Talk:Augur (software)

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Untitled[edit]

The Criticism section is factual and informative and should stand. Please do not Edit War. 69.117.250.141 (talk) 16:00, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Criticism is factual in parts but a decent portion of it is simply promoting a competing product and making in-factual claims about Augur. Keeping valid criticism is fine, but if you'd like to promote a competitor, please make your own wiki page. Joeykrug (talk) 18:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The nature of a project's competitors is factual and informative. Nonetheless I propose this compromise: all sections referencing a competing project have been removed. Furthermore, the previous section was reverted 3-times without any discussion, in violation of Wikipedia's editing policy. I expect this policy to be followed from now on, or the matter must proceed to dispute resolution. 69.117.250.141 (talk) 19:00, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reorganization[edit]

The article was becoming bloated and out-of-date. My first decision was to shorten the header as much as possible. I then pruned most of the repetitive information, updated the rest, and did a quick reorganization based on Wikipedia's guidelines.

Much work remains to be done, especially in the "Operation" section. If you disagree with some of my choices, feel free to edit; but please don't do massive reverts without explanation. Thanks XHQBo (talk) 09:53, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do Not Remove Referenced Edits Without Discussion![edit]

Please do not remove edits that are sourced. If you are challenging the source, please start the discussion here first. Do not remove it just because it doesn't show the project in good light. Wikipedia is not a crypto marketing platform. If it is a fact that is materially relevant to the topic at hand, it is included in the article whether it is viewed favorably by the people with a vested interest/conflict of interest or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btcgeek (talk • contribs) 19:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References need to be cleaned up[edit]

Most of the references on the page are from reddit/stackoverflow. The article needs to cite authoritative references. See Wikipedia Citations for more information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btcgeek (talk • contribs) 19:43, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Woo[edit]

This page has been heavily by a bunch of accounts that are obviously involved with Augur and do not understand WP. Augur's website, blog, white paper, and medium postings are not OK sources in Wikipedia. This page is not an extension of Augur's web presence, per WP:PROMO. We need independent, secondary sources by people who are authoritative in the field. If we don't have such sources to support X then we don't say X. Wikipedia is not great for cutting edge stuff like this - WP is a lagging indicator of notability. Do not expect it to cover fine details that are only discussed in blogs and reddit and whitepapers. Jytdog (talk) 07:31, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs updating[edit]

Lots of outdated information. Vitalik Buterin is no longer an advisor, the co-founders list is incomplete, the co-founders don't work full time at Augur anymore. The references for the team are all from 2015 and information is outdated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btcgeek (talk • contribs) 16:29, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that the world of crytocurrencies is fast-changing but the general problem on these articles is overwhelming pressure to add hype, too much detail, and trivial "updates" when anybody involved farts (see WP:FART). We have to focus on what is of enduring importance. It is still important that Buterin was a founding advisor, for example. Nothing in WP is ever perfect and there is nothing especially terrible about this page that it needs a big flag on it. If you want "update" it please do but please keep the focus on what is of enduring importance. Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The hype part is why it doesn't make sense to add Vitalik as an advisor, for example. The 'advisor' role is too ill-defined, and is used for false promotion of projects - that's a known problem in the cryptocurrency space. I don't like using WP for this purpose of listing advisors and creating the false sense of promotion. I'll leave it to your judgement, but consider updating the facts. The article doesn't even make it clear that you're talking about 'founding advisors' as distinct from 'current advisors' either. Btcgeek (talk) 19:32, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"We're talking". Not "you're talking". Not my article. Our article. Our policies and guidelines and mission. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point, will make the basic edits at least, and wait for the major changes when there are better references. Btcgeek (talk) 22:12, 11 May 2018 (UTC) Ah you made the change regarding making it clear that was the 'founding advisors', great thanks!Btcgeek (talk) 22:14, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the Augur team, so I won't make any changes to the WP page. (I apologize for previously breaking this rule; I should have read WP's contribution guidelines more thoroughly beforehand.) However, I want to point out that Vitalik Buterin, Robin Hanson, and Ron Bernstein continue to be our advisors. (The term "advisor" here is meant in the genuine sense of "people that give us advice" -- we ask Ron, in particular, for advice very regularly.) I'm not quite sure what kind of reference would be appropriate to substantiate this claim -- "person X is still advising Augur" isn't really something that would be in the news -- but it is true.Tinybike (talk) 17:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I missed this comment earlier, my apologies. It's been a while, but the use of prominent advisors to hype up projects in the crypto space is very real and something WP needs to be aware of (and all of us as editors). Unfortunately, what you're saying cannot be independently verified with legitimate references unless you point me to a New York Times article or something that says Vitalik Buterin, Robin Hanson, and Ron Bernstein are advisors. If these people are genuinely giving you advice, great for you, but it isn't something that belongs to an encyclopedia. Not everything that is true about a project needs to be in its encyclopedia entry, and there's a very good reason WP has rules around this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btcgeek (talk • contribs) 03:29, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notability?[edit]

