Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Base58

References

IETF draft standard, many books. Might be worth revisiting this.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: there are thousands of draft IETF standards, all it requires is a connection at the IETF, right? Why would that mean it passes GNG? --Ysangkok (talk) 16:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

It wouldn't by itself. It is part only of a picture. It is more than a detail of Bitcoin implementation, and it is more than just "base 58", where we don't care what symbols are used for digits - it's not even base 58 with the standard allocation of symbols. The symbol set is designed to avoid ambiguity and more specifically mis-transcription.

So most of the comments trivialising the concept are misguided.

Secondly the claim that it appears in one and only one book is false. I do not have access to most of these works, but there are a significant number of both books and papers. Of those that are open access, this discusses Base58 and Base58Check using the term 30 times, for example. Even reliable websites such as Sophos[1] cover the algorithm and encoding.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: I have a few issues with that academic article you linked.

1. Half-way sensical sentences like "the advantages of a bitcoin are defined as a digital signature chain". Ok, what is the advantage here? Is it an advantage simply being a "chain"? It looks like something a Markov chain would generate.
2. "To get the bitcoin address, you can get it easily with your public key in the network you use for that address" What is the useful information you can extract from this sentence? The address can be derived from the public key? How can I not be suspicious when they put unrelated terms like "network" into the sentence? You can hash a public key without ever having a network.
3. "This paper describes the hash function SHA-256 uses 6 logical functions". 6 logical functions? Is this the most important property of SHA-256? Is it something we mention on our SHA-256 article? No, it is something you put in your article when you don't know what are in fact the important properties of SHA-256, but you gotta write something.
4. Loads of orthographic errors. I know they are Indonesian, but even spell checkers would have caught things like "mei 2013".
5. Notice how they don't mention RIPEMD-160. Maybe they thought that since SHA-256 was used, no other hash algorithm could possibly be used? Don't you think it is an interesting omission?

So did you not read this article yourself before sending it to me? What's the purpose of linking this to me? Do you want a Wikipedia with citations like this? You seriously think this article is a great proof that Base58 is notable, because it uses the term a few dozen times? --Ysangkok (talk) 22:34, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Straw man argument. I am aware, more than most, of the shortcomings of many published media. The point I am making is that there are a sigificant number of books and papers that discuss the term. I found these by simply clicking the Google books and Google scholar links.

It doesn't follow that either the concept meets GNG nor that we need an article on it, even if it does. It's simply that the reasoning in the deletion debate is based on flawed premises, both in terms of not being aware that there is a body of work which discusses the subject, and in understanding the nature of the subject itself.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 23:53, 16 July 2020 (UTC).