Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Base58 (2nd nomination)


 * 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 redirect to Binary-to-text encoding with the option of merging any content that is deemed worthwhile. While there are a fair number of editors arguing to keep here, clear evidence of the topic meeting GNG is conspicuous by its absence, and while other indicators of significance can sometimes count towards notability per WP:IAR, I do not see consensus for such an option here. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:34, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Base58
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

this small algorithm was adopted in a few places because of its use in Bitcoin, but it isn't notable, and no reliable sources exist, since the bar is higher for crypto articles. The current sources are primary, which is forbidden. The encoding is defined by a custom alphabet, which is arbitrarily chosen and never documented, and there is also a checksum, but I don't see why the addition of a checksum would make an encoding any more notable. See also the arguments of the previous AfD from last month, where consensus was established to delete this article. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finance-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Binary-to-text encoding, which has a list of similar encoding schemes. This seems reasonable enough to include there (and it already is), even though there doesn't seem to be enough out there about this to merit a stanndalone article. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 13:58, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Question. Wait, now I'm confused.  The article history shows creation and edits going back years despite the close of "delete" last month as the nominator noted.  I don't see a move in the page history since then.  Did something just go wrong with the close, ? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * , prior to pinging me asking me if I screwed up, you might check the readily available logs. The article was deleted following that AfD. It was then later recreated, then deleted as G4, but a DRV overturned the G4 deletion since the newer version did not meet the criteria, not being substantially identical to the version deleted at AfD. So, now the newer version is being discussed. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:39, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * In the previous discussion RoySmit stated: "I've tempundeleted this so people can see for themselves. None of the text is the same. None of the references are the same.". I think that the history should start here at August 12 2020 at the 'creation' of the article if the article remains. --FlippyFlink (talk) 14:48, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Jeez, chill out. I wasn't trying to imply you screwed up.  We don't all regularly deal with situations where a page gets deleted 2 months ago, recreated, speedied, undeleted, and now has a history going back years, all after a DRV that wasn't posted on the talk page. I'm sorry if I missed something in the logs, but c'mon, I was just trying to figure out what happened here and asked for help. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:54, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep As stated in the previous discussion - quote: "Such decisions are never final, P,TO 19104. New information and/or new sources, not previously considered, can cause the consensus to change." Also primary sources are not forbidden, aside from the fact that they are not all primary. The five pillars even state "Wikipedia has no firm rules". There are already 8 other languages which do find base58 notable. The alphabet is not arbitrarily chosen. It is based on the base64 but omitting some characters for plausible reasons. --FlippyFlink (talk) 14:50, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The existence of an article on this topic on other language Wikipedias has no direct bearing (see WP:OTHERLANGS for more info). You're correct that primary sources aren't automatically forbidden, but their use requires care, and they offer no weight in determining notability of a topic (see WP:PRIMARY for more).  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 15:25, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * GNG should not be an issue. Both the IETF draft and the W3C documents include discussion of relevant literature, so should count as secondary sources, and there is extensive discussion of base58 in the academic literature on decentralised identifiers; cf. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=base58+encoding &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * what is the relevant literature you conjecture existing? The W3C document is also a draft, note how it says it isn't even sure if Base58 should be included. Anybody can submit a IETF draft, so it does nothing for notability since the IETF has not established consensus that this is something they want to standardize. I would even interpret the stalling of the standardization process as a sign that the IETF is not interested. --Ysangkok (talk) 09:08, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Redirect and selective merge to Binary-to-text_encoding, where the encoding already has an entry. A simple WP:BEFORE style search shows plenty of secondary sources summarizing Base58 as an essential part of the Bitcoin design. This O'Reilly book has a nice section on it. O'Reilly is a reliable publisher with a reputation for fact checking and the author is independent of Satoshi, so the source is independent. Hence the assertion that there are no RS for this topic is wrong. Unfortunately, while there are plenty of short descriptions among sources found, I have not found any in-depth discussions. We still have verifiable content suitable for alternatives to deletion, however, and per our policy WP:ATD finding such alternatives is preferred over deletion. If we had a page devoted to Bitcoin implementation, that would be a perfect target. But the encoding article mentioned by Deacon Vorbis is also a good target with good context for this class of algorithms. I recommend merging some sources (like the O'Reilly book) for verification of the Base58 entry. -- 22:54, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep passes our notability guide and is a relevant binary-to-text encoding. Here is a non-trivial article about Base58 in Medium 1, and another in Hackernoon 2 The oreilly source is also non-trivial. Additionally FlippyFlink has presented an interesting rationale for keeping.  Lightburst (talk) 02:58, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The Medium source is a blog post written by someone with a vested interest in promoting Bitcoin. This is neither reliable nor independent, and thus offers zero weight in establishing notability.  The same is true of the Hackernoon source, a post submitted by a "contributor" (see WP:FORBESCON for an example of a different publication but similar issue), a self-avowed "bitcoinist", again calling independence into question.  This too offers zero evidence of notability.  Moreover, Flippyflink's keep rationale was completely invalid, as I pointed out. Moremoreover, as Mark Viking pointed out above, if we had an article that went into more detail of Bitcoin implementation, this would belong as a short section there, but not as a separate article.  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 04:24, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge - this is barely notable on it's own, but also a neater explanation of binary-to-text encoding (I like it) than the actual article. I think the topic is better served by one article containing Base36/Base58/Base62 and doing away with the individual articles. --Spacepine (talk) 13:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Merging Base32 and Base58 I could see, as their use case is similar, but Base36 and Base62 lack the property of easy human distinguishability, so they are a somewhat different kind of encoding. I'd like to see more flesh on this proposal. What would the article be called? How would the lead justify exactly these three encodings and not others being the subject of the article? &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 08:01, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The proposal is to merge all three into Binary-to-text_encoding. As encoding standards they're all very similar, with 36/62 using alphanumeric only characters, and 32/58 removing characters for distinguishable, and 64 adding characters to reach a power of 2 number.