According to dappradar, Augur had about 260 daily active users at its peak and about 70 daily active users now. Is that really notable? It's miniscule! Is there something I'm missing? 32.209.9.84 (talk) 15:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I am also not convinced of this article subjects notability. --Discott (talk) 14:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It has better coverage than most cryptocurrencies, which is what matters in determining notability. Sources that can be added include this Wired article from 2017 and several after it's launch in July such as Newsweek, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review, and The Economist. Morgan Ginsberg (talk) 05:24, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, it has the RSes - including ones talking about its low userbase. It's something people may have heard of - David Gerard (talk) 12:52, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
clearly notable per above. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As others have pointed out, the project seems clearly notable. Over time, it might make sense to discuss low usage numbers on the main article, but in my opinion, it is too early to make that decision (knowing how WP is a lagging indicator and that's ok) as of now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btcgeek (talk • contribs) 03:30, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Extended additions need RSes[edit]

Rather than trying to add an extended WP:BROCHURE for Augur sourced to crypto sites and primary sources, all of these additions need actual WP:RS sourcing - not crypto sites, not promotional material from the project itself. Do we have actual mainstream third-party coverage of Augur to base this on? - David Gerard (talk) 15:24, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reversion of recent long addition[edit]

I reverted the lengthy addition because it had literally one cite for the whole thing, and that cite doesn't even mention the article topic, Augur (I looked up the referenced paper). We already have a Prediction market article for the general overview of how the concept works - David Gerard (talk) 14:11, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Augur (software) revert: extensive unsourced rambling[edit]

cc David Gerard

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Augur_(software)&diff=926578276&oldid=926567057 This revert reverted 5 different change sets, from 2 different editors. I believe all 5 reverts were inappropriate and I would like to open dialog on this topic with you on this subject since it appears that you have been reverting every edit by people who try to improve this page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Augur_(software)&diff=926567057&oldid=926565951 This change was merely a rewording for clarity. Originally the text indicated that Forecast Foundation was separate from its leadership, and the edit corrected the text to make it clear that the software is being developed by Forecast Foundation and the two mentioned people are the founders of that foundation. This information is public knowledge, and available on the incorperation documents for Forecast Foundation in Estonia. I believe this document was not included as a citation because such inclusions are generally not part of a normal Wikipedia article on a business, product, platform, etc. For an example of a mention of a founder without citation to incorperation documents, see Microsoft.

If it is desired, I believe the incorperation documents can be linked to directly from an Estonian government website (but again, this is out of line with standard Wikipedia practice)..

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Augur_(software)&diff=926565951&oldid=926563085 This change I don't fully agree with, but certainly not for the reasons given in the reversion. I believe the correct text here should be `Forecast Foundation OU` and the board of directors left out. It certainly isn't "unsourced rambling".

