Talk:Blockchain/Archive 2

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Edits of this date

OUTSTANDING, OUTSTANDING ARTICLE, MATES, BRAVO/BRAVA. About the best tech article, in terms of WP:VER I have seen. I am beside myself with admiration. As for edits performed, they were almost all in service of removing the article tag, which calls for copyediting to present a unified citation style. One is beginning to appear as a result; my desire is not for this style, per se, necessarily (e.g., dates were of multiple styles, so I just chose one). Just that the biblio look encyclopedic, and not like a hodgepodge. Note, in the editing, some other substantive changes were made, if I found a source did not say what its appearing after a sentence implied, or if I confirmed an issue of an earlier editor.

But bottom line, this is a magnificent representation of what WIkipedia can accomplish. Making the styles consistent is immaterial to the content being accurate (since drawn from reputable sources), verifiable, and understandable. Cheers, all, and again congrats. Le Prof 50.129.227.141 (talk) 21:23, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I did a bit of research and found that the earliest contributions of dates were in dmy format. So per WP:DATERET, a part of WP:MOSDATE, that format should be retained. Fortunately, most of the recent citations added use that format, or the ISO format of yyyy-mm-dd, which some bot will come along and happily make all the dates consistent in due time. I've also added a dateformat template to the top of the article prose. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:45, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

OUTSTANDING? I disagree if you mean anything related to the actual content. I came by to add a sidechain only to find an anonymous IP address removed every single sidechain except for Blockstream. The proper course of action is to request citations, not delete an entire sections content except for the one company. On that note there is entirely too many commercial efforts listed in this article, as a reminder of the many conversations there have been here on this talk page on the topic, there are very few proven and widely accepted implementations (such as bitcoin) and none of them are commercial to date, the only exception is possibly Ripple but they do not call their technology blockchain according to their website. Commercial references should be NOTABLE implementations that can be proven as fact, not "possible" things that companies are offering, this is not a place to advertise products and I mention this because it got out of hand before and seems to be creeping back. Microsoft and the Azure BaaS is a good example of a notable reference. "Deloitte and ConsenSys announced plans in 2016 to create a digital bank called Project ConsenSys." should not even be listed in this article. The "might-be's", "currently building", "going to implement", "currently offering", "planning to this or that" type references do not equate to actual fact. This article seems to be headed back to a bunch of "theory" again. It is also unreadable to the average person. For example what does "which hold exclusively data in initial blockchain implementations" suppose to mean? It uses a reference that links to a book page that has no reference to the term and the term itself makes little sense. Please refer to WP:CITEPAGE when using books and add sections, pages, and notable references so that they are verifiable, currently this one is not. This article is a mess. OnePercent

Agreed, the "which hold exclusively data in initial blockchain implementations" makes no sense, and it is actually unsupported by sources. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 12:15, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I removed the "which hold exclusively data in initial blockchain implementations" bit, since it had been tagged for a couple of months now with "failed verification" and no editor had attempted to clear up the matter. I don't know which is correct; just good practice to clean up the stuff after maybe two or three months, and let other editors write new prose when they have better/more sources. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:45, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

N2e, you especially removed the tags marking a YouTube video unreliable as a Wikipedia source for several months, and marking another source as unrelated ("failed verification") to the actual claim. Both of these tags are still valid, and the claims you inserted into the article, therefore, classify as WP:OR. That is why your edits must be reverted to the WP:STATUSQUO. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 04:15, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir, thank you for your response here on the Talk page. And also thank you for your recent set of edits responding to specifically identified problems in the article, rather than making a massive revert. I think we'll be better served and obtain a better article by discussing items of contention here on this Talk page, in a item-by-item basis.

I suspect this Talk page section is, in general, the wrong place to continue the in-depth discussion, simply because these issues have nothing whatsoever to do with the section title, and are far removed from the date, two months back, when the OP topic of this section was set. Other editors are more likely to know what issue is under discussion with a more focused approach and clearer section heading names that approximate the discussion topic.

We can address various items better in new item-specific sections below, in whatever priority order we and other editors wish to identify and discuss issues. I will however just briefly respond to your last comment above on the YouTube video here, so the response is close to your comment, and that particular topic may or may not be the highest priority to take up below. That particular YouTube video is of a talk given at a technical conference, and is published by the formal organization that sponsored the conference. I believe it will thus stand scrutiny; but happy to discuss further and get other ediotr's views if you want to highlight that particular issue below in a new section. There definitely is not a blanket policy on Wikipedia that no YouTube video can ever be used as a source. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:28, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

In addition to the fact that the claims discussing the structure of blockchains remain unconfirmed by reliable sources, they are also not discussed in the article body. This fact violates the policy that the contents of the lead section should be the most important claims discussed in the article body. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:25, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Blockchain Revolution — a book published in May 2016

I had mentioned above, in a Talk page item dated 31 May, that a new book had been published. I had a copy from the library then but only had limited time to work with it as a source at the time. I did use it to source some other articles at that time (probably findable in my edit history), and got it at least mentioned here. When I started editing today, it was mentioned in the Further reading section of the article.

