They want to delete the Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia’s deletion policy. Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article’s entry on the Articles for deletion page.

This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources.

The recent Slashdot article should be considered as a reliable reference: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/Bitcoin-Releases-Version-03

I cannot edit at this moment, can you guys save the WP artcile?

I don’t really get it, if there was a group of 11,000 UFO researchers who called themselves UFORO and spent hours every night searching would they get no article unless someone who did not want to join took them seriously enough to write peer reviewed papers?

I think BitCoin has great potential, blah blah, but that doesn’t matter. Thousands of people are doing something that’s at least moderately interesting. I can’t see what the harm of putting a neutrally worded article in the worlds largest encyclopedia is. It isn’t like the thing is going to get to heavy to sit on a shelf.

The idea behind bitcoin has been around in research white papers for years. I imagine we should be able to list such research papers as a source. Bitcoins is the first time this theoretical idea which has been around for quite a while, has actually been implemented. I don’t have sources available at the moment, but if I get some time, I’ll try to look around. If anybody can find these historical research papers and discussions from before Bitcoin was started, please post links to them.

I don’t really get it, if there was a group of 11,000 UFO researchers who called themselves UFORO and spent hours every night searching would they get no article unless someone who did not want to join took them seriously enough to write peer reviewed papers?

I think BitCoin has great potential, blah blah, but that doesn’t matter. Thousands of people are doing something that’s at least moderately interesting. I can’t see what the harm of putting a neutrally worded article in the worlds largest encyclopedia is. It isn’t like the thing is going to get to heavy to sit on a shelf.

The thing is, if they allow an exception to the policy once, then people will ask for exceptions all the time. The rule is really quite simple: “significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject”. Independent means the papers on bitcoin are out, as is the forum - after all, anything can have lots of non-independent sources. And a single slashdot article is clearly not ‘significant coverage’ (or reliable coverage 😉.

The idea behind bitcoin has been around in research white papers for years. I imagine we should be able to list such research papers as a source. Bitcoins is the first time this theoretical idea which has been around for quite a while, has actually been implemented. I don’t have sources available at the moment, but if I get some time, I’ll try to look around. If anybody can find these historical research papers and discussions from before Bitcoin was started, please post links to them.

You can reference them, but they don’t count for notability, as they either don’t discuss bitcoin itself (and instead discuss the general concept), or they are not independent (ie, they’re written by Satoshi).

Clearly the wiki community knows how to run an open encyclopedia, and clearly I’m biased. I still feel the need to say though that the “human race” has not been independent verified. It’s only those damn humans ever talk about it.

Would Wikipedia have ignored the airplane until it was independently verified an explained by “professionals” who weren’t smart enough to invent it in the first place?

Bitcoin is an implementation of Wei Dai’s b-money proposal http://weidai.com/bmoney.txt on Cypherpunks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunks in 1998 and Nick Szabo’s Bitgold proposal http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/12/bit-gold.html

The timing is strange, just as we are getting a rapid increase in 3rd party coverage after getting slashdotted.  I hope there’s not a big hurry to wrap the discussion and decide.  How long does Wikipedia typically leave a question like that open for comment?

It would help to condense the article and make it less promotional sounding as soon as possible.  Just letting people know what it is, where it fits into the electronic money space, not trying to convince them that it’s good.  They probably want something that just generally identifies what it is, not tries to explain all about how it works.

If you post in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bitcoin please don’t say “yeah, but bitcoin is really important and special so the rules shouldn’t apply” or argue that the rule is dumb or unfair.  That only makes it worse.  Try to address how the rule is satisfied.

Search “bitcoin” on google and see if you can find more big references in addition to the infoworld and slashdot ones.  There may be very recent stuff being written by reporters who heard about it from the slashdot article.

I hope it doesn’t get deleted.  If it does, it’ll be hard to overcome the presumption.  Institutional momentum is to stick with the last decision.  (edit: or at least I assume so, that’s how the world usually works, but maybe Wiki is different)

Bitcoin is an implementation of Wei Dai’s b-money proposal http://weidai.com/bmoney.txt on Cypherpunks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunks in 1998 and Nick Szabo’s Bitgold proposal http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/12/bit-gold.html

The timing is strange, just as we are getting a rapid increase in 3rd party coverage after getting slashdotted. I hope there’s not a big hurry to wrap the discussion and decide. How long does Wikipedia typically leave a question like that open for comment?

It would help to condense the article and make it less promotional sounding as soon as possible. Just letting people know what it is, where it fits into the electronic money space, not trying to convince them that it’s good. They probably want something that just generally identifies what it is, not tries to explain all about how it works.

If you post in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bitcoin please don’t say “yeah, but bitcoin is really important and special so the rules shouldn’t apply” or argue that the rule is dumb or unfair. That only makes it worse. Try to address how the rule is satisfied.

Search “bitcoin” on google and see if you can find more big references in addition to the infoworld and slashdot ones. There may be very recent stuff being written by reporters who heard about it from the slashdot article.

I hope it doesn’t get deleted. If it does, it’ll be hard to overcome the presumption. The institutional momentum is to stick with the last decision.

The last comment (—American Antics (talk) 10:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)) mentions that the theory has been around for years and that Bitcoin is the first implementation, but it doesn’t provide sources. You or somebody should add those two sources to the discussion to back up the claim.

Concerning the timing, one of the comments in the discussion makes it sound like it’s a regular occurrence. Article gets written and nobody notices it, even to delete it. Then it starts to get some publicity and the editors notice it just enough to say it’s not notable enough. And then they delete it until it really becomes notable.

The comment I mentioned just a moment ago points out that according to Wikipedia’s guidelines, something being special is reason to ignore the rules. But the comment has already been made, so I agree that additional comments of ‘Bitcoin is the best thing ever’ are probably more detrimental than useful.

It seems that some people have been listing some occurrences in the news within the article itself. It might be useful for someone who articulate and charismatic to write to some news organizations and review sites to give them the idea of writing news articles about Bitcoin or just reviewing it. Writing a short opinion article to your local newspaper might also result in a news story. Come to think of it, I know two people who work in Journalism. I think I’ll mention it to them and ask them to tell me if they publish a story about it.

Edit: Added additional text.

How long does Wikipedia typically leave a question like that open for comment?

— satoshi

7 days from the listing (so pretty soon). More if the closing administrator doesn’t feel that a consensus has been reached.

I doubt the article will survive the AfD, but it will be easy to recreate once it appears in a real news source.

Would Wikipedia have ignored the airplane until it was independently verified an explained by “professionals” who weren’t smart enough to invent it in the first place?

Will Wikipedia ignore my claims of inventing a teleporter?

The reasons for Wikipedia’s notability and sourcing standards are various and good, learned from long experience. Anything that is just the say-so of the person contributing will get deleted. Anything that resembles advertising or other self-promotion will get deleted. And rightly so.