Talk:Ripple (payment protocol)

Copied almost straight from the Ripple homepage

The text of this article is nearly identical to paragraphs on the "What is Ripple?" section of the Ripple project's front page. It appears that it was effectively copied from that section by Ryan Fugger, the leader of the Ripple project, on 16 April 2007, and has undergone only a handful of minor changes since.

I'm pretty sure there's no copyright issue (if for no other reason than that the author of the Ripple homepage effectively GFDL'd his text by copying it to Wikipedia). And there's no advertising/self-promo issue, as the text is pretty balanced. But there may be a POV issue.

I noticed this because I have essentially the same POV as Ryan, and I've had discussions with other people who disagree with me, and their POVs are not represented here at all.

I think the article could use a section describing both generally-perceived risks that are definitely handled by Ripple (especially the potential for scam/fraud and for money laundering) and actual risks that may not be (any government could declare Ripple a form of illegal private currency at any time and freeze trading--as happened with Hawala in some jurisdictions). Most, but not all, of these can be found in the Ripple FAQ; none of them are dealt with here.

(Actually, the anon update of 12 June did add a section that effectively answers the "Ripple is just an over-complicated version of LETS" objection, which is one I considered, but have never heard from anyone else.)

The problem with adding such a section is that it's hard for any of it to be verifiable. Questions that are in the FAQ can at least cite the FAQ (to the extent that it counts as a trusted/notable source), but for anything else (like the government issue), it seems like original research, or at best "common sense." I'm not sure how to resolve this, but I think it does need resolution. --75.36.135.23 04:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

My issue with this would be that what's here currently is not in any way encyclopedic. There's a whole load of promotional fluff, but nothing actually explaining what this is, what it does, how it came about, or how it works. The whole article, as it stands, can be boiled down to "Ripple is a new magic money system that is awesome. Totally awesome. Current monetary systems suck, because they have problems; Ripple solves these problems. By magic. It's better than Paypal, because Paypal is teh suck. Ripple Nodes are way better than Paypal, but I'm not telling you what one is". 79.123.73.150 (talk) 03:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I have an especial interest in this and will evaluate the project, if possible it's software, and rewrite the article if needed. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 12:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem with the "Principle" section, no principle is described, just a list of advantages compared with traditional banking. It's difficult to explain the principle in a short space.--RomualdoGrillo (talk) 12:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Ripple is already cited by several peer-reviewed published articles

According to Google Scholar, Ripple has been cited by several peer-reviewed published articles, making it a notable project. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&cites=4151406945953135708 Touisiau (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

why disclose your plans?

if you were planning a ripple-style system it would be silly to out yourself on wikipedia wouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.27.168.117 (talk) 08:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Single points of control?

What is that supposed to mean? The concept of a single point of failure is an objective technical description of an attribute of the network topology, but phrasing the same phenomenon in terms that imply that these single-points benefit the system in some way requires something to back it up. 76.76.236.67 (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Ripple isn't ripple

At some time in 2013 the ripple name and domain names were purchased by a group of entrepreneurs to use as a name for a electronic money system which has no relationship to the Ripple discussed in this article or in the citations beyond the fact that it also supports exchanging debt. I haven't a clue of what to do about this. The old proposed system barely skated by notability requirements and the new one doesn't, though there is apparently a lot of funding going in to promoting it. --Gmaxwell (talk) 23:43, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not true that there is no relationship, ripple.com has all the blessings from the Ripple founder: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/rippleusers/IVin3Qwrp7k

It's still to be a community credit system, although it will be challenging to implement, as discussed here https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6 and here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145896.0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.140.6.146 (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not a community credit system. You can use any currency you want, but any credit is tied to the issuer, even if the currency is a traditional one like USD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.8.84.213 (talk) 08:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Ripple.com venture of 2013 is quite different from original Ripple concept. It is a private venture promoted by OpenCoin, which is the sole issuer of a special currency, XRP, which is not part of the original Ripple concept. Any user must spend XRP order to use the system. It seems the system is made centralized by means of the currency and the Ripple.com site. It is not clear if the previous published work do apply to the new system. There are no proof for the claims as to why the currency XRP was added to the architecture, also there is no proof for the robustness of a multi node setup, if under attack. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.240.9.109 (talk) 00:58, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

AfD

This article has no cites, and tells me basically nothing about Ripple and how it's supposed to work, let alone it's philosophy beyond that it's reliant on some sort of social trust. Furthermore, it's entirely unclear if that last para is talking about traditional banking (which is how I first read it) or about Ripple.

