Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Primecoin (3rd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Primecoin[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Primecoin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Delete, small non notable currency which is in essence using the article as an advertising method. This may be worth a brief mention on crypto-currency but ultimately this page would take a complete rewrite to make it neutral and ultimately I do not believe it passes GNG. I was unsure if it should also have to meet WP:CORP as well. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It sounds like you're claiming two reasons for deletion: (1) unambiguous advertising or promotion and (2) non-notable. The first is covered in WP:G11, "Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic". For the second, a page only needs to meet the criteria of one notability guideline, so either WP:GNG or WP:CORP (or even WP:WEB) is adequate. The last AfD for this article was decided only a month ago, so I'd encourage reviewers to look through that for added background. Agyle (talk) 19:00, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I nominated these on right before leaving and I didn't review everything as far as the last discussion I just saw no consensus and went from there. It may be too soon if it was just last month. Yes I was using both GNG and Spam as my reasoning. I mentioned WP:CORP as a specific guideline within GNG, that is not at all clear. When I did review the last discussion the last one was yours and you summed it up a lot better than I did for a rationale lol. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 23:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It feels like just yesterday we had a discussion on this, almost to the point of bludgeoning. Anyway, I don't find the article excessively promotional to the point that it warrants deletion, leaving notability as its biggest concern. I !voted delete last time, but I'll have to take a look again. I think this third nomination is a bit quick in the end, though. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 23:28, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete how on Earth has this barely survived two nominations? It blatantly fails WP:GNG and arguably WP:PROMO. This is not a quick renomination by any means, either. Citation Needed | Talk 11:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Fails notability due to too little significant WP:RS coverage. The lack of coverage has led to over-reliance on the self-published primary source document of Primecoin's creator. Most RS coverage is minor/incidental to the subject (e.g., dealing with the server shortages or malware), and the two RS sources I consider significant coverage are from CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine, which I consider only weakly reliable sources. Half of the "keep" votes on the prior discussion seemed ill-considered, made right after 84.55.98.173 added lots of poorly-detailed cites in this version, from new/infrequent AfD reviewers who overlooked that many were not to RS sources. The other half were well-considered, reasonable differences of opinion. Agyle (talk) 15:49, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not enough third party coverage to warrant its own article. Probably deserves mention in the cryptocurrency article though. Chuy1530 (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Currently ranked as 15th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization Coin Market Cap, covered in The Hackers News, and is listed on crypto-trade. More research needs to be done on this article. Has anyone done a lexis nexus check?
Please note this coin has increased in market cap since the last AfD, which was less than 3 months ago. Three nomination in the last 3 months makes this a rather stacked AfD. More time is absolutely needed. Valoem talk 15:26, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Market capitalization does not establish notability, and I hope this opinion is simply ignored as a result of its argument. The "non-notable" nomination referred to the "general notability guidelines" at WP:GNG and other notability guidelines used by Wikipedia, which largely hinge on whether there are multiple independent reliable sources providing significant coverage about a topic. Market cap or consumer popularity are simply irrelevant to notability. I've Googled the topic several different ways. Primecoin was unveiled in Sunny King's paper on 2013-07-07, Bitcoin Magazine wrote its story day after, and CoinDesk two days after that. There have been no significant articles about the topic since that first week (which also included [1] & [2]). A few articles covered a temporary shortage of servers to rent due to Primecoin, and a few articles covered a new piece of malware that tried to steal primecoins, but outside its first week it's usually mentioned in a single sentence (e.g., The New York Times wrote in Sept. 2013 "more recently, Sunny King released a second new currency, Primecoin, that forces miners to find new strings of prime numbers — a potentially valuable task for the mathematical world.")
If I were arguing in favor of keeping the article, my main argument would be that the initial burst of coverage, in particular the Bitcoin Magazine article written the day after Primecoin's release, was significant enough to provide enough information to write a Wikipedia article, and since it was also covered by a few other sources that week, that it meets WP:GNG. That's a subjective call, what to consider "significant coverage by multiple sources", and while I don't think Primecoin meets it, I do respect that there are honest differences of opinions on that. Agyle (talk) 18:00, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Determining reliable sources can be more difficult for obscure topics such as new cryptocurrency, besides The Hackers News and Crypto-Trade, here are some additional sources I found, Coin Desk, Crypto Coin News, Bitcoin Magazine, New Scientist, The Register, and multiple foreign language sources. Just to clarify, my argument for Strong Keep refers to the plethora of sources cited within and article and additional sources which can be found, not market capitalization.
