Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gridcoin (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 keep. This one is not cut and dry and I came close to calling it a no consensus, but I think the arguments and sourcing presented are sufficient. Ad Orientem (talk) 00:29, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Gridcoin
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Non-notable cryptocurrency. Almost all references are primary, crypto blogs or directory sites - there's one RS and two academic references that aren't just passing mentions (I removed a pile of passing mentions from "Further reading"). WP:BEFORE shows nothing further in RSes or in peer-reviewed academic coverage. I'd expect it to have more, given the BOINC links - but I can't find any. This was deleted at AFD in 2015; this 2016 recreation doesn't improve matters - David Gerard (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. David Gerard (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. David Gerard (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. David Gerard (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. David Gerard (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per Cunard's sources below (updated comment Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:27, 22 November 2018 (UTC)) or merge to Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. While Gridcoin may be notable on its own for its take on the proof-of-research and constant block reward alternatives to other cryptos' proof-of-stake mining methods, Gridcoin is inextricably linked to BOINC and could just have an expanded section there. (COI note: I participate in BOINC and mine Gridcoin myself) Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:37, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Is it even worth noting in the context of BOINC, though? - David Gerard (talk) 18:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's at least as notable as an individual BOINC project (some of which have their own Wikipedia page), since Gridcoin has roughly just as much participation and external references as some of the larger BOINC projects. So I support at the very least a mention in the BOINC article. (COI note: I also participate in BOINC and mine Gridcoin myself) MaxwellMolecule (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * That doesn't really answer the question - individual BOINC products aren't automatically considered notable. Do we have the RSes about Gridcoin to even note it in another article? - David Gerard (talk) 15:17, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * There's a few, I had some open on another computer that I'll have to find again later. In the recent commentary on the energy requirements of proof-of-work cryptos, Gridcoin is one of the alternatives that is mentioned often, because of its connection with distributed computing through BOINC. Solarcoin is another, though that article was deleted (see Draft:Solarcoin for deletion log). They tend not to be passing mentions. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I agree reliable sources is ultimately what it comes down to. I suggest we allow a short amount of time for anyone to point out sources that have not yet been included. I don't want to let the axe fall too quickly. MaxwellMolecule (talk) 16:31, 19 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete - very weak sourcing, not clear what people actually do with this so-called coin. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 22:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. I agree with Smallbones' comments here. I'm not seeing sourcing that really would establish WP:DUE for even a merge or redirect, much less GNG. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. Gridcoin is an important cryptocurrency that addresses the waste of energy in Bitcoin. Gridcoin rewards users if they spend electricity to good causes like cancer and Ebola research. hb9tvm (talk) 09:02, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * None of these are evidenced in reliable sources, though. None of this is a policy-related reason to keep - David Gerard (talk) 18:24, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I want to come back to this tomorrow -- I'm putting together a list of candidate sources so we can see where we stand. So let's give it a little more time. MaxwellMolecule (talk) 01:43, 21 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Merge to Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. This is my recommendation based on the sources I was able to find. They are listed below, but unlikely to be exhaustive since I didn't spend a ton of time searching. There were also some academic sources that looked promising but had paywalls. Not sure what to do about that. NOTE: While not completely disregarding my own analysis, I would very much prefer to hear the reasoned opinion of someone with no vested interest for or against cryptocurrencies. If someone here can confirm minimal bias, that would be extremely beneficial. I acknowledge I have some bias, and it sounds like some other people on this talk page do too.
 * https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot17/woot17-paper-grothe.pdf (In depth, critical, academic analysis. Seems to me a pretty solid source)
 * https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital-Cryptocurrencies/dp/1449374042/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542824247&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Mastering+Bitcoin%3A+Unlocking+Digital+Cryptocurrencies+1st+Edition (academic source: short encyclopedic-like entry on Gridcoin)
 * https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/bitcoin-seen-addressing-power-hog-problem-with-prime-number-find
 * https://finance.yahoo.com/news/state-distributed-computing-cryptocurrency-101908849.html (characterized as 'one of the best-known modern solutions' in the area of distributed computing)
 * https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/high-tech/gridcoin-la-crypto-monnaie-qui-offre-de-la-puissance-de-calcul-aux-chercheurs_120311 (in French, but seems to have some independent critique -- more than just a passing mention)
 * https://www.inc.com/magazine/201811/amy-webb/donate-processing-power-gigware-hack.html
 * https://singularityhub.com/2017/12/31/9-ways-you-can-use-your-devices-for-advanced-scientific-research/#sm.0001qk8f6nmq8fr4pdl2qfy6vci27 (I am familiar with SingularityHub and can confirm they have no direct relation to cryptocurrencies)
 * https://read.wisconsinengineer.com/gridcoin-and-boinc-crowdsourcing-scientific-discovery-cf2728a187a1 (contains a small amount of independent and critical analysis)
 * https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/putting-the-blockchain-to-work-for-science-gridcoin-1400747268/ (I don't think cryptocurrency news sites should be excluded outright. The crypto-space is large enough that someone can have a vested interest in crypto as a whole, but still be independent of any one particular coin. [To be clear, I'm not disputing the stance that sources from outside the crypto space are preferable.])
