events that you added to the Timeline section, then they can't stay in the article. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 12:20, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@David Gerard: Thanks for correcting my edits in which I made it sound like Ethereum was primarily a smart contracts platform.[1] I thought I'd be proactive, read a secondary source (in this case Vigna's WSJ blog post) and edit the lead. In particular, Vigna writes that: "Vitalik Buterin, a 21-year old programmer and writer, launched Ethereum this summer as a platform for what are called smart contracts." Vigna doesn't describe Ethereum as a cryptocurrency, so I thought it was primarily a smart contracts platform. You've obviously followed this subject longer than I have. Perhaps you'd like to add a citation to the lead that explicitly says that Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, because right now, neither of the two sources that have been left to support the first sentence appear to support more than the latter half of it.[2] --Dodi 8238 (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

+1, good edits - David Gerard (talk) 12:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

When cryptocurrency exchanges say that people trade "Ethereum", does that mean that they are actually trading "ethers"? In that case, would it be accurate to say that "Ethereum is a blockchain-based platform that includes a cryptocurrency called ether"? The platform's use for managing smart contracts could then be mentioned later in the lead. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 12:15, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

yeah, I've rephrased it as "Ethereum is a cryptocurrency platform offering smart contract functionality." which I think sums it up concisely - David Gerard (talk) 12:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Should an editor who casually says things like "It recently had a pump'n'dump bubble" (he felt comfortable assessing it so while it was going on (and as of now this editor looks wrong), which is beyond what a real world trader would be comfortable doing about any commodity or asset so cavalierly) and alludes to it (and all cryptocurrencies) as a Ponzi scheme have any place religiously editing this entry? It's the opposite version of someone who would just write "to the Moon" over and over again and equally ruinous to Wikipedia. the language this editor uses in his comments belies his sentiments and ideology. When it comes to ethics, I would think that an editor like that should recuse himself. This portion is of lesser importance to understanding and is so out of context as to be risible but has withstood all his edits: "The documentation notes that computation on the EVM is "very expensive" and that "you will not be able to do anything on the EVM that you cannot do on a smartphone from 1999."[13]" Very selective and very biased "quoting."

Wikipedia should be a place where ideology is left at the door. Augur, something built within the Ethereum platform, has a robust and informative Wikipedia article by contrast. If I didn't know anything about Augur, I could go there and get somewhat informed. Not so for Ethereum. But Ethereum has become relevant enough and talked about enough that people should have a place to come and find information about it, even if certain Wikieditors don't agree with the platform. Right now, anyone coming to this page would leave Wikipedia uninformed. That seems like failure of Wikipedia's mission.

Someone who has never looked inside the Wikisausage before and hopes he is doing it correctly. 205.173.24.4 (talk) 17:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Personal attacks on an editor you disagree with probably constitute doing it wrong - David Gerard (talk) 19:34, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

To the editor(s) who are trying to revert the article to the way it was before I started this discussion: It would be more helpful if you could read a few secondary sources (preferably ones that can be classified as independent, third-party sources) about the subject and expand the article based on those. Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source of information, summarizing the information gleaned from secondary sources. If you are affiliated with the subject (including if you have invested in it financially), please see our conflict of interest guideline. Also, if you are logging out to make problematic edits, please see our policy regarding sock puppetry. I initially thought that the problematic editing was coming from users who were logging out to make edits, but it turns out that the recent influx in IP editing was due to recruitment via Reddit about 22 hours ago.[3] I also just learned that individuals were recruited to edit this article via the same website about 3 days ago.[4] --Dodi 8238 (talk) 12:20, 20 February 2016 (UTC) [edited 15:58, 20 February 2016 (UTC) and 06:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)]

I just reverted an edit by David Gerard which deleted an entire section, per WP:BRD, and because I do not see that a consensus has yet emerged on the matter here on the Talk page. I'm happy to continue the discussion, but the section should not be removed without consensus first. N2e (talk) 15:51, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Lede

Just reverted an edit by David Gerard. The lede was two sentences long; with the change it's now two and much more completely characterizes Ethereum; thanks Encapsulate for expanding on the lede. Sanpitch (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Not impressed with the current article as created by David Gerard. Noticed that a recent editor felt intimidated by an edit [5] by David Gerard. Sanpitch (talk) 08:30, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

