Talk:Peter Todd (programmer)

October 16, 2024: Age and Birthdate (header)

No notable source found - feel free to add. Light Jagami (talk) 05:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Note that this user was blocked as a sock puppet per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lustigermutiger21. Grayfell (talk) 21:45, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Notability

Right now, all of the sources for this article are about the 2024 doc Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery by Cullen Hoback. Todd is arguably a WP:BLP1E.

There is also this Verge article from 2019 about accusations of sexual assault. This is the only reliable source for this I have seen. Per a bunch of unreliable crypto sources, the accompanying defamation and SLAPP lawsuits were settled.

If this can be included in a way which satisfies WP:BLP and WP:NOTGOSSIP, it would go towards meeting notability guidelines. Is there any other reason he's notable? Otherwise, this could be more easily summarized at the Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery article. Grayfell (talk) 21:43, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Sexual misconduct

@Grayfell: The allegations are a matter of public record as seen in the report by The Verge (who covered it as part of the more high profile Jacob Applebaum case).The content that was added by me can be condensed but the case has indeed received much media coverage including after the Bitcoin documentary (e.g. [1], [2]) which should address any BLP issues. No mention of this would appear to an obvious ommission. Gotitbro (talk) 21:44, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Neither WP:FORBESCON nor WP:DAILYMAIL are reliable at all, and especially not for for BLP issues like this. I agree that it should be mentioned if it can be, but it needs to be handled much more carefully. I had previously tried to summarize it, and that was previously removed by another editor, so this should be discussed before being restored. Grayfell (talk) 21:48, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

@Grayfell: I know about Dailymail and Forbes/blogs being non-RS, that was only demonstrative of public interest in this aspect of the bio. I was skeptical of Cointelegraph but added it to provide a closure for the case (though primary scources are also available). The invovlement of Applebaum for the plaintiff here is also what raises the cases notability. A single para mention of the accusation, suit, Applebaum and settlement is perhaps how we should proceed. @Notwally: inviting for comments. Gotitbro (talk) 22:10, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Note: Cointelegraph is not on the RSP list (though I understand RS reservations here); we also have a Coindesk source ([3]) which was removed as a non-RS though again note that the RSP does not deprecate it and lists this cautionary advice for its reliability, "There is consensus that CoinDesk should not be used to establish notability for article topics, and that it should be avoided in favor of more mainstream sources. Check CoinDesk articles for conflict of interest disclosures, and verify whether their parent company at the time (previously Digital Currency Group, now Bullion) has an ownership stake in a company covered by CoinDesk." From this I gather it can be used for the settlement statement (not being user for establishing notability nor does there appear to be any financial interest of Bullion in the story). Gotitbro (talk) 22:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

WP:COINDESK is listed as "generally unreliable" (with a shortcut to WP:GUNREL and this symbol: ). If the best we can say about a source is that it's not technically deprecated, we should keep looking and find a better source. RSP is not definitive, so the lack of an entry for Cointelegraph doesn't mean it must be treated as a reliable source. Grayfell (talk) 05:58, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

@Grayfell: We have Peter's tweet as a primary source as well ([4]), then you have this article by David Gerard on his website ([5]) [Hi, David]. This is what I can find from a cursory online search beyond crypto websites (at least for the settlement part; as the Verge piece appears to cover the main allegations and counter-allegations). Gotitbro (talk) 07:55, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Todd can summarize this however he wishes. He is obviously not an impartial source, so I don't think his tweets are going to be super useful. If the only thing we're looking for is a source to say that both lawsuits were settle... none of these options seem great. Right now there is only one solidly reliable WP:IS for these lawsuits. Grayfell (talk) 08:29, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Then we can merely state that the defamation suit was settled and cite the primary court case itself. If there are no objections, I will move forward and add (in a very condensed form) the case, Applebaum links and settlement citing Verge and this. Gotitbro (talk) 12:23, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I understand why it might seem necessary, but I don't think the Applebaum case should be mentioned. Mentioning that someone else was accused of some other crime in some other situation is unnecessary and potentially gossipy. In order to explain these other incidents, we would need to add so much context and background that it would be an undue level of detail and exacerbate the BLP issues. I tried to accommodate Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Presumption in favor of privacy with my previous wording:

In 2019, Todd faced accusations of sexual misconduct. Todd denied the allegations and subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against the accuser.[Verge source] The lawsuit was settled in 2021.[CN template]

I'm not attached to the specifics, and I get that this makes it seem like it's not worth mentioning at all. Whatever the wording, it's okay to be boring and it's not okay to sensationalize.

