Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Primecoin

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. Black Kite (talk) 22:05, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Primecoin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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User:A5b has raised a concern that "the only good source is self-published paper from coin's author", and WP:PROD-ed the article. I believe that this article can potentially be improved, and that a wider community discussion would be of greater benefit. No !vote from me yet, I'm neutral for now. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:23, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 11:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 11:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Delete - electronic currency article of unclear notability, lacking significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. Of the sources in the article, the scholarly papers do not refer at all to Primecoin, and the rest are not RS with the possible exception of the 'Bitcoin Magazine' link - this is significant coverage, and the source may or may not be RS - it could be worth raising at reliable sources noticeboard if this point becomes important to the afd discussion.Dialectric (talk) 20:26, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  There is independent coverage of primecoin here: Technical Basis of Digital Currencies (via Scholar) `a5b (talk) 04:37, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is an unpublished, non-peer-reviewed paper by a student in a Computer Science MA program, and thus does little to establish notability.Dialectric (talk) 02:09, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 06:04, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Surfer43_¿qué_pasa? 06:08, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why? Pburka (talk) 23:15, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Silly debate Primecoin is one of the fastest rising cryptocurrencies, already ninth out of many dozens in market capitalization. One of very few with current practical use beyond speculation. You could argue that the article needs improvement but deletion is silly. FleaSpirit (talk) 13:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)FleaSpirit[reply]

• Keep. I don't disagree that it could benefit from more editing, but deletion doesn't make sense to me. It certainly exists, however it came to exist, and it's being used and discussed and mined in the cryptocurrency community. It has at least one unique feature: the work done to generate the cryptocurrency have some use... at least to number theorists. With the hashing proof of work systems that's all wasted CPU, GPU and ASIC effort. This in itself should merit keeping information about it available. Disclaimer: I have no Primecoin, Bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency holdings. User:Scryer 22:10, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep There are significant differences between Primecoin and the rest of the cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. This article just needs more sources, not deletion. Tom (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, postdlf (talk) 01:02, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak delete. Being the 9th most popular cryptocurrency is no great claim to fame. Apart from Bitcoin, the volume, market cap and notoriety of these currencies is vanishingly small. There's a passing reference to the currency in this NY Times piece (In Bitcoin’s Orbit: Rival Virtual Currencies Vie for Acceptance), half a sentence about it in MoneyWeek (Are cryptocurrencies the new dotcom stocks?), and it's included in a list in Vanity Fair (Google Ventures’ Kevin Rose on Refresh, Telegram, and Tracking Crypto-Currencies). All of the quality sources I can find simply acknowledge its existence; there's no significant coverage. I'd propose merging to an article about it's creator, Sunny King, a pseudonymous developer of multiple cryptocurrencies, but there's even less coverage of him. Pburka (talk) 02:26, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's some reasonable coverage on The Register here. I'm beginning to think this might squeeze by on notability. Pburka (talk) 01:59, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Don't see any reason to delete. The article looks fine. NintendoFan (Talk, Contribs) 02:53, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  But is it WP:notable? Pburka (talk) 03:05, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. "9th most popular" changes rapidly. For example, Forbes listed it as 5th highest in market cap last month [1]. Its likelihood of overtaking Bitcoin shouldn't be required for "notable" in any case: more notable is the fact that it relies on potentially useful work rather than wasted cycles and electricity for its value. In any case, we don't know whether Bitcoin is going to be the Altavista, Myspace or Napster of cryptocurrencies, or whether it will be the WWW. Wikipedia needn't be in the business of trying to pick a winner -- it's descriptive rather than predictive. (User talk:Scryer) 18:57, 13 Dec 2013 (UTC)