I'll modify this to state my main goal; I'd like everyone who makes an edit to the Ethereum page to be made welcome. I believe that David Gerard can do this and still maintain a high-quality article. Sanpitch (talk) 21:55, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

You may wish to consider applying WP:AVOIDYOU, particularly the last sentence - David Gerard (talk) 00:29, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Unanswered Questions

I went here to get some basic answers about Ether(eum). None of my questions were answered. How many coins of ether will there be? Limited or not? Inflation or not? Proof of Work or Proof of Stake? (Article says "other proof of work" and contradicts to information elsewhere). etc. As is, I got no relevant information from the article at all. LinguistManiac (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Proof of work apparently (proof-of-stake to come later), and will be mined indefinitely rather than having a limit on the number of coins (just added a cite for these) - David Gerard (talk) 13:11, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

It the Ethereum blockchain databased based on the original bitcoin protocol?

In another article (which is linked in the first sentence of the Ethereum article), Block chain (database), the lede currently reads:

"A block chain or blockchain is a distributed database, based on the bitcoin protocol, that maintains a continuously growing list of data records hardened against tampering and revision, even by its operators." (emphasis added)

I am trying to get my head around the extent of the differences I'm hearing about in the sort of version 2 blockchain that is being used in Ethereum.

1. Is it new, sort of a new and additional instance (subclass) of the general category (superclass) of thing that we call a blockchain?
2. Or is the Ethereum blockchain, in fact, "based on the bitcoin protocol"? And merely an enhancement of an earlier bitcoin-specific protocol?
3. Final question: even if Ethereum is "based on the bitcoin protocol", would that require that all "blockchains", forever and always be "based on the bitcoin protocol"? This seems a stretch to me, and that blockchains could be imagined, and constructed, that are explicitly not "based on the bitcoin protocol". In other words, protocols that express blockchains might be many and varied, and not all protocols would necessarily be based on the exact same protocol that was used in 2008 to express the original bitcoin blockchain. But then I am not familiar with the details of blockchains and am only trying to ensure we explicate this correctly in Wikipedia, with sources.

Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:18, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I believe Ethereum's codebase is based on the Bitcoin codebase (though I don't have a cite), so it's a fork of that (as most altcoins are). Hypothetically you could do blockchain software that wasn't, but that's not relevant here. The actual blockchain generated from this is separate - David Gerard (talk) 12:10, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course Ethereum depends on Bitcoin for the idea of a blockchain, but that's all. The functionality is quite different from that of Bitcoin, so even if they wanted, the code could not be shared. Ethereum does not just change a parameter in the BTC codebase, but designed brand new trees, and the system is account-based, rather than based on unspent transactions. I am not aware of any Ethereum implementation which uses a Bitcoin codebase. FYI, I guess that reddit is a better place for such discussion, rather than Wikipedia. Sanpitch (talk) 23:09, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks David Gerard and Sanpitch. Input from both of you has been helpful in my understanding.

I've started a discussion on the Talk:Block chain (database) Talk page, and would like to get these alternative perspectives on just how much all blockchains must be based on the bitcoin protocol into that discussion. I wonder if you might be willing to join that discussion. In my view, just getting your perspective from your comments above would be helpful.

My goal is just to get the lede sentence of that article improved, so it describes only verifiably what a block chain database is, even in 2016, where it would seem it may be a bit different (and wider in scope) than it was in 2008-2013. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:52, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Untitled

Can we make this page more simple? Make analogies? Legionof7 (talk) 16:57, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

D. Gerard's abuse of 'policy' and personal crusade against Ethereum and general bias against crypto projects and articles

People have tried to add some items to the Wikipedia page under applications, which there are many of course, and he has removed them citing this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided

So basically because the list of applications contains links to websites or articles, any bullet point that has a link to a web page that he thinks he could possibly come close to construing as being a non-ideal type of link, he simply removes the entire bullet point.

This is obviously a deliberate abuse of that concept, which is intended only to help people improve links, not to remove a list of applications. The wide variety of applications for Ethereum is a key point of information. D. Gerard's edits removing these applications has been abusive and removed important enough information from the article so that the relevance of Ethereum has been obscured by his abuses.

