Talk:Blockchain

Plagarism from an uncited textbook?
The article says "A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and often public, digital ledger consisting of records called blocks that are used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved block cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks."

The 9th edition of Introduction to Management Systems by Rainer and Prince (Wiley) says "A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, encrypted, secure, anonymous, tamper-proof, unchangeable, and often public digital ledger (a database, if you will) consisting of transactions bundled into blocks. Blocks contain details such as transaction timestamps and a link to the previous block. These links form the blockchain. The blockchain records transactions across many computers so that blocks cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks." (Section 7.2, pg. 213)

There are two sources linked by the wiki quote [3] and [20] but neither even remotely contains the quote from the textbook. The italics is present in the textbook too. I'm not putting it past the textbook to have copied from Wikipedia, but I wanted to document my findings. Babushkasara (talk) 20:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I think you mean Introduction to Information Systems. (ISBN 9781119761464) Google Books says the book came out in 2021, while Worldcat says 2022. The wording is more-or-less the same in versions of this article going back to at least 2020. If, however, this wording is also in older versions of the textbook, more investigation would be needed as this could be plagiarism. Grayfell (talk) 00:19, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Oops, yes. My copy is missing the cover and initial pages so I can't check the copyright date. I know it was *written* around April - June of 2020, because of all the "as of [date]" comments about current states of technology. The 5th edition (2014) (available on the Internet Archive) doesn't mention blockchain or bitcoin. I don't have access to the text of the 8th edition (claims 2020 as copyright date), but I do have access to the instructor resources. In the slides, there's 1 line of notes about bitcoin, nothing about blockchain or bitcoin in the instructor manual, and only 3 questions mentioning blockchain in the test bank ("____ are/is the underlying technology for digital currencies such as Bitcoin", a distractor answer for a question on another topic, and "Which is not true regarding blockchain? a) It is virtually impossible to alter its records. b) It circumvents the need for banks or brokers for some consumers. c) It is a form of Bitcoin that can be used internationally. d) It can be lifesaving in the instance of certain bacterial outbreaks.") Meanwhile, in the 9th edition test bank, blockchain is mentioned 31 times. Unfortunately, my campus library only has an edition from 2001 which won't be helpful, but I might be able to get a copy of the 8th. Babushkasara (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Browsing the article's history, it seems like the wording developed organically. The specific phrase "...without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the collusion of the network." was added in this edit in May 2017, but it was adjusted in this edit in November 2018 and the "the collusion of the network" was subsequently removed. I think I prefer that older wording, actually. These incremental changes suggest to me that this isn't plagiarism, but it's possible.
 * Browsing Worldcat, it appears the the Sixth edition came out in 2016, while the 4th Canadian edition came out in 2017, and a "Seventh edition. EMEA edition" came out in 2018.
 * Grayfell (talk) 21:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * That quote seems like it's from the article introduction - the quote I was referring to occurs right at the beginning of the Structure and Design section. That being said, the 2018 diff you linked does have substantially different wording from the current version. I'm not very familiar with navigating edit history or I'd attempt to track down when/if the quote materialized wholesale. Babushkasara (talk) 21:39, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The May 2017 quote was added to the body, but that edit also included a minor change to the lead, which makes the diff a bit confusing. Grayfell (talk) 21:51, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The 8th edition, copyright 2020, most likely written before July 2019 based on citations within the text, mentions blockchain briefly, but with very different language than the 9th edition/the article. (I can post the quote if desired). That leads back to 'either the article copied from the 9th or the 9th copied from the article', but it does at least narrow down the date range. Babushkasara (talk) 13:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * So from this, the disputed wording was added to this article over a period of time starting in 2017, and the textbook did not include this until the 2020 edition. Since the Wikipedia wording predates the similar wording found in the textbook, this does not appear to be a copyright violation on Wikipedia's part. Grayfell (talk) 20:18, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yet another reason I'm using an open-source textbook next semester. Thanks for helping close the loop on this. Babushkasara (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA23 - Sect 201 - Thu
— Assignment last updated by Jasminezapple (talk) 18:52, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

"Non-crypto Public Chain" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Non-crypto_Public_Chain&redirect=no Non-crypto Public Chain] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 00:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)