I see that your website has a link to http://stani.sh/pratyeka, which is the same username as "Pratyeka" who created this 529 byte stub for bitcoin on 8 March 2009:
Bitcoin is an open source peer-to-peer electronic cash system developed by Satoshi Nakamoto that's completely P2P|decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties. Users hold the cryptography|crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the network to check for double-spending.
But the stub article did not meet wikipedia's standards as it lacked references to 3rd party sources, so was marked for deletion July ~10, 2010 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342.0 and officially deleted July ~31, 2010 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=652.0 and was only restored after the bitcoin community rewrote it fully in a manner deemed sufficient by the wikipedia community.
Yes! Creation in the context of Wikipedia clearly means creation. FYI your research missed the fact that I was a part of the argument for undeleting / saving it from deletion twice, IIRC.
Yes, so what? So were many others. But you don't see everybody who created a wikipedia article make ego-boosting comments on HN whenever their article is mentioned. Nor do you see everyone involved in nurturing bitcoin comment on HN whenever bitcoin is mentioned.
Honestly, the reason I did research was I was hoping you were one of the cool people I used to chat with on the early days of bitcoin forums. I was curious to read your early comments and eager to ask you about your experience or how you first came across bitcoin. But all I found by searching for you username on bitcointalk was someone else's post "Paying homage to Pratyeka of Wikipedia for Bitcoin's inclusion." https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99437.0 featuring this bravado quote from your wikipedia profile of "particular contributions that your proud of":
"I argued bitterly for the restoration of the Bitcoin article from the evil hands of the deletionists, and have since been vindicated in my judgement as Bitcoin's rise to prominence has continued."
Your quote sounds like it is from a Middle Earth fantasy epic, and is just asking to be signed something like:
"-First Knight Pratyeka 'The Clairvoyant' of Wikipedia, The Creator of the Bitcoin Article, and The Protector of the defenseless Bitcoin community from the Void of Obscurity, The Hero entrusted with the Power of Wiki-Influence who rose during The Challenging Times and singlehandedly defeated the onslaught of The Deletionists."
I'm exaggerating, deliberately to give you an idea of what impression your comment and wiki profile imparts on others. I know many of us all like to speak like that on the internet in good humor, but after I combined your wiki profile quote with your HN comment, the picture of you in my head was another internet personality with a little too much ego that needs to be dampened. I'm imagining that in real life when you overhear strangers in public talk about bitcoin, you approach them to tell them that you created the bitcoin article.
Your comment feels just like the cliché first comment phenomenon that typical on sites like youtube. It offers nothing of substance or insight itself. Yes, everyone knows about the butterfly effect and how little things do make a difference. But this means every little bitcoin transaction, every little bitcoin bug report, every little bitcoin commit, every time someone explained bitcoin to their friends, everybody who made a bitcoin for ______ service, and every little anonymous wiki edit deserves some bit of credit for bitcoin's rise. And the blunt reality is that the reason the wikipedia article was reinstated was because these little interactions gradually increased the market price, causing more news sites started taking notice, so there were more 3rd party sources which is precisely what the article needed to survive. That was due to everyone's little contributions. And regarding your initial "creation", had you not made the initial stub, someone else would have made it a couple weeks later.
The good feeling of advancing human knowledge and understanding by creating and editing Wikipedia articles should be the reward itself. Posting on internet forums that you were the "first" just seems like your seeking attention or praise. And even worse, as another commentator kiro said earlier, your comment sounds like you take credit for the whole Wikipedia Bitcoin article. Regardless of the truth that factually and technically you did indeed "create" the initial stub, did a few edits, and argued to keep the article up, a humbler comment that offered insight wouldn't have provoked such a strong negative reaction.
Regardless, I am appreciative of Wikipedians like you for contributing and defending against The Deletionists.
Yes. I stopped contributing to the article because it turned in to this sort of thing, and had achieved my immediate purpose of making it exist and stay existing. I suggest you also learn to manage your time, as your posts while impressive and reasonable do not represent a healthy degree of interest to display in a passing piece of minutiae. Sarcasm can be hard to pick up, but at least you got the RPG/fantasy reference. :)
It is not minutiae when someone phrases their posts in a manner that may imply they're taking credit for other people's work.
I didn't mind spending a few minutes because I respect all wikipedians who created and maintained the bitcoin article.
I wanted to help you understand, but now see it is futile. I would hope that the Wikipedia personality whose name is the abbreviation of the enlightened Pratyekabuddha ("a lone buddha", "a buddha on their own" or "a private buddha" [1]) would understand, but apparently I am talking to the personality "contingencies".
On wikipedia, people write the initial articles and then watch them. Most authors are watching hundreds of articles that they "own" and usually swoop in to undo any bad changes. It has it's good sides but it also is like the feudal system where all of these writers are kings of their domain.
I added additional helpful information and photos to an article local to my area about a coal mine explosion that happened in the early 20th century. The original author came back and undid all of my changes because he was the "original author" which somehow gave him permission to do that. I had to appease his ego so that he would allow me to make the changes (that or I could have challenged him publicly, which I really didn't want to do.)
I can't speak for this author on Bitcoins... just my experience on Wikipedia.
On Wikipedia, unless an article has been locked in some way which changes things, anyone can watch an article, and anyone can revert any changes (and is encouraged to do so if the changes don't meet Wikipedia guidelines.) There is nothing special about being the original article creator. The original article creator is perhaps particularly likely to be especially interested in the subject and the article, but has no special authority or power.
> What makes him more authoritarian to what goes into the article, technically speaking?
Nothing, in theory. In practice, if you edit, they revert, you edit again, and they revert again, that is then an "edit war" and they can have the page locked for a while. It takes effort to make a change that even one person really doesn't want you to make - if they keep it up, you eventually have to go through the bureaucracy.