The court document is only for Todd v. Lovecruft, but not for the SLAPP suit, unless I'm missing something. I could be missing something. I've seen these kinds of court documents be misinterpreted on Wikipedia more times than I can count. If the only thing this is being used for is to say that it's over, I don't object to that as a primary source. Grayfell (talk) 01:15, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Sources

There are quite a bit of sources on the subject, ongoing coverage relating to his participation in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency. Adding some sources here. I added some of this. Haven't added the allegations, as maybe that is controversial and being discussed above. I went ahead and removed the notability tag as it appears Todd has been the subject of a decade of coverage as related to his involvement in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The article subject is encyclopedic in that it wikilinks to many different other articles and shows the interrelation between these crypto characters.

• Todd was involved in the creation of Zcash along with Edward Snowden (the latter working under a pseudonym) by Forbes writer.
• Todd was one of the defendants in the Craig Wright lawsuit by The Guardian as well as the the next web.
• Todd received some press relating to suing someone for defamation relating to the 2017 rape allegations, according to The Verge.
• Todd was quoted in reference to some sort of puzzle being solved, by the BBC.
• Todd was quoted in relation to the controversy surrounding the Bitcoin scalability problem and SegWit, according to Gulf Times
• Associated with Dark Wallet Wired
• Against Gavin Andresen during the controversy Andresen faced. Often quoted in relation to Bitcoin topics, see MIT Technology Review

Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:04, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Todd is barely mentioned in the Forbes article, which makes this poor for notability.

Ditto for the Guardian.

As you say, see the above discussion for the Verge source, which includes a lot of a BLP issues.

Being quoted as a consultant is not encyclopedic noteworthy, so the BBC source is not very useful.

The Gulf Times one is syndicated from Bloomberg. That one is worth a closer look.

I have no idea what to do with the Wired source.

I guess maybe the MIT source could be cited at Gavin Andresen? Maybe?

Grayfell (talk) 08:13, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I dont see the point for deleting all hte content I added. The article might lack depth, but generally there is nothing wrong with any of those sources. Are we not using Verge sources? If you tag something for notability and then someone adds a bunch of sources (even if they are not steller) there is no reason to delete all the content unless you are seeking to delete the overall article. But that's not the normal approach, deletion should evaluate all the sources, even if some are passing mention. From my standpoint as a notable Bitcoin Core developer, a creator (or early dev at Dark Wallet) and a creator of Zcash, its pretty easy that this article is a keep based on some sort of odd crypto notability. Founder/creator/early notable dev for 3 notable other wiki articles is more than enough to establish notability. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:52, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I started a section above to explain the problem, and then you started a new section for some reason to list off a bunch of sources. I explained why most, but not all, of those sources are not good for the specific reason I tagged the article. I then removed some, but not all, of those sources from the article. The issue is notability, which is not a new thing and is not entirely subjective. I would suggest reviewing WP:GNG and WP:NBIO if you haven't yet. We should use sources to explain why something is significant, instead of just implying that it's significant based on our own 'standpoint'. For example, saying he was "associated" with Dark Wallet is almost meaningless. 'Dark Wallet' is just a redirect to a two sentence section at Cody Wilson. Having some ambiguous connection to some non-notable project doesn't appear to be worth mentioning at all.

The section above is a better place to talk about the Verge source. As I said, it's a BLP issue, so it's worth handling carefully. Grayfell (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

No, i created this section to work on overall article sourcing as you had tagged it for notability. Generally the tagger should create a discussion of the tag, and since you didn't, I created this talk page section. As you can see in this very section I omitted the discussion of the sexual claims, leaving that to the section above. I am aware of GNG and I dont need to review that to understand the process. We add sources to articles to reach GNG, and discuss notability in sections like this. If you tag an article for notability and then remove most (or nearly all?) the sources added to the article after you tag it, it doesnt look good. You removed the wikilinks and supporting sources to show the subject was connected with Dark Wallet and Zcash. Why do you think that is undue? Seems to me wikilinks and sources showing the article subject is known to be associated with other notable projects besides bitcoin is quite DUE and central to the notability of the subject (as you have above asserted that the subject is only notable for the Satoshi allegations, and these links directly refute your assertion as such showing the subject has been mentioned repeatedly in the press for his involvement in notable crypto projects for more than 10 years. I dont need to review GNG to make any of these points. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 02:15, 25 February 2025 (UTC)