Talk:Ricardian contract

I disagree with the deletion
I disagree strongly with the proposed deletion of Ricardian contracts. I'm the cofounder of OB1.io and core developer of OpenBazaar (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBazaar). OpenBazaar uses Ricardian contracts in the core protocol of the network.

I have written extensively about its use-cases in decentralised trade here: http://docs.openbazaar.org/03.-OpenBazaar-Protocol/

Disagree with deletion
To me, Ricardian contracts represent a useful concept, and although the warnings are useful towards readers, the page should not be removed merely on grounds of form errors or being poorly linked inside WikiPedia.

I accidentally ran into this deletion proposal while preparing a piece on Mo-Nee as a currency system for SHA2017 (upcoming Dutch hacker conference) for which the concept is one possible place of use. I have indicated to Ian Grigg, from who the concept stems, that this page is in trouble and asked him to look into it. I do agree that documentation can be improved.

Cheers,

Dr.Ir. Rick van Rein http://mo-nee.org http://econono.nl


 * Thanks for this. However, articles on Wikipedia still need clear verifiable evidence of outside notability - third-party sources. (In its present state, the article wouldn't survive an articles for deletion discussion.) Is there any such? - David Gerard (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You may want to be more explicit about the WP:SYNTHishness. What conclusion are you stating is newly reached on this page? This is a logical thing, so it should be possible to be accurate in what statement the current page makes that goes above its head. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:980:93A5:1:B437:6ADF:7C2E:E423 (talk) 15:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Disagree with deletion
Verifiable evidence of outside notability, Third party sources - there are 6 global businesses, all innovators in blockchain technology, that cite this concept as a fundamental building block in their architecture. What other sources would you like to see? The topic is at the cutting edge of the blockchain technology and is a bit abstruse for 'journalism'.... External sources are being sought for this quite new article.

Arthur Doohan User:Artied, page author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Artied (talk • contribs) 09:51, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:RS - David Gerard (talk) 11:50, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I have & I still don't get complaint.... There are original primary sources that are much used and well commented on There are independent sources that refer to the work ... So can I ask you to be more specific in the details of your complaint, pls? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Artied (talk • contribs) 14:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * My "complaint" is that this is not sourced to sources that meet WP:RS, and will likely get nominated for deletion even if it doesn't get deleted at PROD. There's literally one source that passes WP:RS even a bit and that only mentions in passing that it exists - David Gerard (talk) 15:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with deletion ...
I came here to read more "wikipedia-level" (no offence) about ricardian contracts. The stuff I got from the discussion on social media was above my head.

So why remove it? It is a topic just starting to be noticed in the public discussion, and finally I learned something new from a wikipedia page.

91.130.26.140 (talk) 15:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * If it's starting to get noticed, then surely there will be sources that meet WP:RS.


 * (Before anyone objects "what about this other badly-sourced article?" - yes, badly-sourced articles exist on Wikipedia; this is why we have a deletion process.)


 * I don't particularly want it deleted, I'm noting that if it doesn't get sourced properly soon it's likely to be - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with deletion ...
I certainly disagree with deletion of this page. In response to the various issues that have been raised I note: (1) That there is a reliable source from which this entry has been derived - it is a peer-reviewed IEEE workshop from 2004. (2) The Ricardian Contract is an important concept that is currently being referenced repeatedly in the financial and blockchain press, and is stated (by Barclays) to be the basis for Barclays' Smart Contract Templates. (3) Whilst it is claimed that some of the text "looks way too WP:SYNTHish" I have yet to see a precise identification of a specific WP:SYNTHish sentence or paragraph. If a list of examples could be given, I am sure that each could be resolved with minor editing. Chris-01 (talk) 16:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Anyone can remove a PROD
however, disagreeing here doesn't protect you against future AFDs - David Gerard (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

That of course is true, and your observations have already led to an improved page (with better references, and more objective descriptions). Often the harshest criticisms are also the most valuable - thank you. What is your view of the revisions that have been made? Chris-01 (talk) 12:26, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Added Sources
I have added some more sources from citeseer, google scholar and the like. Iang (talk) 05:24, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Italian translation
Good evening gentlemen, excuse me. I'm improving a voice (Alice and Bob in Italian). Reference is made to this item. I would like to find the Italian translation of this page but it does not exist, can I create it or according to you it exists with a different name? I've already tried doing my research to no avail. Thanks. Stephen kleckner (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Information on real world use
I find it hard to tell from the article, and particularly the implementations section, to what extent Ricardian contracts are actually being used in practice for legal contracts. The implementation examples use wording like "production-ready", "allow for...", "will be..." etc but none explicitly say that they're being used for actual contracts. Are there any examples of this that could be added? On a related point, given the apparent benefits in dispute resolution when using such a contract, are there any examples of legal cases related to one? JaggedHamster (talk) 16:47, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm planning to add "type" and "status" column to the current list of implementations, to help make clear which are libraries, which are products, and what the state of them is. I believe for the listed implementations it would be:

Ricardo - "Product" "Discontinued" but I'm having problems finding a citation for that, although it seems very likely given its age and lack of activity for decades.

Open Transactions - "Library" "Under development" - hard to find sources for this outside of their own docs.

OpenBazaar - "Product" "Discontinued" - already cited in the page.

Askemos - "Library" "Under Development" - Hard to find citations and their website is dead, maybe it's no longer in development?

Barclays' Smart Contract Templates - "Proof of Concept" "N/A" - plenty of citations available for this.

R3's Corda - "Library" "Under development" - easy to cite.

LTO Network - "Product" "Used in proof of concepts/pilots" - Their website seems to cite proofs of concept/under development integrations but nothing live.

Mattereum - "Product" "In pilot production use" - Can't find any decent sources for this outside their own website and press releases.

Chamapesa - "Product" "Under development" - possibly dead but hard to source. Website is down and their last announcement about their status was from 2018 saying they hoped to have a working product in 2019.

Tokenized - "Product" "Private beta" - can only source this to their own website

Does anyone have any better sources/information for any of the above? JaggedHamster (talk) 07:57, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I came back to this to try and tidy the section up but the more I looked into the sources it was using the harder it was to recover anything from it. It was almost all primary sources, unreliable sources per WP:RSP, press releases and so on, where I couldn't find decent reliable sources to replace them with, or to support the entries being notable, so I've removed it for now. JaggedHamster (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2022 (UTC)