block chain vs. blockchain

[Chris Beams]

Pull request #3 in Saïvann's fork changed uses of "blockchain" to "block chain" [1], but did not give a rationale as to why. Upon searching, I don't see any discussion of this change here in the mailing list, either.

Googling for each variant, we see a stark difference in actual use:

 - bitcoin "blockchain": About 7,390,000 results [2]

 - bitcoin "block chain": About 2,830,000 results [3], followed by a Did you mean bitcoin "blockchain'' admonition

That's nearly 3:1 for the single-word form, and the results are even more dramatic when searching within the bitcointalk.org site:

 - site:https://bitcointalk.org "block chain": About 27,300 results

 - site:https://bitcointalk.org "blockchain": About 157,000 results

That's nearly 6:1 among a more authoritative and expert audience. Do we have a strong reason to go against the grain here? I would not only argue that we're wise to go with emergent usage, but also that the single-word form is desirable anyway. It casts the blockchain as a cohesive idea unto itself, as opposed to an amalgam of two things (blocks that happen to be chained).

Furthermore, a single-word form allows the idea to be communicated more easily and makes it more likely to stick in one's mind when it is. I'm reminded of TechCrunch's recent "Enter the Blockchain" article [4]. This kind of headline just doesn't have the same punch when "block chain" is separated into two words.

While I'm no linguist, I believe there's a long history of new terminology like this being introduced as separate and familiar words, drifting to a hyphenated form, and finally landing on a single term. In our case, it appears evident that the community has already leapfrogged this process and voted in favor of the single word 'blockchain'. I suggest we follow suit!

- Chris

[1]: https://github.com/saivann/bitcoin.org/pull/3

[2]: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q="blockchain"

[3]: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q="block chain"

[4]: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/22/enter-the-blockchain-how-bitcoin-can-turn-the-cloud-inside-out

[Saïvann Carignan]

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I don't remember were the discussion is digged (maybe email
discussion) but if you exclude "blockchain.info", you'll get neutral
statistics. And developers use "block chain" much more often when
looking at the mailing list with Google.

Additionally, this is the used form on the vocabulary page on
bitcoin.org and this also allows this term to be translated.

Saļvann


Le 2014-05-09 11:54, Chris Beams a écrit :
> Pull request #3 in Saļvann's fork changed uses of "blockchain" to

> "block chain" [1], but did not give a rationale as to why. Upon
> searching, I don't see any discussion of this change here in the
> mailing list, either.
>
> Googling for each variant, we see a stark difference in actual
> use:
>
> - bitcoin "blockchain": About 7,390,000 results [2] - bitcoin

> "block chain": About 2,830,000 results [3], followed by a /Did you
> mean bitcoin "blockchain''/ admonition

>
> That's nearly 3:1 for the single-word form, and the results are
> even more dramatic when searching within the bitcointalk.org

> <http://bitcointalk.org> site:
>
> - site:https://bitcointalk.org <http://bitcointalk.org> "block

> chain": About 27,300 results - site:https://bitcointalk.org

> <http://bitcointalk.org> "blockchain": About 157,000 results

>
> That's nearly 6:1 among a more authoritative and expert audience.
> Do we have a strong reason to go against the grain here? I would
> not only argue that we're wise to go with emergent usage, but also
> that the single-word form is desirable anyway. It casts the
> blockchain as a cohesive idea unto itself, as opposed to an amalgam
> of two things (blocks that happen to be chained).
>
> Furthermore, a single-word form allows the idea to be communicated
> more easily and makes it more likely to stick in one's mind when it
> is. I'm reminded of TechCrunch's recent "Enter the Blockchain"
> article [4]. This kind of headline just doesn't have the same punch
> when "block chain" is separated into two words.
>
> While I'm no linguist, I believe there's a long history of new
> terminology like this being introduced as separate and familiar
> words, drifting to a hyphenated form, and finally landing on a
> single term. In our case, it appears evident that the community has
> already leapfrogged this process and voted in favor of the single
> word 'blockchain'. I suggest we follow suit!
>
> - Chris
>
> [1]: https://github.com/saivann/bitcoin.org/pull/3 [2]:
> https://encrypted.google.com/search?q="blockchain" [3]:
> https://encrypted.google.com/search?q="block chain" [4]:
> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/22/enter-the-blockchain-how-bitcoin-can-turn-the-cloud-inside-out

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[David A. Harding]

On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 05:54:40PM +0200, Chris Beams wrote:
> Pull request #3 in Saļvann's fork changed uses of "blockchain" to

> "block chain" [1], but did not give a rationale as to why. Upon
> searching, I don't see any discussion of this change here in the
> mailing list, either.

We actually had an extensive discussion at the time of the change in
now-deleted comments on our original Google Doc. I've tried to extract
them here:

Saļvann Carignan
8:43 PM Mar 10
Selected text:
Blockchain

Block chain should actually be two seperate words
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain
https://bitcoin.org/en/vocabulary#block-chain

David Harding
I think blockchain is the current most popular format among
developers, and block chain makes hyphenation more ambiguous, as in
"Bitcoin is a block chain-dependent system."