  The only thing that would make Primecoin notable is significant coverage in reliable independent sources. Pburka (talk) 22:55, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  (And please don't cast multiple !votes). Pburka (talk) 23:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Doesn't have enough non-trivial independent reliable sources to meet the verification policy. It may merit mentions in larger articles like Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.-Citing (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Besides being the 9th biggest crypto-currency in market-cap, Primecoin also serves to research long Cunningham chains. As you can see on this page, the largest known Cunningham Chain is also the largest known prime number, although it was discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). If GIMPS deserves an article on Wikipedia, then why not Primecoin? After all, Primecoin has already found the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th largest Cunningham Chains even though it is a very new project, with a relatively low network computing power (when compared to Bitcoin or Litecoin). Dalilida (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Dalilida, thanks, do you have links proving that it was primecoin to found largest chains? I have other source about primecoin: "A New Digital Currency Concept Solves One Of Bitcoin's Most Obvious Flaws // BusinessInsider, ROB WILE, JUL. 9, 2013."; 9 Alternatives To Bitcoin - business insider, nov 2013. Also mentioned in NYT [2] "Sunny King released a second new currency, Primecoin, that forces miners to find new strings of prime numbers" `a5b (talk) 19:41, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  A5b - The canonical list of Cunningham Chain records: [3]. Scryer (talk) 22:47, 15 December 2013 (UTC) 06:56, 15 Dec 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep As previous poster said - and adding my keep here to answer the question. See the wikipedia article Cunningham_chain#Largest_known_Cunningham_chains - several of the current records were found by Primecoin. I think personally that the major Alt coins get enough media attention in reasonably notable sources, plus the alt coin currency exchanges themselves - lots of data about currency fluctuation etc - I think the main issue is what counts as a notable verifiable source for alt currencies, with over 140 of them surely not all notable enough for wikipedia. But as they don't trade on the normal currency exchanges - and are not tied to any country - what counts as a notable cryptocurrency. But I think the top few by marketcap at least - and ones like Dogecoin that have received considerable media attention in reputable sources - and then for Primecoin - is quite high by marketcap but is notable as "one of a kind" as a cryptocurrency only one doing useful work - and though there may be others in development - I'm thinking of curecoin, this will remain the first such - has established several mathematical records and is first to do useful work of all the cryptocoins. For both reasons this one particularly I think needs to be in wikipedia as well as the other reasons Robert Walker (talk) 04:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep due to significant differences between Primecoin and the other altcoins. However, this article is clearly not in the best of quality either, and should be redone in some areas. [citation needed] 02:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Given your username, you're clearly cognizant of the importance of significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Which sources do you believe demonstrate the notability of this topic? Pburka (talk) 03:19, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  It was created by the author of another notable altcoin, Peercoin. [citation needed] 23:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Please see WP:NOTINHERITED. Pburka (talk) 04:46, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as Pburka and Citing pointed out, we just don't have enough coverage in reliable sources to merit an article yet. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - absolutely notable. --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 16:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, State some information elsewhere. Some of the reasoning behind keeping this has no basis on the pillars of Wikipedia - are there the reputable sources required to confirm that it is, in fact, notable? Judging by the current sources in the article, I don't see it, and Citing and Pburka and others say the same. If someone wants to make some edits to the article with proper sources they've found, then I might reconsider, but until then it doesn't pass Wikipedia's standards. I do think Primecoin warrants a mention in other related articles, but until it receives the coverage necessary (and I don't think a paragraph in a list of competitors, such as the article posited by A5b gives enough detail to make it notable), then I'll stick with my !vote to delete. GRUcrule (talk) 16:18, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT - Strong support for proposal to merge/redirect into Cryptocurrency, per Stuartyeates GRUcrule (talk) 19:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - not notable; no reliable sources. I hate to not assume good faith, but all of these cryptocurrency articles with no reliable sources and bunches of editors arguing against deletion because "it is notable/it has a high market cap/it's new and different" makes me wonder whether people are promoting them in order to raise adoption rates (and hence, value) of these cryptocurrencies. atomicthumbs‽ (talk) 11:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Having said my piece I was going to stop commenting, but since you're imputing a pecuniary motive to me (among others), here it is again: I have no holdings in Bitcoin, Primecoin or any other cryptocurrency, as I stated above. I'm interested in the technology. Let's keep it to the discussion at hand and not get sidetracked on what you conjecture to be the editors' motives. Scryer (talk) 19:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not trying to impugn you, or anyone in particular; I'm just pointing out that one usually doesn't see this many people arguing against an article's deletion because "it's notable" (or similar) without actually finding any reliable sources to back up their assertion. atomicthumbs‽ (talk) 02:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your claim that Primecoin isn't notable doesn't agree with Wikipedia's guidelines. The Data Center Knowledge article meets the criteria listed in the general notability guideline. If anyone has ulterior motives here, it's probably you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.58.148.99 (talk) 05:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and redirect to one-two sentences in Cryptocurrency#History_of_cryptocurrencies. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep for now just my 2 cents - I prefer that we keep this page (and some of the other alt coin pages) for now. I realize that WP:NOTNEWS applies, but I think Primecoin (and other prominent alt coins) will become more notable as time goes on. Danski14^(talk) 07:03, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep at least for now, as there seems to be more reliable sources now cited on the page than there were at the time of this AfD nomination. Epicgenius (talk) 17:04, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep It's notable enough to be given a chance and it appears like a good faith effort is being put in to make it a well sourced and well written article. That being said, if Primecoin fails to become/stay widely notable then this should be revisited. Cat-fivetc ---- 18:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - There is not a single reliable source provided to support anything in the article. Zero independent coverage. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 10:35, 22 December 2013 (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.