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Contested deletion

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This page is not unambiguously promotional, because... (your reason here) --Parsley1972 (talk) 19:45, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Argument one

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Hold on, pal - that line above is just like asking me to complete the statement "I have unambiguously stopped beating my wife because ...."

The fact is that there is nothing promotional about the entry that I have created. There is a currency called MazaCoin, and I have simply created an entry that says what MazaCoin is. There has never been anything promotional in this article. If some fucktard computer orbit thingummy, or worse, a human equivalent, thinks that the few lines I have written is promotional they should spend their energy on some climbing frame rather than wasting my time and anyone else's. I was about to give some money to Wikipedia but I think I shall wait and see what happens. If Wikipedia has so many people who can waste time harassing perfectly neutral authors then clearly it needs no money.

Argument two

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Another reason no to delete. This is a factual entry about a a native American tribe doing something that the lawful government of that tribe thinks is constitutional and fair and lawful. To delete this page in the charge that it is promotional is not only nonsense on stilts, it would be an act that is racist, bigoted and offensive.

Argument three

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As seen here: http://www.nsweekly.com/ in the most recent article, this Mazacoin is not actually the official curency of anything, this article should be considered advertisement.

Full text for article available at : ref — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.192.122 (talk) 19:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Outdated?

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Mazacoin is now a deadcoin. market cap of 80k USD (as low as joke coins like "Hobonickels" or "fluttercoin".. nearly non-traded, no hashrate, no development. I didn't put this up for deletion, but might as well be. WinterstormRage (talk) 08:52, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@WinterstormRage: It seems to be doing a bit better now. Jonpatterns (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@WinterstormRage: As of September 2018, it's price is no longer tracked on CoinMarketCap. Џ 09:54, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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Article content

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@Smallbones: I've restored information that is referenced and not misleading. Jonpatterns (talk) 09:33, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest discussion

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See Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#MazaCoin. Jonpatterns (talk) 17:47, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A scam?

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I didn't see the last AFD until near the end and by the time I looked around it was non-admin closed. I was, and am, suspicious so thought I would start here.
The coin has been pushed as being created by a Payu Harris, reportedly a Native American activist, with reference to the Bitcoin Oyate Project” or BTC Oyate, as an attempt to create a new global crypto-currency posited as a "Sovereign National coin" to be "traded and adopted globally".
The coin is claimed to have actually been created by someone going by the moniker "AnonymousPirate", with Harris as a "co-creator", and with reference that the coin is a fork of ZetaCoin that is a fork of BitCoin. A sort of pre-advertising mention was included that the overall size of MezaCoin was tailored to the economy of the Oglala Lakota Nation stating: "For to do otherwise would risk creating a coin base so big and a blockchain so overwhelming as to simply swamp this small tribal economy". The coin is presented as a general purpose global alt coin or Tribal Cryptocurrency.
MezaCoin was "officially" launched on the altcoin exchanges 20 February 2014 with an initial one-time, two phase pre-mine offering of 50 Million MZC.
A pre-launch article by Danny Bradbury appeared in Coindesk (a digital currencies news Web site) 6 February 2014 titled "MazaCoin aims to be sovereign altcoin for native Americans". This may have led to many other news reports and media interest like the Forbes article.
By the 7th of March 2014 Brandon Ecoffey of the Native Sun News posted an article titled "Oglala Sioux Tribe surprised by MazaCoin plan" with the sub-caption, "Man claims OST has launched own currency Council and President taken by surprise", and this apparently quelled further action.

Rebranding

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In 2015 MazaCoin was rebranded as simply Maza and on the site offered as "Cryptocurrency Network Services for Sovereign Tribes Worldwide" at the top and "MAZA is a Cryptocurrency Network for All Sovereign Tribes" at the bottom. The crypto-currency did not resurrect as intended.

Recent info and controversies

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In August 2018 the global market cap ranking was 942 out of 1000 according to Coinswitch.com that refers to the coin as a "proof-of-work" (wording used by AnonymousPirate) rather than a "proof-of-stake based coin", and showed the coin at that time to be inactive. That article explains that the coin is difficult to mine, requiring high power, and a "very low individual price of the coin, which overpowers its high circulating supply" may have been a reason for the low ranking.
  • The crypto-coin has been referred to by some on a blog as a "Pump and Dump" and scam.
  • There was supposedly a Facebook give away that was posted on Bitcointalk (blacklisted) as being dishonest so a warning was issued.