While market capitalization in no way determines notability, it certain does not harm it. Sources listed during the birth of this currency still exist and the currency has only become more notable not less. I have posted several reliable third party sources which address the WP:GNG issues in questions. Valoem talk 19:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't consider sources where Primecoin comprises a sentence or less of an article to be significant coverage, nor do I consider crypto-trade.com even arguably reliable. Agyle (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge. Sources found:
  1. Coin Desk: New currency Primecoin searches for prime numbers as proof of work
  2. Coin Desk: Discount code and Primecoin mining enthusiasm cause cloud server overload
  3. Bitcoin: Primecoin: The Cryptocurrency Whose Mining is Actually Useful
  4. Bitcoin: Primecoin Has Exchange, Casino, Already Breaking World Records
  5. The Hacker News: Cyber criminals targeting another cryptocurrency 'Primecoin' with malicious miners
The first four articles I consider reliable sources and the fifth is possibly reliable. Four articles is enough for me to declare the topic marginally notable: between these and the primary sources, one can write a short verifiable article. Multiple reliable sources also satisfies the WP:GNG guideline. But I agree with Agyle that reasonable people can disagree on notability. What I don't understand is the call for deletion. Per WP:PRESERVE, a WP policy, verifiable material should be merged rather than deleted. Folks calling for deletion need to explain why we should be deleting verifiable material, rather than merging it. Possible merge targets would be, e.g., Cryptocurrency or Cunningham chain. --Mark viking (talk) 22:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • People call for the deletion of stuff like this because there are so many of these coins trying to carve a niche that it's incredibly hard to find any sources that aren't basically just hype or sub-hype from a bunch of altcoin blogs. Take my own article Dogecoin as an example of something that is the rare exception. It's not just documented in primarily altcoin-focused articles, but in mainstream and established news sources that place an emphasis on quality of work and professionalism, such as Wired or CNN. Primecoin has Ars Technica, which is undeniably a good source, and potentially The Register. What else does it have other than a bunch of CoinDesk sources? Citation Needed | Talk 22:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't suggest merging because the I don't think the information of this article would fit well in other articles. The topic might, and if someone thinks a bit of info on Primecoin would be useful in the other articles, they could add it now, but either now or as a result of a deletion I'd suggest they start from scratch rather than trying to preserve something from this article. Agyle (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
coindesk may be marginal in reliability. I'm uncertain if it is the only (or two) news source(s) about cryptocoins that emerged as reliable. Bitcoinmagazine's website is down right now. - Sidelight12 Talk 01:57, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
These are from the week Primecoin was introduced, in July 2013, as with the other sources of non-incidental coverage. WP:NOTTEMPORARY
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 15:20, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The coin is both innovative - using the Cunningham chain and has a reasonable mount of currency in existence ~ equivalent of $4M dollars. A simple search brings up many different source discussing Primecoin and comparing its features to that of Bitcoin. Jonpatterns (talk) 13:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How innovative it is and its monetary value are irrelevant to the question of notability for Wikipedia's purposes. The number of different sources that discuss it is also not particularly relevant. Guidelines require reliable sources that provide significant coverage about a topic. You may feel that those criteria are met too, but they're different than the reasons you cited above, which I think should should not be considered. Agyle (talk) 14:49, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Coverage by mainstream media is unlikely for a cryptocurrency. Personally I think a notability standard specific for cryptocurrencies should be written. If a lot of currency is in circulation it is having an impact on people lives. Jonpatterns (talk) 15:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's a common complaint in these discussions, particularly from people infuriated that Dogecoin has an article (such mad!). Mainstream media do cover cryptocurrencies, as a quick googling of four specific sources shows. Minor coverage (a paragraph or more, but less than significant) is linked in a small font.
The New York Times The Wall Street Journal Forbes The Guardian
Auroracoin [3] [4] [5] [6]
Bitcoin [7] [8] [9] [10]
Coinye [11] [12] [13]
Dogecoin [14] [15] [16] [17]
Litecoin [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
Mastercoin [23] [24] [25]
Namecoin [26]
Peercoin [27] [28] [29]
Primecoin [30] [31]
Ripple [32] [33] [34]
Agyle (talk) 17:17, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nice table, thanks. --Mark viking (talk) 17:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
People were mad about Dogecoin mainly because people got away with having pizzas and other crap sent to the nominator's house while still having nearly virtual complete support for it's inclusion from both legit and non-legit sides. This coin is a completely different scenario that relies on using mostly non-reliable sources to justify inclusion, and this is hardly the last discussion we'll likely have about it. Citation Needed | Talk 02:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, seeing discussion among multiple different sources. — Cirt (talk) 06:16, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - there might be one or two good sources, but the majority are blogs. Guttersville (talk) 17:35, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

— Guttersville (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:49, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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