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Augur_(software)&diff=926562036&oldid=926509418 This change includes a source, from an article published in a well known and reputable journal, by a nobel prize winning author that describes prediction markets and their use in depth. This source strongly supports the opening sentence.

The purpose of including this section is to give the reader a very brief primer into prediction markets as they relate to Augur. This information is critical in understanding how Augur works on a mechanism design/game theory level. The description provided is a very high level overview of how the system works, fit for human consumption. For comparison, most Game Theory articles on Wikipedia do not include citations in the descriptive section of their mechanism design because they are a humanized description of what is essentially a logic problem (no room for debate). They usually open with a source that goes into depth on the concept (as this article does) and then proceed to give a high level humanized overview of the topic. See Chicken_(game) for an example.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources#WP:WHYCITE, "sources are required for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". Since the code for Augur is publicly available and executing in a public execution environment (Ethereum), there is no grounds for challenging the description beyond corrective edits. If it would help, a link to the source code on GitHub could be included, or a link to the verified source code that is currently executing on the Ethereum blockchain (which is a well known public execution environment) could be included (which matches what is on GitHub).

For a comparison, the Superbowl page does not include citations for the final score of the game, because the game results are considered public knowledge and not likely to be challenged outside of trolling. This is true throughout wikipedia, where public knowledge of definitive facts (not research or theory) is largely un-cited. It is worth noting that no claims about human behavior are made in this paragraph aside from the opening statement which includes a very valid citation. The rest is just a process description.

I'll not comment on the remaining 2 edits for now, as I suspect any debate will likely be the same as the debate around the above edits and I would prefer to keep the conversation focused.

Discussion[edit]

On the topic of sources, there are numerous sources that describe the mechanism design of Augur in more detail than in the reverted edits, including http://www.augur.net/whitepaper.pdf, https://augur.guide/ and a number of other blogs and such. However, based on your reversion history, I suspect that these sources would not be acceptable to you, so I haven't mentioned them above. Reverting this article based on lack of sources, and then proceeding to disallow any sources from within the ecosystem that this product lives feels simply like a blanket ban on Wikipedia articles describing blockchain projects. I am aware of the extended authority given to administrators over blockchain related projects, but this authority does NOT extend to blanket censorship against all blockchain related projects, which in effect is what is being exercised here.

As shown above, these edits align with standard Wikipedia practices for describing mechanism designs and I believe warrant a much more in depth critique than what was provided in the reversion comment.

Opinion[edit]

Calling text that someone took time to research, author, and proof read, "extensive unsourced rambling" is a pretty hostile and empty statement. I would like to see Wikipedia administrators hold themselves to a higher standard when providing reasons for mass reverts like this.