Article should fly through speedy delete if someone is to submit it. Otherwise, I suggest those that think this article could have some value get to work improving it. Remember: No ORIGINAL RESEARCH though. 121.99.254.31 (talk) 04:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

• Bulleted list item

wow, this is a shit article

NPOV anybody? Preceding unsigned comment added by User:202.89.174.132 (Talk), 16:19 06-05-2013

Even without NPOV, they are making ripple too complicated to understand and therefore not enough people will trust it and therefore use it. Ywaz (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Reason for edit

I undid revision 555809758: If you look at the github page, you will see the source code hasn't been released (https://github.com/rippleFoundation/ripple), so for now, it's closed source. The system may not be inherently centralized, but for now it is (which is why the article says currently). This may change in the future, but for now it's closed source and centralized (the article does note that Ripple is not fully implemented yet). I'll add the github link as a second reference. Cliff12345 (talk) 21:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Sentences too long

I have to come up for air after reading that initial paragraph / sentence .. please keep it short as it aids understanding. Comment posted by User: Nibinaear (Talk) at 20:05, 29 June 2013.

What's wrong with it (how could it be improved, specifically)? The first paragraph is broken into several sentences, none of which seem to me to be incredibly long. Cliff12345 (talk) 22:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Decentralised vs distributed

Ripple has been accused of being centralised or merely distributed rather than fully decentralised. I believe both accusations are false after the release of the server code. Anyone can act as a gateway if they want or run a validator. Anyone can choose which validators to use and which gateways to do business with.

Opposing opinions can be cited of course, but then we do need sources. Does anyone have a respectable link to a discussion of the difference between the two concepts and how it applies to Ripple? Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:37, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think the original text about it being not decentralized was a bit misleading, (my original edit was intended to clarify this, but didn't seem to work as intended). I've since simply removed the bracket about not being decentralized. I think the reason that Ripple was being claimed to be centralized was that although the code has been released, the gateways currently seem to be almost exclusively run by Ripple Labs (as the article says it is currently not substantially implemented as a decentralized system). Cliff12345 (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• No gateway so far has been operated by Ripple Labs/Open Coin so far, they only operate servers to use the network itself via their reference client software. Any funds that are not XRP are held by external entities (called gateways), an example would be Bitstamp, a Slovenian Bitcoin exchange. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.127.162.127 (talk) 16:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Criticism section

@Rippleport: you answered some of the criticisms mentioned, but now it no longer matches the source. Some of the accusations are clearly false, and perhaps made in bad faith, but this is problematic. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed criticism

My biggest criticism of Ripple is that it solves a problem that does not exist, and pretends to be important on the basis that it's a "payment" system, which is only true when the word "payment" is grotesquely redefined. Saying you can send a payment via Ripple is like saying you can send an elephant via a telephone by redefining the word "elephant" to include "description of an elephant".

Ripple is a system that allows people to send promises to other people... just like e-mail. It supports dollars, yen, bitcoins, moon rocks, and unicorn horns equally well, because a promise is just words and requires only imagination and some fingers to type on a keyboard. The only difference is that when you use Ripple, you use software that adds these promises up and then pretends that these promises are real money.

Ripple is, or at least strives to be, decentralized. That way, like Bitcoin, it can be beyond the reach of the law and nobody can shut it down. Unfortunately, the promises sent across the Ripple network can't be enforced, except by the very law Ripple strives to be insulated from. And the moment the media reports a single Ripple user gets hacked and has a bunch of bogus "promises" issued across the network in his name that he has no plans to honor, that will be the same moment courts declare once and for all that just because the Ripple database says something is so, definitely does not mean it is so.

When someone "sends you $1000" on Ripple, what you're really getting is a promise to be paid $1000 by someone you don't know, someone who has never agreed to pay you, and someone who doesn't ever have to pay you. The fact that that person knows and trusts the same Billy Bob is a neat coincidence that helps you get scammed and misled into thinking that a vague promise and $1000 are somehow the same thing. It's $1000 you can never collect, because if you try and he doesn't pay, you have nothing - and if you sue him, you won't be able to prove he owes you anything, because, technically, he doesn't. Of course, you don't care, because you presumably plan to pass the bag to the next sucker, the same way you'd hope to pass off a counterfeit $100 bill someone paid to you, all the while, pretending that you're innocent and don't know any better.

