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.
Other symbols of the community's coming of age appeared, too. The first press articles touching on bitcoin began, and Bitcoin Magazine, founded by Mihai Alisie and Vitalik Buterin in 2011, began publishing a print edition in May 2012, becoming the first serious publication dedicated to cryptocurrencies.
Then, improbably, he launched his own magazine. In September 2011, a Romanian programmer named Mihai Alisie, then 23, suggested that he and Buterin, then 17, start their own publication. They founded Bitcoin Magazine, a print and online publication that has claimed, in the years since, a total readership of 1.5 million. Buterin wrote most of the articles. (The magazine is still published but by different owners.)
BTC Media LLC, the parent company of the “yBitcoin” magazine, has acquired Bitcoin Magazine from Coin Publishing LLC.
Bitcoin Magazine was launched by Mihai Alisie and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. It published its first issue in May 2012 and thereafter joined forces with Coin Publishing LLC to produce 22 more. It is mailed to subscribers worldwide, sold at Barnes & Noble bookstores and published online at www.bitcoinmagazine.com.
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BTC Media will relaunch the magazine and bring in industry experts to contribute content.
I have not found significant coverage of the subject. I support a merge to Vitalik Buterin per WP:PRESERVE.
Cunard (talk) 02:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Merge and comment (strike dup !vote): The main issue associated with merging to Vitalik Buterin into Bitcoin Magazine is that Bitcoin Magazine is a separate legal entity from Buterin. Bitcoin Magazine is currently owned by BTC Media, which Buterin has no role. The fact that Buterin was an early co-founder of this magazine is not that relevent at this present day in time. Bitcoin Magazine lives on as a brand owned by BTC Media and thus not be listed on his page, to comply with WP:BLP. Buterin is WP:PUBLICFIGURE and the article must comply in a way that employs WP:AVOIDVICTIM. If BTC Media, a company with no relationship with Buterin, were tomorrow to engage in some illegal activity, this merger of pages would result in creating a victim out of Buterin. Thus, I think the two choices here are to delete (if the article doesn't meet WP:GNG, which I suggest it does), or it should be kept. Merge is not a logical choice. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:17, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Don't merge, leaning delete - a merge to Vitalik Buterin is fairly clearly incorrect, per Jtbobwaysf. Trouble is those sources are skimpy and passing mentions (see WP:NMEDIA). That's the trouble with articles about news media - they tehd not to be written about. (CoinDesk has the same problem.) I'd have thought there'd be enough about it, but it's looking like there isn't - David Gerard (talk) 09:49, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
User:David Gerard Butlerin already has a section on the topic, so we could just redirect to section, done. Which content is a BLP issue if we merge more? (per my comment below). Widefox; talk 12:59, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is a little content that I found on this particular publication with no reference to Buterin. One is an industry power ranking list (where it ranks #8/100) https://richtopia.com/top-lists/top-100-blockchain and the second is focused on http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/bitcoin-magazine-creator-ethereum-co-founder-joins-aragon/ Alisie, the other coufounder of this magazine. As David points out, there is not much written directly on these industry rags, however this and CoinDesk are the two most (or at least very) often cited sources on the various crytpocurreny articles. Both have previously passed RS Noticeboard nominations as well... Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I concur that Coindesk and Bitcoin Magazine are about the least worst of the bitcoin press, though (as I've noted on Talk:Ethereum before) some articles can be a bit ... aspirational. That it's usable as an RS is a point in its favour, though it still needs the sources - David Gerard (talk) 10:42, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The reasoning behind the inappropriate merge argument I was questioning. Thanks for informing me, and as an RS, I'd lean towards neutral or merge. Widefox; talk 22:41, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Don't merge: as already stated, merging would make little sense. No position taken on delete. User:Redgolpe (unsigned)
Weak Delete (or merge) borderline N per my comment about. As founded by Buterin this is a valid merge target (in fact, we wouldn't need to merge much/any as it already contains ample detail), concerns about BLP vios aren't founded by content issues, and the fact we would trim right down to a mention at target. Any such content issue can be addressed at the target. Widefox; talk 12:50, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or delete the magazine is known beyond its connection to Vitalik. IMHO, the magazine has sufficient WP:RS and meets WP:GNG. Romanpoet (talk) 17:43, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A check on Google scholar shows that this magazine is often cited by scholars. Satisfies WP:N. Unscintillating (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep—it is not a strong article, but it meets the WP:GNG notability guideline for a publication, even as an important publication for a niche market. In a previous discussion of this type on a novel aircraft in development, I recall an administrator pointing out to me that "even a balsa wood model airplane" might be able to meet WP:GNG and have an article about it in Wikipedia, as long as it had