Micah71381 (talk) 03:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest: come back with writing that is closely sourced to mainstream RSes - not to primary sources, and not to crypto sites. And particularly not with adding a long section that's sourced only to a single paper, that literally has nothing to do with Augur - David Gerard (talk) 08:38, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
David Gerard I would really appreciate it if you address the comments I made above rather than saying the same thing you have said over and over again. I want to have Wikipedia provide useful and reliable information on this page and numerous people have tried to satisfy your requirements but every time you just do a full page revert with the same comment. This sort of insta-revert with no targeted feedback is not conducive to constructing a useful Wikipedia article. In order to get a useful article, more targeted feedback is necessary since many people are trying to write a good article and you just keep reverting with the same reason, despite each author trying a different approach/technique.
It is also worth noting that your requirements do not align with Wikipedia standard practice. If you take a look at the article on Windows 10, for example, it has a lot of sources cited that are `microsoft.com`. This is acceptable because they are references to announcements made by Microsoft, descriptions of their products, etc. Non-Microsoft sites are cited when there is a discussion of opinion, or statistics where an external party doing the data collection is likely to be more unbiased that Microsoft. For just about every site on Wikipedia, when describing a product, process, etc. the primary source is preferred (in practice) over a third party source that just parrots what the original source has stated. For example, when a company publishes a press release, the press release is cited, not a news site that just linked to the press release and gave an opinion article about it, unless the opinion is what is being referenced on Wikipedia.
Along with it being acceptable in practice for Wikipedia articles to use primary sources, the Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works page also explicitly states:
A self-published work may be used as a source when the statement concerns the source itself. For example, for the statement "The organization purchased full-page advertisements in major newspapers advocating gun control," the advertisement(s) in question could be cited as sources, even though advertisements are self-published.
It further has an example of:
Acceptable: The website for a company to support claims about itself or its employees.
In the case of some of the edits to this page, claims are being made about the product the company offers, thus a self-published source is an acceptable citation by Wikipedia standards. For example, http://www.augur.net/whitepaper.pdf is a self published source where Forecast Foundation makes claims describing the Augur platform that they are building. This passes muster for using it as a primary source per the Wikipedia guidelines.
If I was making a claim like, "Augur's token value is expected to go up" or "Augur is the most popular blockchain application" I would fully agree with you that a third party reputible source is required. However, the content that is being proposed is merely a description of what Augur is, so someone searching the internet for it can understand that, just like someone searching for "Windows 10" or "American Football" would find a description of these things on Wikipedia. You will note that most of the citations for the description of Windows 10 and American Football are "primary sources".
As you know, crypto articles are under harsh sanctions - because crypto articles were getting filled with reams of precisely this sort of primary-sourced nonsense. So WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, apart from being a broadly disrespected argument in general, wouldn't be directly comparable even if it weren't a broadly disrespected argument.
Please bring strong sources, rather than making excuses for weak sources - David Gerard (talk) 09:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Previous edits that you reverted did bring strong primary sources including Bloomberg, Forbes, Fox News, Yahoo Finance, The Economist, Fortune and MIT Tech Review. You reverted it with "too much added content from non-RSes - need non-crypto sources". This wasn't a targeted reversion, it was a blanket deletion of a lot of content, much of which had sources that are considered "reliable" by Wikipedia's standards.
As to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, I also cited Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works. If you disagree with the rules on using self-published works then you should take that up with the broader Wikipedia administration staff rather than reverting all edits that contain self-published works because you don't like them.
David Gerard I'm sure you are aware that the only "journalism" that is done by mainstream media about blockchain projects is just talk about price movements, there is very little actual journalism about the projects themselves. Thus, the "no crypto sources" + "no self-published" + "no primary sources" + "no original content", when upheld strictly, result in "no meaningful content". If you believe the purpose of this intersection of rules is to have no meaningful Wikipedia content related to blockchain projects, then I do not think we are going to see eye to eye and arbitration will be necessary.
Are you of the opinion that this article should not be updated to provide information about the Augur platform to Wikipedia users, and is your intent here to use technicalities and your superior Wikipedia editing knowledge to bully editors into keeping the page devoid of all useful content (this is the vibe I'm getting from your edit history, both here and on a number of other blockchain related sites)? If so, then I can save us both a lot of time and skip to escalating this issue to the broader Wikipedia administration community. If you think that there is value in updating the content on this page and you believe there is a reasonable path to doing that, then I would like to continue this discussion and see if we can find some common ground that would allow us to fill out this page with useful content for end-users.
Micah71381 (talk) 09:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
there is very little actual journalism about the projects themselves. This is a symptom of not actually being very noteworthy. If we don't have third-party reliable sources, we don't have the material for an article. This is policy - David Gerard (talk) 11:25, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it is a symptom of the broader state of sensationalist journalism, and how the media ecosystem works, rather than a symptom of noteworthiness. It is sensational to post a news article about Bitcoin price spikes and crashes (despite this not actually being noteworthy IMO), but it is not sensational to post a news article about some new novel mechanism design or cryptographic technique. This is (IMO) why the blockchain space has its own network of news outlets, because mainstream media is largely not interested in non-sensational pieces or articles that don't target mass market. This situation is incredibly common. There is a niche market for non-sensational manufacturing tech news (e.g., engineering.com), or construction news, or anything else that isn't mass market. Wikipedia often reference these niche news sources extensively, because mainstream media doesn't report on the vast majority of that content (just like they don't report on the vast majority of Blockchain news). This doesn't mean construction technology advances aren't noteworthy, it just means that it isn't mainstream or sensational.
If I understand your reply correctly, it sounds like you do not believe that this page is worthy of having meaningful content, so unless you have additional feedback/input, it is probably time to escalate this issue to arbitration. Micah71381 (talk) 11:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
David Gerard You have mentioned many times that no crypto blogs, news sites, journals, etc. are considered "reliable sources" by Wikipedia standards. Can you please provide me a link to where I can read up on this? I tried looking through Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources, but wasn't able to find anything indicating that this is Wikipedia policy. I suspect I'm just searching for the wrong term or overlooking it, so a deep link and/or quote to search for would be valuable.
WP:RSP categorises Coindesk as "generally unreliable"; the linked discussions concerning Coinbase detail the problems with crypto sites, note that it's the best of the crypto sites, all the others are actually worse and many are literally pay for play - David Gerard (talk) 14:36, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that "there was discussion about CoinDesk and in it some people claimed that all crypto sites are bad" constitutes open season on removing all references to all crypto trade sites. Even CoinDesk is listed as "Generally unreliable" with specifics on when it should not be used (it is not blacklisted). Further, the discussion about CoinDesk has a summary that states "[...] consensus that it should generally be avoided as a source when possible." This suggests to me that when it is the _only_ source available, it would be acceptable (assuming there isn't reason to believe a particular article is unreliable).
In short, I believe your insta-reversion of all crypto sites as non-reliable sources is not in alignment with Wikipedia policy on reliable sources. I do not believe that it is up to an individual user (administrator or not) to decide what sites are unreliable, there is a well defined process for that which is the Reliable Sources page. Currently, there is no established concensus that "all crypto sites are 'Blacklisted'" on the RS page (nor child pages), which is how you are treating them. Micah71381 (talk) 14:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of claim that CFTC is investigating Augur.[edit]