For examples of this, see the history of edits to the Ethereum page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Runvnc (talk • contribs) 02:09, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I can't answer for User:David Gerard, but I can say this: The entries that were added to the list were formatted incorrectly. According to WP:EL, article bodies (including embedded lists) should not contain external links unless they are being used as references (at the end of an entry and inside <ref></ref> tags). I support expanding the "Applications and platforms using Ethereum" section, but I think we should use independent, third-party sources (not self-published or official sources) when doing so. Reasons for this include having as unbiased sources as possible and not giving someone's project attention that it hasn't already received elsewhere (representation should be proportional to prominence). We should also refrain from making personal attacks against other editors. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 09:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

He did not need to remove the whole entry, obviously. He used some issue with the link as an excuse to remove the items entirely instead of changing link formatting. It is obvious if you look at his edits that he was just looking for any excuse to take away from Ethereum or the article. Its not a personal attack, it was abusive to delete the entire bullet point, in the context of his constant attempts to discredit Ethereum and other crypto projects. His personal crusade and specific abuses are inescapable aspects of the edit history for this page. That is not a personal attack. It is important to document these biases and abuses because they are causing editors and users to waste a lot of time and misleading the public and without this documentation people don't understand the context of the edits. Runvnc (talk) 11:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I doubt that David Gerard removed the entries in bad faith, even though it did appear heavy-handed. These kinds of lists are notorious for attracting spam on Wikipedia. That is why some editors think that certain kinds of lists should only contain entries that are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles. This inclusion criteria usually ensures that every entry has already received significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. A less strict inclusion criteria would be that entries can be added as long as there are independent, reliable sources to support their inclusion. I have no particular objection to applying the latter criteria here. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 15:49, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Yeah he's causing a lot of damage. Legionof7 (talk) 04:31, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

We need to protect against people like D.Gerard who are biased and try to attack this page. Legionof7 (talk) 04:36, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

If you have a legitimate case against another editor, I suggest that you follow Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. This talk page, for example, is not the appropriate forum for discussion of another user's conduct or history. The appropriate forum would be the other editor's talk page, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, or a more specialized noticeboard. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 10:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I remain perpetually amazed by advocates for something who seem to sincerely believe that only other advocates should be allowed to edit the Wikipedia article, and whose first reaction to edits they don't like is a brigading and smear campaign - David Gerard (talk) 18:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

The named personal attacks on me are a project of various people on Reddit /r/ethereum who appear to be holding a position in Ethereum who have decided my Wikipedia editing will affect their financial interests adversely. I have tried to be helpful, but there's a saying about horses and water. (Also a weird threat by Reddit PM.) I welcome more eyes on this article from experienced Wikipedians - David Gerard (talk) 11:54, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not making a personal attack. I do not hold any position with Ethereum or own any Ether. I simply occasionally visit the subreddit because I know Ethereum is a very important set of advancements in distributed computing. If anyone is interested in the reality of what's going on between your person and this article and related topics, there is plenty of evidence of an ongoing long term dismissal, dislike, and campaigns against articles on Ethereum and other projects like bitcoin that you hate. After seeing that evidence I decided to go ahead and 'fall on the sword' and call you out publicly as abusing your influence on Wikipedia, even though I knew that would put me in a difficult position socially. This is a campaign that you made personal long ago. Ethereum encompasses a great deal of extremely valuable and practical cutting-edge research in fields like distributed computing, distributed autonomous organizations, and IoT, and your personal crusade to diminish the amount and value of information available about it is a personal attack on human advancement. I'm trying to shed a light on these tragic errors you are making. Unfortunately I cannot remove your person from this crusade and make the topic seem less personal. Runvnc (talk) 15:38, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

If you start a paragraph "I am not making a personal attack", it makes your case better if you don't then follow it with an extended personal attack. If you had relevant evidence you would have brought it - David Gerard (talk) 20:50, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Smartphone from 1999

The article cites the statement "you will not be able to do anything on the EVM that you cannot do on a smartphone from 1999", and from that draws the conclusion "It may be suitable for implementing e.g. security protocol logic". However, I believe the citation refers to computational power, not functionality. E.g. applications like Augur (now available as a beta release) and Digix proves that more complex functionality is possible. This should be properly reflected in the article. - LarsPensjo (talk) 09:45, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