coverage about it in other media. Look at all the garage bands we have articles on in Wikipedia, or barely-beyond-self-published fantasy fictional works, with limited coverage in local online or home town newspapers. Bitcoin Magazine and its sources are far above that rather low bar. Merging it with the BLP article of some notable previous author of the magazine makes no sense at all, and would be outside standard policy.N2e (talk) 02:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Magazines are notoriously difficult to meet Wikipedia NOTE guidelines but this one shows multiple evidence including #8 on the "Top 100 most influential companies in blockchain", one of the original news and print magazine publishers specializing in Bitcoin, first serious publication dedicated to cryptocurrencies. -- GreenC 21:13, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on sourcing: I would like to keep this article, as I accept the argument from the essay WP:NMEDIA for presumptive notability based on extensive citation in reliable sources, including scholarly sources (and, unlike the essay itself, I would extend that to online as well as print magazines, the guideline WP:WEB to the contrary notwithstanding—I think this is one of the situations where the commonsense-exception clause in the description of guidelines would apply). A number of the "keep" votes above appear to me to be based on similar reasoning. But even a presumptively notable topic still needs reliable sources if its page to be kept, and, like Cunard above, I have not had an easy time finding sources for this one. A large part of the reason is likely the one mentioned in WP:NMEDIA: "when searching for sources on media outlets, the results are often pages produced by the outlet, making it difficult to find significant coverage in multiple sources."
My search for sources has also revealed a problem not mentioned in the nomination, nor in this AfD discussion thus far: the page at the time of nomination for deletion) appears to be a word-for-word WP:COPYVIO and plagiarism [not necessarily—see below] of this tertiary source, which is self-published on Lulu Press. (The Lulu Press link is http://www.lulu.com/shop/devin-williams/cryptocurrency-compendium-a-reference-for-digital-currencies/paperback/product-23232486.html; I cannot link to it, as it is spam-blacklisted on Wikipedia.) Therefore, the article will have to be rewritten from scratch if it is to be kept, and this tertiary source cannot be used as a reference, as self-published sources are considered unreliable (although some of the sources it cites might be used if any are found to be independent, reliable, and nontrivial).
I did find a few sources not already mentioned, though at least some are very problematic:
The Nair source, unfortunately, is likely not usable for reasons of independence. Not only are the Foundation for Economic Education and The Freeman ideologically libertarian, but the online version of the Nair article has a Bitcoin donation link, giving the author an interest in promoting Bitcoin.
Correction: It just occurred to me that, given the chronology of publication, it's not clear exactly who copied who between the Wikipedia article and the Lulu Press compendium—it might have been the book copying us, rather than the other way around, especially if the book was really published on 2017-06-22, as its Lulu Press page says. Also, with only a Google Books link for the compendium, as opposed to the full text, it's impossible to determine whether or not the author (if he did copy us) provided an acknowledgment, so it's not clear that the word-for-word similarity is due to misconduct on either side. Given the weakness of some of the sources, a full rewrite is probably a good idea anyway.
@Syrenka V: please advise the offending text, or do you mean all text is offending? Most of this article was creeated around mid-2016 FYI. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:31, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Jtbobwaysf: it's all the text of the page at the time of nomination—you can see the similarity by comparing the Wikipedia page at the time of nomination for deletion with entry 2.10 on page 55 of the Lulu Press book as seen in Google Books. The entire text of the Wikipedia page appears to match the book page word-for-word. But given the chronology of the Wikipedia page, if the book was really published on 2017-06-22 as its unlinkable Lulu Press page says (see above; not the Google Books link), then it was this self-published book that copied Wikipedia, not the other way around, so no Wikipedia editor committed any plagiarism or WP:COPYVIO, and thus those considerations do not mandate a rewrite. (And likewise, since the book might have included a credit/acknowledgment to Wikipedia on a page not visible in the Google Books preview, the book's author isn't necessarily guilty of plagiarism either.) I regret the false alarm!
But still, the sourcing at the time of nomination wasn't great—two of the six references are to Bitcoin Magazine itself. So I think a rewrite would be a good idea, to strengthen the case for a keep, quite apart from any considerations of WP:COPYVIO or plagiarism. I hope the sources I provided above will be helpful in that effort.
@Syrenka V: thank you for the extra souces and content. I have incorporated it. I also noted when I scrolled back a few pages in the LuluPress book, and there were additional wikipedia articles that this LuluPress also cited word for word; this article on Bitcoin Magazine is not the only one. It also acts a reminder to us editors to be strict on sources, since sometimes this stuff gets copied and assumed to be fact... if only they knew ;-) Thanks again! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:45, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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.