In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Augur_(software)&oldid=928227753 I removed the claim that Augur is under investigation by the CFTC. Since the site is behind a paywall, I have included the section from it that references the CFTC here: 

Yet there are potential issues looming for Augur. First, at least two contracts allowing users to bet on whether U.S. President Donald Trump will be killed in July or the rest of 2018 are listed on the site. Second, creating a way to bet on the value of goods in the future is basically the definition of a type of derivative known as a binary option, yet Augur hasn’t sought approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to list such contracts.

The CFTC has noted the resemblance of the Augur contracts to binary options, which fall under its jurisdiction, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. As Augur is open to use by U.S. residents such as retail investors, it may be running afoul of the Commodity Exchange Act and the law’s requirement that such services be registered as designated contract markets, the person said.

"While I won’t comment on the business model of any specific company, I can say generally that offering or facilitating a product or activity by way of releasing code onto a blockchain does not absolve any entity or individual from complying with pertinent laws or CFTC regulations," Erica Elliott Richardson, a CFTC spokeswoman, said in an emailed reply to questions.

The CFTC has some history with prediction markets. In 2012, the agency sued the owner of the website Intrade, which had promised in 2005 to not offer options contracts on the future price of gold, crude oil and U.S. economic data. In 2015, a judge barred the firm from offering the contracts in the U.S.

I suspect this is the line that the citation was referring to: "The CFTC noted the reseblance of Augur contracts to binary options [...] according to a person familiar with the matter" or potentially this one: "I can say generally that offering or facilitating a product or activity by way of releasing code onto a blockchain does not absolve any entity or individual from complying with pertinent laws or CFTC regulations".

Neither of these statements back up the claim that "the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was investigating whether Augur was selling binary options without registering them". I don't believe there has been any publicly announced investigation of Augur by the CFTC, so I don't believe this statement can be recovered through alternative sources.