This was put in after spurious claims in the press that Ethereum would be good for selling actual computing resources on the EVM, in the manner of cloud computing. People out there do seem to think it's good for that, when it totally isn't - David Gerard (talk) 11:55, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Source please? David Gerard. Legionof7 (talk) 21:57, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Conflicts of interest

Please note that if you have a financial interest in ETH, 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. I know there are several people who have edited in the past 24 hours who have not so disclosed and really should get around to doing so - David Gerard (talk) 12:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I am one of those new editors but have nothing to disclose. I saw the discussion about the state of the ethereum wikipedia page on reddit and decided that I wanted to try to improve it some for fun. --Bamos01 (talk) 16:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

ISO 4217 code - ETH

It says the ISO 4217 code for ether is ETH, but since the ISO 4217 code for Ethiopia is ETB ETH cant be neither a legal ISO 4217 nor an unoffical ISO 4217 code.84.46.92.130 (talk) 14:48, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I've listed it as a "symbol" (the Bitcoin article does similarly) - David Gerard (talk) 18:09, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

History

The current history section is very scant and uninformative. I would like to expand it some to describe the state of blockchain consensus protocols prior to Ethereum and provide a brief description of the way that Ethereum innovated on the existing blockchains. --Bamos01 (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I concur that the current section is weak. As an editor who has written a lot of "History" sections for various articles, so that the encyclopedic story on a project or entity does not get lost by the relentless drive of technology news and presentism, I think the project you are setting out on is a good one. But do be sure to fully source (with full citations) all the statements you make in the History section you intend to flesh out. Cheers. N2e (talk) 21:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks- I took an initial shot at it to make it a little more informative. will try to keep working on it. ::--Bamos01 (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Here is a reliable secondary source (as Wikipedia sees such things) on Ethereum from April of 2014. Will likely prove useful to your history project: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/7/code-your-own-utopiameetethereumbitcoinasmostambitioussuccessor.html.

Second, since you are new to Wikipedia, you might find this makeref tool useful for the citations you add. I use it all the time. https://tools.wmflabs.org/makeref/ I highly recommend adding a refname to all citations (this facilitates reuse of the same citation in the article multiple times); e.g. I would use something like aja20140407 for the refname of the source I provided above, since that will later on and over the years help editors who see the source have an explicit date when the source was current/published. Cheers. N2e (talk) 22:29, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

More sources

• Here is another very good overview of Ethereum in a webTV piece by Reason TV, just published a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6bGuKN3m6E It's actually the best piece I've found to explain Ethereum to people who are unfamiliar with it. Does a good job of explaining how Ethereum is much more than merely a cryptocurrency, which is rather overemphasized (I believe) in the article at present.
• Here is a Wired article that refers to the expanded block chain capability as Block Chain 2.0,http://www.newsbtc.com/blockchain-2-0/ which I've seen used in other places as a descriptor for the second-generation blockchains that can carry both data and executables, but the term is not used in the Wikipedia article at present. Maybe useful there?
• and another that calls it "Block Chain 2.0" http://www.newsbtc.com/blockchain-2-0/ N2e (talk) 05:53, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the info and instructions- I will take a look at these when I have a bit more time :) --71.232.29.137 (talk) 11:04, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Many bad sources being added

Blogs and wiki articles fail WP:RS and probably won't stay in the article. We seriously need verifiable, independent, third-party sources. If there isn't enough coverage in reliable sources of things you want to write about in Ethereum, it is possible they just aren't verifiably noteworthy enough to warrant mention in the article - David Gerard (talk) 21:33, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I think the ethereum blog is a useful documentation of the details of the genesis block, but I will add another ref for completeness. Also- it seems silly to reference Vitalik's white paper, but not provide a link to it. There are many 3rd party references to the white paper, but the wiki link is the best reference if someone wants to read it--Bamos01 (talk) 21:48, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, primary sources may be included as sources in Wikipedia, and they are very useful for particular sorts of technical details that many secondary source media sites would not write about. Articles should, of course, be principally supported by secondary sources, but primary and tertiary sources may also be used. For example, I do a great deal of editing on spaceflight-related articles, and it is often the case that primary sources are used to provide technical specs on rockets and vehicles, but not about company importance, launches, etc. where many secondary sources are used.