 * I singled out 36/62 for merging because they can be summed up in a couple of lines.
 * As for 58, I'm actually quite on the fence here, but if it tips to delete it should be merged into Binary-to-text encoding, same as the others. --Spacepine (talk) 07:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Merge An excellent suggestion . I believe the subject is notable, so I agree with your suggestion. WP:ATD-M to Base36/Base58/Base62 Lightburst (talk) 15:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - The article has improved a lot since the 1st AfD nom and I think clears GNG. Base58 standardisation is being actively discussed by the Digital Identifiers WG of the IETF, since it is being used by an increasing number of projects, so I'd rather wait a few months before doing a merge we might want to reverse. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 14:35, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a crystal ball (see also WP:ATA). Simply being used in a few places doesn't make this sufficiently different from any other Base## scheme to warrant a separate article. There's no reason why that can't be mentioned in  a table entry at Binary-to-text_encoding.  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:44, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Policy does not dictate whether we should keep or merge. I express my preference for merge keep, based on the criterion of avoiding waste of editorial effort. WP:CRYSTAL concerns verifiability of content, which is not relevant to the point I am making. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - Base58 originates in cryptospace, but it has found adoption outside. Cf. the discussion of Flickr and IPFS in the article. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 14:37, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep (first choice) or Merge to Binary-to-text encoding (second choice): See . Base58 is the default encoding for the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) used by Cloudflare and many others. (More on what IPFS does here:). --Guy Macon (talk) 09:53, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * why does the existence of a draft IETF standard (which expired in May) imply that this is notable? A web browser implements hundreds of IETF documents, we don't have articles for every single standard. Why not stick to guidelines with established consensus instead of making up inclusion criteria? --Ysangkok (talk) 19:00, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * If it was just the IETF draft I would agree. But bitcoin is notable, IPFS is more notable, and Cloudflare is a major player -- and all use Base58. It isn't a slam dunk, but in my opinion it meets GNG. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:09, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment Charles and Guy have made good arguments for keeping this article and in the interests of establishing a consensus, I think keeping the article is a reasonable outcome as well. -- 19:14, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Doesn't satisfy WP:GNG. I check the resources (Also tried to find usage|citations through the literature), Nothing good enough to establish notability. Charmk (talk) 13:26, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "Base58 encoded sha256 multihash" --How IPFS Works
 * This is a passing mention, just a presentation by a PhD student. Charmk (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "IPFS objects are normally referred to by their Base58 encoded hash." --An Introduction to IPFS
 * This is just a blog post! see WP:RS Charmk (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "There are two key differences between IPFS and the web as we think of it today. The first is that with IPFS anyone can cache and serve any content—for free. Right now, with the traditional web, most typically rely on big hosting providers in remote locations to store content and serve it to the rest of the web. If you want to set up a website, you have to pay one of these major services to do this for you. With IPFS, anyone can sign up their computer to be a node in the system and start serving data. It doesn’t matter if you’re working on a Raspberry Pi or running the world’s biggest server. You can still be a productive node in the system... With IPFS, every single block of data stored in the system is addressed by a cryptographic hash of its contents. With IPFS, you tell the network what to look for, and the network figures out where to look. By default, IPFS uses the SHA-256 algorithm, which produces a 32-byte hash. This is represented by the string “Qm” in Base58 (the default encoding for IPFS addresses), which is why all the example IPFS addresses in this post are of the form “Qm…”." -Cloudflare goes InterPlanetary - Introducing Cloudflare’s IPFS Gateway
 * This information could be merged with an existing article like InterPlanetary File System. This is not enough to start a new article about Base58. Charmk (talk) 19:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "This document specifies the base 58 encoding scheme, including an introduction to the benefits of the approach, the encoding and decoding algorithm, alternative alphabets, and security considerations. " -The Base58 Encoding Scheme
 * --Guy Macon (talk) 14:25, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * To write a Wikipedia article about a topic, this topic must be notable and pass WP:GNG. So we can write a good article about the topic using facts from secondary resources. We can use primary resources, but we must have secondary resources that discuss the topic in details. for this article (Base58) these resources doesn't exist!. if you believe that the article topic is potential, then think about writing a draft and improving it a long the time. Charmk (talk) 19:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * IPFS, Cloudflare, and Bitcoin are all secondary sources. You might as well declare Apple, Microsoft and IBM as primary sources for Binary code. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:05, 6 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Merge to Binary-to-text_encoding, along with Base36/Base62. These are all just ways to take a binary stream and encode it into printable ascii, using trivial variations on packing the bits from N input bytes into M output bytes.  The choice of output alphabet is driven by which characters you want to avoid, because they're non-printable, have special meanings (i.e. punctuation) in various contexts, and/or are easily confused by humans (i.e. O/0, l/1, etc).  The differences can be covered in a table giving N and M, the packing efficiency, the alphabet, and listing some common applications which use them.  -- RoySmith (talk) 20:21, 6 September 2020 (UTC)


 * 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.