tl;dr The Zcash Wikipedia article is woefully out of date. Let’s update it.
Zooko’s recent Medium article on the future of the dev fund does a fantastic job of summarizing some of the incredible Zcash accomplishments that should probably be included in the wiki article.
I plan on adding some information. It would be awesome to get community involvement as well. Wikipedia is often the first stop when researching a topic, and I don’t think the current iteration fairly summarizes Zcash or effectively distinguishes it from other cryptocurrencies. I will probably get started tomorrow; I’m a little too sleep deprived today for organized writing.
Topics I’m considering covering
Improve side bar summary (more comprehensive like on Bitcoin wiki page)
Background / version history (show off the development!)
Comparison to bitcoin, comparison to other privacy coins (mainly monero, maybe compare zcash governance?)
Economic data (current market cap, supply, average transaction volume, popularity on coinbase/gemini, etc…)
Reception (ie independent security audit info, Snowden support, other notable media articles)
I have also taken the time to update the Zcash Wikipedia page in the past, but you should know going in that it is aggressively managed. Pretty much all of my updates were removed within a week.
But hopefully you will have better luck than I had
The trick to not getting reversions on Wikipedia is to be very rigorous about sourcing. See here for information on what Wikipedia considers a reliable source:
In particular, the Zcash Protocol Specification would count as a primary source, and thus is in general not usable as a reference:
Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred.
Note that blog posts are largely disallowed as references, which AFAICT is why the majority of previous edits (that contained references) were reverted.
I appreciate the replies. I expect some resistance from current wiki editors. This is partly why I was hoping for some community involvement. A single person making multiple changes to an existing article can meet fierce resistance, even when the writing is in line with the tone and reference requirements of Wikipedia.
I’m going to start with the most basic, easily verifiable, and unimpeachable facts. I’ll tackle the sidebar first (bitcoin example below, contrast with zcash example in my original post). I don’t expect reversions to occur with simple things like that. I’ll be using the wiki talk page to annotate changes and will comment in this thread for more substantive changes. I’m sure the forum community can be helpful in identifying acceptable sources for (and improving the writing of) any proposed changes or additions of mine.
I created a new section on the Zcash talk page to figure out whether there is an appropriate way to use the Zcash protocol specification for references. Hopefully we’ll get some feedback from more experienced Wikipedia editors.
I can’t imagine the protocol spec paper being rejected as a reference, or the rejection standing with any scrutiny. Wiki’s intention to avoid disseminating specious original research is laudable, but doesn’t apply for articles like this (IMO). It’s tantamount to rejecting the citing of source code on the asininity scale. Hopefully reason will prevail.
Edits made today:
I made some very minor updates. Infobox updated with current info and references. Incorrect hash function entry fixed. Links to the Zcash foundation, zero knowledge proofs wiki article, and zerocoin protocol wiki article added.
Tentative plan:
I’ll start to look at making some more substantive changes tomorrow. I would like to see a background section to begin with. The Bitcoin article glosses over privacy concerns and the Zcash article misses an important opportunity to justify the existence of Zcash by summarizing the privacy concerns of publicly viewable and immutable blockchains.
I’d like to include a very simple, accessible summary of the development of Zcash from pre-launch through present, focusing on milestones like the Sapling upgrade. The critical portions of the existing article regarding low adoption of shielded addresses and lack of native support in wallets for shielded addresses are certainly valid and ought to stay. I would like to update those parts to reflect the current situation. Having a more complete history of zcash will also counterbalance these points by showcasing the progress made with shielded transaction performance, etc.
Anyone have guidance on where to find timely, updated info on the % of Zcash in shielded addresses, or what % of daily transactions are shielded?
I can’t find even todays distribution about transparent, sprout and sapling adresses.
Some time ago on the explorer. zcha.in these stats have been available even in % but ti seems it’s not working anymore as it shows just 6.8M ZEC in the pools while there should be allready over 7.1M ZEC in circulation and in the different pools.
Anybody any idea where someone can check in real time the distribution of ZEC in these 3 pools? I mean how can we check if the vulnerability is being exploited without public access to the pool distribution?
Back to topic, the best i was able to find for daily transactions and the % of shielded transaction are the usage stats at https://explorer.zcha.in/statistics/usage, see attached screenshot from right now.
I made out of curiousity the calculation to convert it into %:
Last 24h, total transactions: 6,859
Transparent: 92.07%
Shielded: 7.35%
Fully Shielded: 0.58%
Past Week, total transactions: 45,860
Transparent: 90.38%
Shielded: 8.85%
Fully Shielded: 0.77%
Past Month, total transactions: 157,770
Transparent: 87.85%
Shielded: 11.11%
Fully Shielded: 1.04%
Zec holders trying to edit the official wikipedia page, now this is for sure a healthy discussion to make on the public forums /s
Conflict of interest is strong and it’s just lame to think about something so futile while there is certainly other priorities (zip deadline).
I was adequately discouraged by @johnwisdom for this project and forgot to reply.
I did some research; it actually is the position of wikipedia that crypto holders are not to edit crypto pages due to conflict of interest. I had incorrectly assumed it is allowable if writing maintained a neutral point of view, was adequately sourced, and met wiki’s other requirements. Meanwhile, paid editors are allowed to edit wikipedia. The absurdity of wiki’s position re: crypto holders has been well covered by many blogs and articles elsewhere. I don’t wish to cause any issues for Zcash so I stopped further edits.
Perhaps the ECC or Zcash foundation can contribute a few dollars to get the page updated professionally? This is low hanging fruit and an absolutely squandered opportunity if left as is.
On your user page you should disclose any conflict of interest that you might have. This could include where you work or potentially the clients that you work with.
Avoid editing pages that are relevant to any conflict of interest that you have.
Paid editing is further regulated by a community guideline, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. This advises that those with a conflict of interest, including paid editors, are very strongly discouraged from directly editing affected articles, but should post content proposals on the talk pages of existing articles, and should put new articles through the articles for creation process, so they can be reviewed prior to being published.
tl;dr - paid editors can create content in the talk page or in the sandbox of their user pages for review and inclusion into the article
While that position is not favouring your thoughts about it be sure it’s there for good reason and i personally generally like wikipedia exactly for it’s neutrality all over.
The absurdity of wiki’s position re: crypto holders has been well covered by many blogs and articles elsewhere. I don’t wish to cause any issues for Zcash so I stopped further edits.