I've restored it, as it's one of the actual RS mentions of Augur, and CFTC investigations can take a long time - David Gerard (talk) 18:28, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source is fine, the problem is the statement on Wikipedia is WP:ORIGINAL. The article never says that that Augur is under investigation by the CFTC. Micah Zoltu (talk) 18:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

$2M in betting on a single market and first dapp to make headlines.[edit]

I have added a couple of quotes from mainstream media that shed a slightly more positive light on the project than the current set of mainstream media quotes do. This is primarily to try to restore the neutrality of this page, since the current set of quotes from mainstream media are heavily skewed toward the negative.

I would like to state for the record that I'm not personally a fan of this style of Wikipedia page. I think Wikipedia should focus on describing what a thing is, or how a thing works, rather than quoting sensational quotes from mainstream news sites. Wikipedia's articles on mechanism design, game theory, engineering, sciences, etc. tend to be of a much higher quality and I would like to see this page align closer to them, focusing more on the mechanism design of the project and its novel solutions to specific problems, rather than sensationalist blather from mainstream media sources.

However, until the above dispute is resolved, it would seem that we are stuck with sensationalist quotes as the only acceptable content for this article and I would at least like the quotes to be a balance of good and bad so the article at least can pretend to be neutral while we await dispute resolution.

My hope is that we can leave the page in this state (some negative quotes, some positive quotes) until the disputes are resolved rather than getting into an edit war where each side tries to find as much positive/negative sensationalist quotes they can to add to the page. Alternatively, I would love to figure out a way we can get this page to align more with science/engineering articles and then we could remove all sensationalist quotes (or perhaps relegate them to some footer section of the page).

The job is to present the available sources, not to put the subject in a particular light. If the sources don't support the view you want, then you don't strip them out. Please review WP:NPOV, particularly the section on false balance - David Gerard (talk) 18:28, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Help Improving this Article[edit]

Augur is a launched platform that is 100% open source and currently executing in a decentralized and public execution environment. This should make passing WP:VERIFY very easy. The platform has some novel solutions to problems (which may or may not end up working out) and I believe it is worth of documenting what Augur is and how Augur works on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, every time someone tries to flesh out this article with anything more than MSM quotes (none of which describe how Augur works, and all of which have pretty sparse descriptions of what Augur is) it is rejected for not using reliable sources or for using primary sources. I would like get the content of this page to read more like an encyclopedia where it describes what Augur is and how Augur works.

David Gerard and Jytdog: as the primary people reverting suggested edits to this page, I would like to seek your help in getting this article to encyclopedic standards. I, and others, have tried multiple times to add meaningful content to this page but we just can't seem to get it right. At this point, I think it would be very valuable to everyone (both Wikipedia readers and editors) if you would help us flesh out this article with a good description of what Augur is and how Augur works so users who come to Wikipedia looking for details can gain an understanding of the project.

If you are unfamiliar with the project or how it works I can help you understand it better.