 * https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/crypto-exchange-poloniex-dumps-eight-underperforming-coins/ (another crypto news site)
 * https://cointelegraph.com/news/gridcoin_using_the_blockchain_for_good (another crypto news site) -- MaxwellMolecule (talk) 18:39, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Crypto blogs are not usable as evidence of notability, per many a long-winded WP:RSN discussion. You don't get to try to impeach other editors' opinions in advance - David Gerard (talk) 19:28, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I would like to raise the issue of your own bias on the matter: https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-ebook/dp/B073CPP581 - as an author with books currently for sale and a self-proclaimed crypto expert (can source this if necessary) who is openly hostile to cryptocurrency and blockchain in general, it is an obvious WP:COI for you to directly edit cryptocurrency articles, much less be nominating cryptocurrency articles for deletion. You stand to gain financially and reputationally by damaging cryptocurrencies directly or otherwise, and per the COI guidelines you should restrain yourself to suggesting edits on talk pages.2A02:A210:2C04:1D00:F180:5AA:495E:A8A1 (talk) 19:52, 21 November 2018 (UTC) — 2A02:A210:2C04:1D00:F180:5AA:495E:A8A1 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * It turns out that's not what "conflict of interest", let alone WP:COI mean. It turns out that drive-by SPAs don't help deletion discussions - David Gerard (talk) 22:01, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your non-denial and snark. Fortunately, you are neither arbiter of the English language, nor the final judge of whether this article should be deleted. I raised your very real conflict of interest both by English and WP:COI standards precisely so that other readers, editors, and administrators are aware of your external interest and stakeholdership in the matter both here and elsewhere on Wikipedia as you pursue your relentless campaign to damage and discredit cryptocurrency projects while gaining personal financial and reputational benefits from doing so. This article contains several RSes by your own admission, and your subjective, hostile, self-interested opinion that it is a non-notable cryptocurrency does not override its interest as a topic and article to other people or its satisfaction of the as-written, objective requirements for WP:Notability. This is a strong keep. 2A02:A210:2C04:1D00:F180:5AA:495E:A8A1 (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2018 (UTC) — 2A02:A210:2C04:1D00:F180:5AA:495E:A8A1 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * If you're so sure it's a "very real conflict of interest", you know where WP:COIN is. And your "keep" is clearly not policy-based - per the template at the top, this discussion is not a ballot - David Gerard (talk) 07:58, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Chill, I'm new to this side of Wikipedia and wasn't aware of that discussion. I wasn't trying to impeach anyone. I wasn't really talking about establishing notability, more just reliable information. And I didn't say the sites I listed were in fact appropriate. Just that they shouldn't be excluded outright only because they report primarily on crypto. If bitcoinmagazine and cointelegraph aren't reliable, then just say so. MaxwellMolecule (talk) 19:41, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  The book notes: "Gridcoin Gridcoin was introduced in October 2013. It supplements scrypt-based proof of work with subsidies for participation in BOINC open grid computing. BOINC—Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing—is an open protocol for scientific research grid computing, which allows participants to share their spare computing cycles for a broad range of academic research computing. Gridcoin uses BOINC as a general-purpose computing platform, rather than to solve specific science problems such as prime numbers or protein folding.Block generation: 150 secondsTotal currency: No limitConsensus algorithm: Proof-of-work with BOINC grid computing subsidy</li><li>Market capitalization: $122,000 in mid-2014</li></ul>"</li> <li> According to de:ComputerBase is a German online magazine founded in 1999. From Google Translate: "Gridcoin for the one who supports the science One of them is Gridcoin. The network participant responsible for the next block is determined by the remainder of the network, based on the amount of its gridcoin combined with the time it has already spent verifying the blockchain. For the compensation, 50,000 newly created gridcoins are available per day. However, these are not simply paid out to the active or passive users, they only get one share as an interest rate. The bulk, on the other hand, is distributed to members who make their own computing power available to science. This is made possible by the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), a decentralized network of the University of Berkeley, which sends small work packages for calculation to the participating computers. The gridcoin blockchain compensates for these calculations by paying out the Gridcoin generated by PoS, based on the processing power provided. Gridcoin is thus relying on an energy-efficient block chain for the management and verification of the means of payment, the participants of which, however, do not have to work on their participation in the banking system, but on charitable work in scientific projects. The currency can then either be exchanged or sold on trading platforms or used to promote projects within BOINC. The projects supported by BOINC and Gridcoin include very computationally intensive scientific projects such as the analysis of space data or finding new agents against diseases."</li> <li> The book notes: "Gridcoin Drawing on the Bitcoin protocol and an open source middleware system for volunteer and grid computing, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing Grid, or BOINC (http://boine.berkeley.edu/), the blockchain finds an unexpected application with GridCoin, a peer-to-peer Internet-based crypto-currency that aims to provide real benefits in humanity by compensating miners for participating in BOINC projects, leading to advances in medicine, biology, climatology and astrophysics by redirecting the computational power towards BOINC research. The blockchain's most famous application generates unnecessary heat and wasted power for the proof-of-work algorithms. ..."