Comments

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As presented this very short stub dictionary entry has been able to survive multiple AFD's, because of "media attention" and I suspect the tie to "Native America", but it may very well be a creator/investor Ponzi scheme that won't "go away" so needs to be looked at more closely if allowed to be presented on Wikipedia.
@Otr500: Thank you for your research. Your post is headlined "a scam?", but I ask myself whether it even matters if it is that?

I have a background in Bitcoin, and it is an environment where it is common to be suspicious of any of these coins launched for some specific purpose (sometimes social, like being "official") that apparently Bitcoin could not support (but they never explain exactly why). Now, consensus in Wikipedia doesn't seem to be that these are in fact scams, and it would indeed be difficult to draw the line. Notice how you have Bitcoiners calling Ethereum a scam because of how it was launched, and then you can bike-shed definitions of "pre-mining" and so on. But that is an extremist view since no crypto media has any interest in bursting the hype. Mainstream media follows along.

So while I personally believe half of these are scams or schemes to "get rich quick", I don't think consensus can be established for that. But consensus **has** been established that churnalism is bad and that many crypto sources are abysmal, so I nominate on those grounds.

I read your post and I ask myself what you imagine could happen next. If you want to somebody to run CheckUser, go ahead and ask, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was no sock-puppeting here: Merely a lot of Wikipedians who want to give "all cryptocurrencies equal footing" or something like that.