Find mainstream third-party RSes, not crypto sites or primary sources, and we'll have material to be going on with. That will tend to stay in the article. Do you have any connections to Augur, or do you hold any REP tokens? - David Gerard (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • We (all of the people who have tried to edit this page) have all been trying to do just that. I think we (you and I) are at an impasse and proceeding is likely to require an uninvolved third party. I believe that what you are driving at is "do you have a WP:COI". The answer to that is "I have less of a WP:COI than you" (given your book that is still available for purchase). I did some contracting work for Forecast Foundation a couple years ago, and I have liked the project ever since. My stake here is that I think the project is cool and I believe that the current article here on Wikipedia is incredibly bad for an encyclopedic entry (it is just MSM quotable quotes, not a description of what Augur is or how Augur works). Micah Zoltu (talk) 19:13, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Then you are required (by WMF Terms of Use) to state your COI before editing the article - please take care on this point before editing on other crypto articles. I've noted your present COI at the top of this page, per WP:DCOI.
  • Please note in particular the notice at the top: "Individuals with a conflict of interest, particularly those representing the subject of the article, are strongly advised not to directly edit the article."
  • Please don't indulge in personal attacks - if you believe I am editing with a COI, take it to WP:COIN, or don't make claims about other editors that you can't or won't back up - David Gerard (talk) 19:23, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I believe both of us are struggling with WP:GOODFAITH so I propose we try to avoid direct or indirect actions w.r.t. each other outside of any administration proceedings for a while. I have removed the COI notice on this talk page that you added about me. I don't believe that me having contracted briefly for a company years ago counts as "personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article", definitely no more than someone who has a published book currently on the market that advocates against blockchains/crypto-currencies is. Rather than me adding you to the list, then us getting into a revert war over it, I think it would be best if someone who is wholly uninvolved with blockchains and crypto-currencies add one or both of us if they believe that is reasonable. If WP:COIN is the right way to get an outside person involved to do that then I recommend you pursue that.
I think it would be best if someone who is wholly uninvolved with blockchains and crypto-currencies add one or both of us if they believe that is reasonable.
Okay, done. --Calton | Talk 23:13, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Calton I believe it is pretty obvious (to anyone who looks) that you are involved with both David and I. Maybe it is best if someone files a WP:COIN if they believe it is necessary. I'm really struggling with WP:GOODFAITH right now and I think following proper procedure for this type of disagreement would really help establish the legitimacy of the claim.
You're the one making the claim about me, so file at WP:COIN or withdraw the claim. You literally stated your conflict of interest, and really really should not be removing it at all - David Gerard (talk) 23:43, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it is pretty obvious (to anyone who looks) that you are involved with both David and I'
I believe it's obvious that you are abusing the meaning of "obvious" and that your empty claim doesn't automagically become true merely because you glue the word "obvious" to it. I believe your statement I think it would be best if someone who is wholly uninvolved with blockchains and crypto-currencies add one or both of us if they believe that is reasonable is utterly meaningless, as I did exactly what you suggested and yet you moved the goalposts. I believe that it is, in fact, ACTUALLY obvious that you have a COI here and your name should be added to the list, and I will do so immediately after posting this . I also know -- not believe, know -- that you are running around different parts of Wikipedia trying to get editors to blindly support you, using evidence-free and content-free claims based on faulty and self-serving interpretations of Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
You're headed for a permanent block: that's not a threat, that's a prediction based on your current path. --Calton | Talk 00:55, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For those removing the COI note on User:MicahZoltu - (a) a quick Googling will show that someone of that name is still at work on the project (b) that is the person User:MicahZoltu claims to be above. Either User:MicahZoltu is that guy, or they're impersonating him - David Gerard (talk) 17:16, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I just got oversighted on this page for linking to a 1-month-old whitepaper with his name on it, so I trust the outing detector is not going to go off on you now :/ --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:22, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I'm not claiming they're the same person - I'm saying User:MicahZoltu has strongly implied that they are - David Gerard (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of additional sources that might be useful[edit]

During the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Augur (software) a number of sources were cited that are not used in the article. In particular there was a long list of academic publications that would not be immediately discoverable by casual googling. I urge any editor trying to improve this article to follow the link and use some of those sources. Just posting here, as someone new to the page may not think to read the AfD discussion (assuming it concludes keep, as seems likely at the time of writing). Rhanbury (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Past tense[edit]