I agree however that other wikipedia articles may not be used as sources, as that would fail WP:CIRCULAR. So if there is a problem with particular statements that are unsourced, please kindly challenge those with a {{citation needed}} tag. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:15, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

And now a string of non-notable projects sourced to their home pages. These really need verifiable third-party coverage in reliable sources - that is, evidence that anyone outside their creators cares - or they are likely to be removed - David Gerard (talk) 20:33, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'm not so sure I'd say it the way you did. Certainly statements may be challenged, and as said above, secondary sources are better than primary sources, but a consensus for removal might be hard to gain a consensus on if the main thing in this article that is supported exclusively by primary sources is a mere list of applications that are using Ethereum. If little else is claimed (e.g., something like "Foobar is based on Ethereum and is the no. 1 xyz in the financial industry." etc.), then I think there would be little reason to sustain a challenge. WP:V would do just fine on allowing that list to stay, even with sources from the organizations websites that are developing the sources. Cheers. N2e (talk) 06:09, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I think the third-party sources requirement for a project's inclusion in the "Applications and ventures using Ethereum" section is reasonable because, following the WP:NOTEVERYTHING policy, I don't think that these kinds of sections/lists should be indiscriminate directories of all of the projects that claim to use a certain technology. The third-party sources requirement also makes it easier to combat promotion and spam, because then we wouldn't be giving a project attention that it hasn't already received elsewhere. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 19:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Etherium should NOT redirect here

Etherium is a different topic that should not be redirecting here. Legionof7 (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I started a discussion about this on Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 March 24. It seems that "Etherium" is a common enough misspelling of Ethereum that it warrants a redirect to this page, at least as long as there isn't an article about a subject that is really called "Etherium" or, in the case of the video game by that name, the company that develops it. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 15:27, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Article looks better; suggest removing primary ref warning

The article looks (to me) to be in a relatively good state now after recent changes (yes, I'm sure that it can be improved even further). On a specific note, I think the warning about primary sources can be removed. My count is that only 14/47=30% sources are primary, which sounds reasonable to me. I am also confused as to why the white and yellow papers are not listed as references; shouldn't they be among the first references? Sanpitch (talk) 03:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Not yet, unless we kill the entirely primary-sourced "implementations" section - David Gerard (talk) 09:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

From WP:Primary we read "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." Because the implementations section is not making any analysis or interpretation (see WP:PRIMARY) and other locations are also using primary sources appropriately, we are fine to remove the warning. Sanpitch (talk) 16:58, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Is there third-party evidence anyone cares about the implementations who isn't already heavily into Ethereum? Is there verifiable third-party RS coverage of the list of implementations? - David Gerard (talk) 17:42, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Sanpitch, David Gerard — I have removed the article-level cleanup tag, and added a section-specific cleanup tag. Having done that,

1. I note that the tag, whether in the section, or at the top of the article as formerly, is quite redundant, since every statement also has an inline tag on it for the same reason.
2. Although it is fine to have a cleanup tag of some kind asking for non-primary sources (I often add these same tags myself to various articles where sources might be improved), that alone is unlikely to warrant removal of the statement entirely, as has been defended in a previous section on this Talk page. N2e (talk) 06:18, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I presented the view (above, half a week ago) that it is probably unnecessary to have both a section-level tag asking for secondary sources, and also more than a half-dozen inline tags in that section that flag some primary sources. Does anyone want to present a counterargument? Why the double tagging is needed? If not, I will remove the section-level (redundant) tag in a few days, if someone else has not done so already. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:40, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Frankly the section needs to go, given nobody's been able to give non-primary sources for any of it in a week. There's no reason to list this stuff here for a general audience, given there's no third-party verification for it - the list is completely WP:SYNTH cobbled together from primary sources - David Gerard (talk) 15:08, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Sources

• This NY Times article definitely counts as a reliable secondary source. Ethereum, a Virtual Currency, Enables Transactions That Rival Bitcoin’s, 27 March 2016. N2e (talk) 05:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

•  Done Have used the NYT source now to support a number of statements about this emerging technology application platform. Also, added a section to explicate the adoption challenges that the NYT identified as Ethereum moves forward, to help ensure good balance in the article. There is certainly more in the NYT source that could potentially be used to improve this wiki article, so other editors, have at it. N2e (talk)