I obtained another copy of the book today, and have now spent a few hours reading it. Have sourced a half-dozen or more citation needed requests, while cleaning up a variety of others that had been challenged for at least a couple of months. I also used the book to greatly expand the material in the article on permissioned blockchains, which seem to be a fairly big thing in the financial industry. Prior to this time, the article has mostly been about public (or "permissionless") blockchains, so good to get a bit more balance. I looked, but did not locate, any place in the book with a clear list of the pros and cons of public/permissionless blockchains, so that is legitimately something we may want to find, in this or other sources, to improve the article.

The book has been out for several months now, at least in the US, so I would guess others might be able to locate a copy at their libraries as well. There is a lot more information in Blockchain Revolution that might prove useful to improving this article, should others want to consider taking a look at it as well.

I'll have the book for while, and if I find the time, will come back here and endeavor to use it to improve sourcing on this article, as I believe it may be the first book-level treatment on the subject of blockchains. Cheers. N2e (talk) 21:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Great suggestion, I am going to read it as well. Here is a link by the author on TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_how_the_blockchain_is_changing_money_and_business?language=en Coincidentally I just watched it recently, very good. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:30, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Article lede: question of sourcing

Thank you to Ladislav Mecir for clarifying the issues with the lede section. Since that was mixed in with a meta-question about cleanup tags in the previous Talk page section, let's capture the issue here, and then discuss.

The issues as identified by Mecir are:

• The second sentence of the lead section describing the subject is WP:OR, and it has been challenged as such since May.
• I watched the Youtube video you advocate as an acceptable source above, but am still missing a specific minute:second in the video, which supposedly confirms your claim.

To which, I (N2e) had said, once the issue was clarified to be the items tagged with inline tags:

• those specific issues addressed by the inline tags can be worked on over the coming days, without wondering if there is 'also' some meta-issue about the section that should be worked on first. I already have one idea to chase down for supporting the disputed statement; just need to put the time in to find it.

If I have not summarized the issue(s) correctly, then feel free to add more info, either below, or just correct/fix the text I quoted from you above.

I'm loaded with other work now, but will commit to be back here to address your concerns within two days; i.e. even faster than you responded to the questions of the topic in the above section that was attempting to clarify the issues. N2e (talk) 18:50, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I had a chance this morning to look at that source Ladislav Mecir is questioning. Fortunately for my time, that statement is supported by material in the first three minutes of that video source. I have added the specific minute:second to the article citation as requested. N2e (talk) 15:20, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I may somehow still miss it, but you mentioned the 1:45 - 2:42 part of the video. In that part, however, there is no mention of the structure of the blockchain, blocks, and their contents... Ladislav Mecir (talk) 03:45, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that section, where the person in that video says: "In Ethereum, all transaction processors come to consensus about what happened and when with respect to transmission and storage of the ether value token as well as coming to an agreement about all the processing that occurs on all of the shared programs on the world computer. " supports what I had understood to be the part of the sentence in the lede that you are challenging. If there is something else, do let us know.

So, you confirm that the source actually does not say anything about the blockchain structure. Especially, it does not say that blockchain consists of blocks, and that blocks consist of ... You confirm that the source only mentions that the transaction processors come to an agreement about all the processing. This is is not a description of the structure, and therefore, your description of the structure remains unconfirmed. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Huh? Did you even listen to the first three minutes? Or read my entire post? (since your response was inline)

I'll continue the discussion below, so that the entire previous history of what I said ten hours ago might be seen by other editors, in context, as I'm increasingly certain that we are going to need other eyes to resolve this amicably. N2e (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

The challenged sentence in the article lede currently says:

It consists of data structure blocks that may contain data or programs—with each block holding batches of individual transactions and the results of any blockchain executables.

My understanding was that it was the second half of that, the newer part that may not be in all blockchains but is in some today, was the challenged part. I had understood that the data part, and the "batches of individual transaction" were not at issue as every blockchain since bitcoin in 2009 do that. Only the executable programs part is very new. And the time stamp I added (01:45) is where that specific point of executable program results being recorded on the blockchain is supported. Of course, the gentleman is giving a talk, and the context for that sentence is given in his comments starting at 01:10. So if you think it would help, feel free to modify the time provided to whatever you believe would help other editors be best able to verify the idea that, yes, nowadays, blockchains can indeed store both transactions of the ledger type (their historical and first use) and also may store results of program executables.