</li> <li> According to fr:Sciences et Avenir, Sciences et Avenir is a French magazine founded in 1947. It is part of Claude Perdriel's Perdriel Group. From Google Translate: "Created in 2013, the gridcoin is based on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), a research platform developed by the University of Berkeley (USA). Many scientific publications, both in the field of climate and astrophysics or medical research, have already benefited. ... The system combines a classic cryptocurrency, the gridcoin, with the BOINC distributed platform that will assign each transaction a scientific calculation to achieve. Note that it is also possible to participate voluntarily in the project by installing the software BOINC (in English), without using a gridcoin. The computing power of your computer will simply be exploited when it is idle. Hosted projects include Seti @ home, a historical program designed to detect a hypothetical extraterrestrial signal by pooling thousands of computers. The challenge is to provide (free) research labs with computing power that is not concentrated in a single supercomputer, but distributed among thousands of individual workstations. On average, in January 2018, the network can deploy the power of 21,364 petaflops (more than 21 million billion operations per second)."</li> <li> The book notes: "It would not be possible to go through these exhaustively in this chapter, but some of the more interesting currencies include Gridcoin which arose from science departments at the University of California at Berkeley; with Gridcoin by offering spare computational resources from a home computer people are in turn rewarded in newly created coins; the computation donated is used for scientific research in biology, physics, and mathematics."</li> <li> The book notes: "Replacing proof-of-work with proof-of-stake In 2015, a researcher named Rob Halford wondered if he could connect BOINC to a cryptocurrency. BOINC was already set up to divide computer tasks amongst many computers. In addition, it could call on large numbers of people willing to run its software. If those individuals were rewarded with cryptocurrency for their efforts, and if existing currency miners could also be drawn into using BOINC, everyone could benefit. But in order to do that, the researchers would have to utilize an entirely new sort of blockchain that would free up computers from the necessity of creating proof-of-work hash. ... ... Most important of all, proof-of-stake eliminates the proof-of-work role for the blockchain, making it less demanding on computer processors. The coin age is the only thing necessary to trigger a new block, no computer-intensive hashing is required. Using a hybrid of proof-of-stake with the valuable computing work done by BOINC, Rob Halford's new cryptocurrency Gridcoin rewarded BOINC users with coins for contributing to any project in the BOINC network."</li> <li> The article notes: "One example is gridcoin, a cryptocurrency mined by a global network of more than 23,000 computers that are connected with scientists at the University of California at Berkeley. Gridcoins are awarded in return for joining the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, or BOINC. That work “may lead to advances in medicine, biology, mathematics, science, climatology, particle and astrophysics,” according to the group’s website, which notes that the energy needed to mine gridcoin is a fraction of what bitcoin requires."</li> <li> The article notes: "The cryptocurrency Gridcoin has a pretty unique proposition: it claims to be ‘environmentally friendly’ to mine and it also rewards network users who complete computational science work with Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. The BOINC system supports scientific projects by providing access to computational power for researchers without access to supercomputers."</li> <li> The article notes: "Companies are already building their own Blockchains for various applications such as Gridcoin that leverages the Blockchain to crowdsource scientific computing projects. Gridcoin uses its own protocols that require much less computing power and electricity to manage than traditional bitcoin networks."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Gridcoin to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 10:33, 22 November 2018 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * I am extremely reluctant to treat Antonopolous's explicit advocacy as "reliable sourcing" for notability, for the same reason we don't accept crypto blogs as RSes for notability. Your refbombing also includes explicit blogs and passing mentions, which you have no excuse after these years for claiming pass RS muster - David Gerard (talk) 10:38, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Wait, which of these are crypto blogs? Is it Bloomberg News? Is it the French popular science magazine with a 70 year publishing history? Or is it one of the dead-tree books? Point taken about Antonopoulos, but the rest of these seem like reliably neutral sources to me. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:27, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't mean to butt in and change the topic, but I just wanted to mention that the first source I listed above (https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot17/woot17-paper-grothe.pdf) seems to have been presented at a "usenix" conference. Does that make it an independent and reliable academic source? Not sure what the consensus is on papers presented at conferences. Let me know what your guys' assessment is. I want to make sure we establish that the source isn't just some random pdf doc posted online, but was actually published in an independent and reliable academic venue. MaxwellMolecule (talk) 17:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Conference presentations don't generally go through "peer review" as such. OTOH, they're also how a lot of computer science is actually presented to the world. So ... maybe? (Welcome to sourcing, it's sometimes grey.) - David Gerard (talk) 18:42, 22 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.