If you indeed think that the sources are false, and that the AfD was closed on false grounds, why not open a deletion review? But deletion review only applies if you disagree with the closing, not if you disagree with consensus. --Ysangkok (talk) 19:18, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I find this highly plausible. OTOH, can we find RS coverage of the scamminess? - David Gerard (talk) 20:26, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, sorry but I was supposed to be off then duty called. A co-worker is unable to work so I also have to leave out again at 5:30 am central today. @Ysangkok: (thank you) 1)- I see no evidence of any Wikipedia editor mal-intent. 2)- You are correct about the closing. I would likely have closed the thing the same way considering a)- the two sources mentioned and b)- the lack of countering information. 3)- I do not know (and have not looked) at if "these are in fact scams", meaning other articles. This is still the first I have been involved in. If a person presents something totally false as with the initial offering of this subject, as clearly some reliable sources show, then "in this case" I see evidence of false propaganda and false advertising. I don't think the sources are false but I do not think your view to be extreme "since no crypto media has any interest in bursting the hype. Mainstream media follows along.". This is a good reason why the sources need to be to high quality that includes investigative journalism over "churnalism". That is important so that Wikipedia can maintain credibility and not become an advocacy vehicle. Think about it: The chief nor council has ever (that I can find) took the steps to make this coin "official". Presenting it as "official" created enough wrongly placed interest that the media took off with it. The article that debunked most of the entire presentation did not make it "back" around to the initial mainstream media and certainly not this article. Some of the !votes to keep still did not consider any of this.
Previous to this article AFD I had no background in the area but with 80 tabs open it is obvious I research (my own before) and I happened to find the academic article close to the beginning that raised flags, so the hunt began. I also agree that, from what I have seen (so must be more than a little obvious since my lack of knowledge in the area), that many of the alt-coin "offerings" have the goal of someone wanting to make lots of money. There is nothing wrong with that. If Harris received a bare minimum for this it looks like he could have made something like $2.5 mil.
Early on in my Wikipedia involvement with AFD's I would see a lot of comments like "sources look good", "there are plenty of sources", and the likes, but since this is an encyclopedia there is more to it than that. "IF" sources appear to be reliable, and not contested, they will generally get a pass. I am neutral on this subject coverage on Wikipedia. If it is notable then inclusion consideration is important but it needs to be neutral coverage.
If a new coin takes footing then, dubious or not, it enters the crypto-world and time is the telling indicator. In this case there was clear (to me) scamming from the creator (or co-creator) to seek a market in a certain area and used false claims and advertising that created an interest. It had a marginal take-off, fell, was resurrected with changes, and then fell again. It has remained (from what I see) as close to rock-bottom as can be so notability is still questioned.
What I don't want to happen is for many too short stubs articles (specifically like 3 sentence stubs that have zero NPOV so are misleading) helping create or advance a market that simply is not there.
In this case the evidence indicates there has been a scheme to keep advancing what is essentially a lie. The [co-] creator made assertions that are patently false. The then chief knew nothing about the tribes supposed acceptance of the new crypto-coin, no named person on the tribal rolls, and a host of other reasons that did not make it to the front-line media after the pre-creation report and subsequent main stream media taking off, of a "crypto-coin with a purpose". News media can be duped when research lags too far behind and we all know that.
Here is my take, and worth examining: If a stub is notable (even if a scam or scheme) it likely deserves consideration for an article, --BUT-- if there is no WP:NPOV, like being too short as to just give article space, we have many more reasons why it should not be given the space (maybe at the time) that are based on policies and guidelines as well as one of our five pillars that is intended to keep Wikipedia from "appearing" as an advocacy. If we cannot present something neutrally then "giving it space" does more harm than good.
I also think there should be some limit of acceptability. I did not know there was a crypto-project (so thanks) but not being in the top 50 (even stretched to the top 100 or 200) would be a good reason to critique sources and consider if editors or possibly even the project is allowing too broad of a criteria for inclusion. I can look but if this stub-dictionary entry is any indication then such an exhaustive listing (fantastically well intended or not) falls slap in the middle of "Not what Wikipedia is not supposed to be".
The coin never really making it out of the gate, being and remaining so low as to be close to the bottom 1000, means there is cause to examine things from an encyclopedic view. If we are just listing these to "fill a list" (I don't know that ATM just saying) then there needs to be a checks and balances.
Again, in this case, it appears the initial rationale for inclusion (article created during the initial offering) means it was far too soon, absolutely non-neutral, and there are sources giving red flags of warnings that never made it (to include a fourth nomination now) into the dictionary entry in well over 6 years now. At the very least a minimum of neutrality needs to be presented or that is either good grounds to demand expansion with inclusion of controversial material, to consider deletion (as many times as it takes), or some ATD.
I like the observation that presented me with where to go from here. I found things that flew red flags in the wind but missed the AFD. Being in the middle of an area still recovering from two hurricanes our utilities (including internet and TV) is currently comparable to third-world reliability. I was not able to log on for an extended period of time that was disheartening (to say the least) and was hit with an IP range block (even though logged in) because I was trying to log in on my laptop using my cell phone as a hotspot, so have had issues. At least two Admins and some Stewards (WMF) apparently consider (or not open to discussion) that I am not a good risk (I guess my lack of blocks mean little as well as what I deem a total commitment to Wikipedia) because a request for block exemption was answered with a temporary reprieve only (with questions I have no way of knowing the answer to) and no further consideration, SO-- I posted what I could find to make sure it was at least "out there".
Where to go from here? To work in about an hour. After that I will look around more to try to see if the media has gone farther into if this is considered a scam or scheme. At the least I will now have to try to present some content to give balance unless someone with more subject knowledge does so. I will also watch the suggested pages, and future involvement will depend on what "research" turns up that could take awhile. David Gerard that will include looking for reliable sources that might actually (or not) place this as a scam as we can't call it that on the article if "they" don't. We can present the reliable source(s) and content that in effect shows subversive tactics were used to create interest. After all, it never was an official crypto-coin if it wasn't accepted by the tribe as "official" was it? Look at the first sentence in the "History" section. It now uses the wording "Some Native Americans" but the inline citation has the title that includes '"Native American tribes adopt Bitcoin-like currency". Content states "Harris was there to promote MazaCoin, a cousin of Bitcoin "that is now the official currency of the seven bands that make up the Lakota nation"." so no original research is needed to see this is absolutely a promotional source giving false and misleading (according to the chief of the tribe) information. Thanks for the comments and replies, later, Otr500 (talk) 10:50, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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