Updating/Refreshing the FAQ page

Hello everyone! I’m new to Peercoin and look forward to getting started minting and more. As a new hodler, I noticed that the FAQ seemed out-of-date with information. It gave the impression that nothing was happening with Peercoin, but I know it is still quite alive and kicking, right?

From https://peercoin.net/faq

Is Peercoin a pump-and-dump coin?

No. Peercoin brings innovative features, active developers and significant community involvement. As of August 1, 2014, Peercoin is nearly two years old, and has a market cap of over $20 million USD.

====================================

Isn’t Peercoin obviously older? Isn’t the market cap closer to $50mil? ($49,535,756 as of 7/22/2017)
Maybe the FAQ needs some Javascript to fetch and calculate some current data? The rest of the FAQ is outdated as well.

Yes, that FAQ is outdated. We are going to be putting together a new documentation website and will link to that from now on. It hasn’t been started yet because I’ve been busy with some other projects for our dev team, but you can read about it here.

I read over the discussion about the plans to update the documentation and new user questions. Might I suggest that you don’t lose that “large icon, short text” version of the FAQ that you have now? Sometimes, when visiting a new concept, like Peercoin, it helps to just drill some hard and fast points about Peercoin quickly to get everyone’s feet wet first. Putting too much documentation and links can overwhelm and turn folks off, just as much as not having enough information.

The old FAQ is actually very useful and I’m glad it was laid out the way it was. The first experience was a positive one. It just had outdated information.

First impressions: Like the newer Peercoin logo (green circle leaf). The older one had the bitcoin gold institutional look to it. Would luv to see a T-shirt with the newer Peercoin logo on it with something catchy like “Stake yours now” written underneath.

Great organization. Feels like things fell silent over the last year or so, and are now just awaking again. Is that true? Why did it get quite, or did it?

Thank you!

Steve

I agree with this. I’ve been thinking about how to start off the documentation website recently. I know we want to write up and explain all the basics toward the beginning, but even that might be too much/long for someone who is brand new. I was playing with the idea of maybe starting off with a TLDR section that can rapidly go over the main points in a paragraph or two. That very short section would help wet people’s appetite for more information without scaring them off and hopefully motivate them to continue on with the basics.

If we were to start off with the basics first instead of the TLDR section, it would be paragraphs and paragraphs of information they would need to read and understand first before getting the full picture, and unfortunately they might not make it that far in before quitting. People lack time today, so it’s important that we quickly get to the point if we want to keep their interest. So it’s probably a good idea to first include something very short and approachable that helps get them excited to learn more. Then they might have more motivation to get through the longer content. Does this make sense?

SInce 2012, Peercoin was a one man show with Sunny King as the founder, inventor of proof of stake and sole developer. Because of this, we did not have enough manpower to keep up with the progress other crypto networks were making and we became stagnant for a while. About one year ago though around this same time, we started working on a new protocol called PeerAssets, which has become the new focus for the Peercoin project. The PeerAssets development team was eventually merged into the core team to work alongside Sunny. We also have a new Project Lead for Peercoin in Peerchemist, who founded the PeerAssets project. Ever since then we have been working everyday to rebuild Peercoin’s infrastructure and update our protocol. Development is currently the most active it has ever been and we’re working on a lot of different things at the same time.

Ok, that makes sense then. As long as there are links to peel deeper into the onion, everyone should be able to find as much information as they need. As an aside, I’m 51 years young, and getting the lingo down (like TLDR), is both fun and crazy doing searches to find out what they all mean. I had just learned TL;DR yesterday! So, it was good being able to recognize it in your reply. lol !

I’m enjoying learning about Peercoin (spending days pouring over all your site data/links). I want to keep on target with this thread (should it continue), but also want to share a sample of what I’m trying to figure out about Peercoin. (no need to answer the questions here, just showing you what I’m pursuing as a new visitor).

  • Just finished studying Decred’s web site. That was challenging learning their governance system and staking.
  • Trying to understand how Peercoin works in regards to governance and proposal system (almost figured out…)
  • Trying to understand how Peercoin works in regards to allocating funds to developers. A Bitcoin-like structure of volunteers and unpredictable funding sources are a no-go. Dash/Decred dev allocation a plus.
  • Wishing for a document that broke down Peercoin, Decred, and Dash advantages/disadvantages concerning governance(voting), preserving decentralization, staking, coin harvest allocation (miners and masternodes for dash, developers, end-users for peercoin minting). A document like this would be important to differentiate Peercoin from others clearly and quickly.

Full disclosure: So far, Dash has made complete sense and has me searching out all other governance-centered currencies to see if my views are flawed. Dash does fail IMO from future problems with PoW miners and masternode governance concentration. It all works today, and it works very well (PR budget included). Any one-man show concentration (Sunny King) is going to be a negative for obvious reasons long-term.

Peercoins smaller marketcap size doesn’t tell the complete story either. The tech-bust in 2000 showed that (hyped prices). Today, Bitcoin stumbling is proving what Peercoin knew years earlier about governance and decentralization. It will surface again and again with Bitcoin, regardless of how we get through these next months.