But do let me know if I have that wrong about what specific statements or substatements you are challenging. Are you, on the contrary, challenging more parts of entire sentence? N2e (talk) 11:44, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

(repeating, for contextual clarity, in date/time order of what has gone on before) Here is Ladislav's comment of 21:16, 27 August 2016, earlier today:

So, you confirm that the source actually does not say anything about the blockchain structure. Especially, it does not say that blockchain consists of blocks, and that blocks consist of ... You confirm that the source only mentions that the transaction processors come to an agreement about all the processing. This is is not a description of the structure, and therefore, your description of the structure remains unconfirmed. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I'm amazed. All this time I had understood your issue to be that you wanted really solid sourcing that the newer blockchains, in addition to the widely-understood characteristic of traditional/older blockchains—that "blocks" make up block chains (chains of data blocks) and that those blocks contain ledger transactions—now also include in newer blockchains the result of program executables in the blockchain data. That is what is clearly supported in that source, a YouTube video of a conference presentation by Joseph Lubin, and through quite a lot of hard work and hoops, I have clearly demonstrated to you (and all readers of this article) that, yes, that is a pretty standard understanding of what the (much newer) Ethereum blockchain includes. Therefore, in mid 2016, it is something that might be included in blockchain records, as well as the traditional "blocks" and "data" from "ledger transactions" that are widely understood to be a part of any blockchain. That is what I added to the lede some five or six months ago when I first edited this article, and sourced it when I added that.

Frankly—since you have been editing this blockchain article, extensively, since May of 2015 (diff), a full year earlier than I began working on it—I am incredulous that you did not, and do not, understand, as you assert above, basic "blockchain structure." and " that blockchain consists of blocks, and that blocks consist of" transactions that include ledger entries in the standard/traditional blockchains like bitcoin. Really, if you think about it, that is an amazing claim for you to make. Did you ever read the sources you used to extensively edit, and find fault with, this article over the past 18 months???

Moreover, as you likely know, and as anyone who has even passing familiarity with the subject will know, blockchain databases (since bitcoin, 2009) consist of "blocks" of data, and those blocks have traditionally consisted of data that is ledger transactions of value transfers. Beyond that, it would be secondary-school simple to find tens of citations to support that in the lede of this article; if it would even need a citation, since it is likely supported in the body prose, and MOS:LEADCITE does not require every statement in a lede to be cited for material cited in the article body.

Now, I do not know your motive for this move, and I explicitly assume good faith that you are merely wanting the block/traditional block contents to be sourced, which would be easy peasy. But I must say that, given what your behavior here has evidenced to me; and given that your recent behavior on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard (on the issue of use of YouTube videos as sources, and specifically in this article) was found to be slippery, and your argument continued to change as each of those editors, repetitively, pointed out you were not correct on your earlier argument; then I find it much easier to believe that you may be doing the same thing here: changing your argument after your initial position is found to be lacking.

Listen, I want to just improve Wikipedia articles. I happened to find this one of interest six months ago as I came to understand about this new sort of continuously-growing and non-repudiable and transparent database technology. I will be happy to work with you if you can work constructively to improve the article. But this move today, to first attack me (in another Talk page section, which I've already responded to there), and to now change your position on what needs to be supported by a source, is reflecting badly on you, in terms of showing that you have the sort of editor characteristics that would make mutual improvement of an article straightforward and comradely. I hope you decide you want to work collegially to improve Wikipedia. N2e (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

You truly embarrassed yourself Ladislav with that move to changing your story to say you were merely looking for a source for the structure of a block chain. And now, after four days, you haven't added any source for that story, when sources on the basic structure of data going into blocks, new blocks connecting back and back-referencing prior blocks etc. would be simple, and would exist in hundreds or thousands of places on the quick-searchable web.

Moreover, your story does not ring true since you were very active editing this article for a full 12 months prior to the day I first came to this article. If you had so much concern about it, you surely would have done this extremely easy and lightweight sourcing then. And according to your edit history, you've been editing the original blockchain articles (Bitcoin, bitcoin, and many related articles for several years prior to that. I'm calling BS on your claim that getting a source for the basic structure was all you were looking for. N2e (talk) 02:36, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done, easy peasy, as I said above. And it would have been super easy for you too, during most of the last 18 months you've worked on this article. The basic structure of the blockchain is now sourced: block chains are made up of blocks of data. Seems a bit overdone. But per the issue made of it by you, it is now sourced all over, in the body prose, and in the lede where you've been defending a lot of redundant tags. N2e (talk) 03:05, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

It has not been done at all:

• the source challenged since May, which does not discuss the structure of blockchains at all, is still used to "confirm" a claim
• I added a tag to mark the part that is not sourced at all Ladislav Mecir (talk) 04:57, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, Ladislav, it seems a bit of overkill, since all the claims there are entirely sourced by the sources provided already, nearer the end of the sentence in question. But since you've asked so insistently, I've responded in good faith by sourcing EACH.INIDIVIDUAL.CONCEPT in that sentence, even though this required multiple uses of the source citations.

I will go on record as saying that I think this is, in general, a poor practice for Wikipedia, and citations at the end of sentences are generally considered sufficient. But there are exceptions, and your insistence seems to be one of them. (Although quite likely, some other editor will find such repretition tenditious and will clean it up and reduce the redundant citations in due time.) Cheers. N2e (talk) 05:17, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

A note: You may have missed the fact that the sentence also violates the WP:MOS policy as mentioned above. That is caused by your tactic to discuss one issue at too many places. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 05:25, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that comment, nor what your argument is about a violation of [{WP:MOS]]. N2e (talk) 17:11, 3 September 2016 (UTC)