I modified article back to current tense. There is no source claiming that Augur is not still being developed or that it does not exist anymore. The github also shows that there is current development being done Cifoxs (talk) 16:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is plenty of evidence that this market may not exist anymore. The only numbers we see are that there were a few hundred trades when the market opened and then "poof" - nothing. Essentially everything since the market opened says that the continued existence of the market is very questionable. The promoters of this market justify its existence by saying "the market is not necessarily illegal."[3]
MIT writes "In the US, prediction markets are generally not permitted. Federal and state laws prohibit online gambling, and “in many ways the line between prediction markets and gambling is not that clear,” says Aaron Wright, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Further, some Augur contracts allow users to bet on the future value of something, such as Ether cryptocurrency. That sounds a lot like a type of investment called a binary option, which is unlawful to list without approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In 2012, the CFTC sued Intrade, an Ireland-based prediction market, accusing it of permitting US users to trade binary options, and eventually a judge blocked Intrade from offering the contracts in the US.
Sure enough, Augur already has the CFTC’s attention."
The Economist states "But legal barriers have long hampered such attempts at crowdsourcing. In America many prediction markets are considered a form of illegal gambling, or akin to trading in commodities futures that requires a licence. Regulators have allowed such services to operate if they are structured as non-profit “research” initiatives and limit bet sizes and numbers of traders, as IEM and PredictIt do. But because of the legal risk, private investors are reluctant to finance prediction markets. Intrade, an Irish site, shut in 2013, partly because the Commodity Futures Trading Commission forced it to stop serving Americans."
And that's the last we've heard. It's likely illegal and might be closed. A year and 4 months later, we haven't heard anything from a reliable source. At this point it is up to those who say it exists to show that it exists. Wikipedia is not a WP:Crystal Ball. We're misleading our readers if we write as if we know that the market still exists.
I'm switching the lede back to "is or was" and everything that is cited from the past should be in the past tense. If you can't give a reason to believe the market might still be open, you can't tell our readers that it is open. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:32, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Are you seriously claiming that Augur does not exist because "we haven't heard anything from a reliable source". I know "reliable sources" are held in high regard, but let's not confuse what they are aware of with what actually exists. I don't think a reliable source has ever mentioned the existence of Vim_(text_editor) either, but nobody goes around asking whether it exists. If Augur no longer existed people wouldn't be talking about it as if it were around, there wouldn't be $400k in active bets, and there wouldn't new changes on their github as of four hours ago. Or are you suggesting that its all some elaborate conspiracy and people are just pretending it exists? 23.241.127.109 (talk) 04:34, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Augur (Software), the software still exists even thought there are no users. I don't know what the illegality has to do wether something exists or not? You are free to add the illegality discussion to the page.

While you did your revert, you also blanked reverted a lot other stuff. Could you add it back? Thank you Cifoxs (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please move to present tense. We see no evidence in WP:RS that it has died. Editor's WP:OR is not sufficient to say it is or not dead. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:01, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A shambling zombie[edit]

This isn't an RS - I think we're unlikely to see an RS cover Augur ever again, except perhaps an academic mop-up article or something - but here's Augur's listing on DappRadar. That's low volume on the market, even compared to a near-dead altcoin. It could shamble along at this level approximately forever.

The REP token itself is seeing more action, and even given that volumes on coinmarketcap can be assumed to be grossly exaggerated, it's got more volume than most dead altcoins - but it's being traded just as speculation on an altcoin, with no interest beyond that.

So on the question of alive, dead or undead ... I mean, it's not technically dead - David Gerard (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this quite subjective thinking? Cifoxs (talk) 19:43, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(EC)The phrase in the section above "This article is about Augur (Software), the software still exists even thought there are no users" says it all. It's an interesting question "does software exist if nobody uses it?" akin to "If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, did the tree really fall?" What's really odd is that people started a market, and wrote software to support that market. Then they wrote an article about the software, not the market, and are now claiming that the topic is notable because the software exits, even though nobody uses it - the market is dead. The support token may be trading occasionally, but the market itself is dead and the software isn't used or needed. The logic supporting this article is even deader. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:50, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We dont delete articles just because the subject is dead, see Webvan and eToys.com. This link [1] says there are a few active markets (aka users) and money at stake, clearly not a lot of action, but also evidence it is not dead either. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 13:45, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very much not saying this in terms of what to use in the article! But it's not dead ... technically. One of those projects that just fades away, and no RS ever quite gets around to writing its obituary - David Gerard (talk) 20:37, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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