The best comparison I can come up for Ripple, is that it's a luxury screen-door submarine of the finest craftsmanship. It's a masterpiece execution of an irreparably flawed idea.

I submit that any claim of Ripple being a "payment" system is a blatant NPOV violation. Ripple is, at best, a social experiment and nothing more. I sincerely hope they prove me wrong. Casascius♠ (talk) 05:51, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I see your point. Perhaps we should rephrase the description to mention that the payments can't be enforced at the moment, so are currently just promises, but that the intention of Ripple is to become a payment network? I should also add that whilst you may be correct, Wikipedia relies on other sources for its information (no original research), so we would need to find some sources that back up what you're saying. Cliff12345 (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken about the mechanics of Ripple, but it's not up to us to engage in original research. If a coherent criticism of Ripple by someone notable has been published anywhere we can use it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:12, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I've used Ripple a bit... and dug out my old wikipedia credentials to comment... re: "When someone "sends you $1000" on Ripple, what you're really getting is a promise to be paid $1000 by someone you don't know, someone who has never agreed to pay you, and someone who doesn't ever have to pay you.", this seems to represent a fundamental misunderstanding or misuse of the system. When someone "sends you $1000", you receive a promise to be paid $1000 by someone you've indicated you're willing to trust to owe you $1000. If the person you've indicated you're willing to trust is either the sender, or someone who the sender trusts, you have degenerate cases equivalent to writing "I owe you $1000" and handing it directly to the recipient, or telling a traditional payment processor to "pay" the recipient (e.g. before the transaction, PayPal owed the sender $1000, but afterwards, PayPal owes the recipient $1000). The point of the system, however, is to allow a sender to convert balances he holds issued by someone you don't trust to balances you hold issued by someone he doesn't trust. Nothing within the system requires you to trust someone you don't know, who has never agreed to pay you etc. Indeed, many would strongly recommend against such action, advocating that you only trust those with whom you have a settlement contract. Stoive (talk) 15:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Whether Ripple is open source

@Mmeijeri: It looks like I got reverted for an edit that removed the text "open-source" from the first sentence of Ripple (monetary system). In my edit summary, I linked to a section of this talk page detailing why Ripple is not open source. As the section says, https://github.com/rippleFoundation/ripple, the GitHub repo that contains the source code is still unavailable. Therefore, it is not open source. If you can provide me with a link that clearly shows that it was released two months ago, as your edit summary claims, then great. In fact, the article cites https://github.com/ripple as the "official" repo. If it's open source, then I should be able to find the core code that powers the Ripple system; however, it's not there. I will continue to assume that Ripple is not open source until proven otherwise. APerson (talk!) 20:25, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

You will do no such thing. You made a Bold edit, which is fine, I Reverted it and now we need to Discuss before you reapply your change. You don't get to revert a reversion. Stop edit-warring. That's the procedural point. And as for a substantive point: here's a link to the rippled source: https://github.com/ripple/rippled/. You should self-revert before someone else reverts you. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The link to github already listed the rippled repo, but I've added a link to the official announcement. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:43, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

A neutrality tag has been added to this page. The poster must now explain why the tag was added so we can resolve the relevant issues. If no explanation is forthcoming, the tag will be deleted. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I can't see any reason why the article isn't neutral, so I've removed that tag. I'm leaving the refimprove tag as the article (especially the "explanation" section) seems to be lacking in sources. I'm unsure about the notability tag, as Ripple seems to be a borderline case to me, there's a few media mentions, but not very many. Cliff12345 (talk) 19:33, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Scamcoin premined

Ripple currency is a scamcoin. Scamcoin is a cryptocurrency with was premined by author before publishing. Scamcoin is fraud and cheat. We have to write it in the first section of article, but some admin is deleting that information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.187.142.215 (talk) 06:03, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

You need a published reliable source for the statement. The reference you are attempting to use for the statement makes no mention of the claim of it being a "scamcoin" as you call it. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 06:06, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Ask here what is scamcoin: http://www.reddit.com/r/scamcoin/ It is premined virtual cryptocurrency. And XRP is premined 50% so it is total scam and cheat. IT must be wroten in article.