12:01 PM Mar 11

Saļvann Carignan
I think we shouldn't change the existing consensus without public
discussion and without making sure major resources are updated
(Bitcoin wiki, Wikipedia, bitcoin.org..), otherwise it will just
make things more unconsistent. This can also be done later.
Bitcoin.org has been updated to only use "block chain" as per
developers request a year ago (Mike Hearn, Luke-JR asked this IIRC),
so using "blockchain" wouldn't be consistent here, or would require
to update every "block chain" occurence, which would cause a lot of
problem with translations. It is also very popular to never
capitalize "Bitcoin", yet online documentation generally still use
the appropriate capitalization rules.

12:34 PM Mar 11

David Harding
Ok. +1 "block chain". Tom: if you agree, please update this entry in
the style guide. I'll revise my copy of the block chain section.

1:06 PM Mar 11

Tom Geller
I disagree, for two reasons:

1) A Google search shows that "blockchain" is about three times as
popular as "block chain".

2) I believe that delta will only grow, no matter what a few
developers think.

But I leave the decision to you, and it looks like it's 2 to 1.

On another note, I recommend appointing a Style God. (Not me -- I'm
too busy.) This is not something done well by committee or
consensus.

7:02 PM Mar 11

David Harding
Marked as resolved

7:33 PM Mar 11


As you can see, most (all?) of the points you raised were discussed and
we decided to go with block chain. More importantly, I think we're
pretty well commited to block chain for this release. We can always
change it in the next version.

Thanks!,

-Dave
--
David A. Harding

[Chris Beams]

Thanks, Saïvann.

if you exclude "blockchain.info", you'll get neutral statistics

 - bitcoin "blockchain" -blockchain.info: About 2,070,000 results

 - bitcoin "block chain" -blockchain.info: About 138,000 results

That's 15:1 in favor of the single-word form. Do you have a different searching / exclusion methodology?

And developers use "block chain" much more often when looking at the mailing list with Google

Not sure whether you mean the bitcoin-development mailing list or not, but operating on that assumption, here are the stats:

 - "blockchain": 573 results [1]

 - "block chain": 299 results [2]

So we're approaching 2:1 in the most authoritative forum available, unless my measurement approach is somehow incomplete.

[The separate-word form] also allows this term to be translated

It is perhaps arguable whether the term 'blockchain' should be translated at all. See 'computer', 'internet', etc.

Further thoughts?

[1]: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/search/?q=%22blockchain%22&mail_list=bitcoin-development

[2]: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/search/?q=%22block+chain%22&mail_list=bitcoin-development

On May 9, 2014, at 5:59 PM, Saïvann Carignan <sai...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Chris Beams]

> As you can see, most (all?) of the points you raised were discussed and
> we decided to go with block chain.

Thanks, David. Indeed, it's good to see that this was discussed explicitly before—thanks for doing the archeology there! However, for what it's worth, I'm not convinced that the resulting decision was the right one. In language, usage rules. And unless someone has some dramatic statistics to contradict those that I've offered, actual usage is clearly in favor of the single-word form.

My concern is that this document, by its very nature, name and location, will likely be regarded by many as normative. When the standard that it sets down (currently: "block chain") is in direct contradiction to actual usage in the wild ("blockchain"), this risks two negative effects: (1) confusion among those who are not intimately familiar with these statistics, and (2) erosion of its authoritative status among those who are.


> More importantly, I think we're pretty well committed to block chain for this release.

I certainly don't mean to make last-minute busy work here. But I wonder, how much actual work is required to remove the space wherever it exists? Please forgive my ignorance here if there are indeed non-trivial implications to such a change.

> We can always change it in the next version.

I'd argue that this case is one in which getting it right out of the gate makes a real difference. A lot of people will read this document upon its first release. Many fewer will do so upon subsequent revisions.

Thanks for your consideration.

- Chris

[Saïvann Carignan]

That's weird, I remember getting really different results a few months ago (and even I was surprised).

@harding thanks for digging up this previous discussion

@cbeams With all respect, while I think you have good arguments and you are likely to be right, I think now might not be the best moment to discuss this topic, it's the kind of thing that risks being debated endlessly and divert attention from more important reviews. TBH, I think both terms are good and valid, because people use them, much like email is still not always spelled consistently these days, we can expect the same with bitcoin-related terms.

I'd also prefer we don't go back and forth (we've already changed blockchain to "block chain" everywhere on bitcoin.org a year ago, and updating all translation on Transifex is a pain, we lose a lot of translators reviews). So the cost of such a small change VS the small benefits and risk of reverting this later is why I tend to promote the status quo.

This said, these new Google stats are revealing. As I said previously, it would be good if this was discussed more extensively (perhaps on the forums and elsewhere) and if there's a rough consensus, this should be changed on the Wiki and everywhere on bitcoin.org.

Saïvann

[David A. Harding]

On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 06:30:17PM +0200, Chris Beams wrote:
> I'm not convinced that the resulting decision was the right one.

I'm not convinced there was a "right" decision for the competing
reasons both you and Saīvann have enumerated. We chose between two
suboptimal solutions. Today, both of those solutions are still
suboptimal, and I see no compelling reason to revisit the choice so
shortly before going live.

If block chain versus blockchain is the biggest source of confusion
introduced by this documentation, I'd consider our efforts wildly
successful. I worry more about the important concepts we haven't
explained, or the concepts we've explained poorly, than the word choices
we've made.

Thanks again for your feedback,

[Chris Beams]

Fair enough. Certainly appreciate that this is a debatable matter without much time for debate.

In any case, good to have these arguments and data on the record for posterity and any future decisions.

Thanks,

- Chris