Updating Information on Counterparty.io

General Counterparty
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It is my opinion that the counterparty.io website is outdated and does not accurately represent linking to the best educational information for Counterparty.

This post includes the starting process of trying to publicly correct and revise information about each page of the Counterparty website to try to include topics like: CIP’s, wallet documentation, support pages and our spectacular history throughout Counterparty’s lifetime on counterparty.io.

The first impression most users will have in researching Counterparty will come from the exploration of counterparty.io and usage of a recommended counterparty wallet. In my opinion it is of a very high importance for up to date accurate information for future community involvement, development and educated use of the Counterparty Platform.

Despite this being my opinion, I think many community members agree with improvements to “contemporize” the website at least on basic levels. The question here is: What do you think should be updated? What is most important to be updated? What could be added?

Though I have included some ideas of adding information, it is my main intention to just update broken links and update outdated information on the Counterparty official website as it is now. I’d like to start a public discussion as to verify the ideas of where and what to update and to make sure the information is accurate and appropriate.

The first fix being broken links… Below are examples I found of broken links on the Counterparty website:

Home page broken links: https://counterparty.io/

  • “Terms of use” at the bottom of the page

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About page broken links: https://counterparty.io/platform/

  • Within the The Counterparty Protocol section the link “Read the technical details of the Counterparty Protocol”

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Features page broken links: https://counterparty.io/feature/

  • In Tokens section:
    -“software features” link to Spells of Genesis changed (broken)
    -as an “authentication token” - link broken

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Projects page broken links: https://counterparty.io/projects/

  • “Authparty” project link broken
  • “Blockfreight” project link broken.
  • “Blocksafe” project link broken.
  • “Coffee Party” project link broken.
  • “Coval” project link broken.
  • “GetGems” project link broken.
  • “LTBCoin - Letstalkbitcoin.com” project link broken.
  • “NFT Relics” project link broken. Rebranded to: https://hnft.wtf/
  • “Rarepepe.party” project link broken.
  • “Takara” project link broken.
  • “Token.FM” project link broken.

Get Started (& other sections): https://counterparty.io/get-started/

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  • Broken link to ‘Slack’ Chat, not sure if it doesn’t exist or is a broken link and a thriving hard to access community exists

Support Page: https://counterparty.io/support/

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As for examples to change information (or add info) to sections I theorize we could rework:

Features Page: https://counterparty.io/feature/

  • add to Tokens list this use case for distributing company shares (https://samouraiwallet.com/ uses this, any other companies?)
  • add to Tokens list use case for historical art (link sales to Sotheby’s: Sotheby's Metaverse)
  • change this specific entry in Tokens list from ‘Purely for fun’ to: “Asset name value to be used in the future (https://xchain.io/asset/FEELSGOODMAN), or just purely for fun: (https://xchain.io/asset/CAKE)”
  • add link to Token entry: “as a proxy for a real-world good or service (i.e. tokens exchangeable for paper, biofuel, etc)” add link to UMBRELLA (https://xchain.io/asset/umbrella) for “real-world good” … maybe historical use cases for services with XCP assets to reference?

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Get Started Page: https://counterparty.io/get-started/

Specifically I think the “Get XCP” section should be changed and revised:
This page should be updated to a new page explaining how to get XCP in 2023 in the best fashion and not just linking with “Your options to purchase XCP” with a link to Coinmarketcap which only shows Zaif market information.

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  • I think this should be its own page and very informative for the many different ways to accumulate XCP for counterparty purposes and heavily linked to other sources of information for instance:

  1. Buying XCP using the DEx or BTCpay linking to a thorough FAQ for transacting BTC for XCP or any Asset

  2. Buying XCP using Dispensers with thorough documentation of risks and future development ideas

  3. Buying XCP on decentralized exchanges with links to specifically Zaif (https://zaif.jp/) and dextrade (Dex-Trade)

Also the “Learn More section” should be revised to publicly display all social media, support forums, github resources, telegram chats etc that are officially used by Counterparty Devs

Including but not limited to:

  1. https://twitter.com/CounterpartyXCP
  2. https://forums.counterparty.io/
  3. https://docs.counterparty.io/
  4. CounterpartyXCP/cips · Discussions · GitHub
  5. Telegram: Contact @Counterparty_XCP
  6. Telegram: Contact @Counterparty_Dev
  7. Telegram: Contact @freewallet_io

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Working With Us Page: https://counterparty.io/working-with-us/

When the community decides on the most important or useful links to include in the Learn More Section, it is also important to link these educational links to the Working With Us Page.

This will force a new curious user to review the vast history and explore the documentation and official community freely.

  • This would include: The Counterparty Forums, The official Counterparty Github, The official Twitter, Official Slack and Telegram chats etc. etc.

  • The page itself could also denote some history of early developers and more recent developers. It could also list out this list of CIP’s: GitHub - CounterpartyXCP/cips: Counterparty Improvement Proposals

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Support Page: https://counterparty.io/support/

As referenced in the broken links above I think we can just reword this section and make simple changes for better education.

  • Change “Go To Support Center” to instead link to https://docs.counterparty.io/ BUT I think it is important for MANY topics to be reworked and updated…

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Doc’s Section: https://docs.counterparty.io/

  • I find it important re-answer every single still relevant old FAQ questions and update each from the previous Docs that may not be currently included:

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  • Also ^ Many of these above links are now broken links from historical posts from the Counterparty Forums and I’m sure what the best way to fix that would be.

  • A new Counterwallet FAQ that describes all of the features Couterwallet and includes up to date UI screenshots to show in depth all of its functions

  • Despite it being controversial to the community at this time, since most current users are mainly using some version of Freewallet, a Freewallet FAQ should be included on this official Counterparty Docs page. It is also the most updated wallet at this time with recent Counterparty developments so it is also important to showcase that as supported by the community and Counterparty in general as productive, useful and inspirational to brand new users who want to experiment. Which brings me to the…

Wallets Page: https://counterparty.io/wallets/

Since 2016 I always felt as if the website really pushes new uninformed users to use Counterwallet. There is many sections of the website that point to trying out Counterparty by using Counterwallet, but by the time we visit the wallet page the only association for “recommended” wallet is the ‘name’ of Counterwallet under the list and that it had been linked to before on the website.

  • It would be important to add a “Recommended Walllets” top sections that recommends
  1. Counterwallet and
  2. Freewallet

  • It would also be important to add Counterwallet’s history, official documentation, and features list as it differs from Freewallet

  • A separate Freewallet history, official documentation and features list as it differs from Counterwallet. Its okay to mention this is a project not started by the community as a whole but just Jdog (a prominent Counterparty Developer for some time now)

  • In the future I think this “recommended wallets” list should grow to encompass all wallets that most Developers truly use and recommend to use. Especially ones with active development and a thorough documentation of functions and issues.

Projects Page: https://counterparty.io/projects/
Even though they may not have “Asked” to be put up there it may be good education to link these projects to the official counterparty website for informational purposes since they gain so much interest and should be publically linked to show “Original Collection” vs “Fake or Faux Collection”

any others you guys you think we should add that are not included (and not entirely recent)?

There is also one contemporary thing I think we can all adore and that is giving the user the option to: Switch to Dark Mode

  • I would hope as a user with OCD and bleeding eyes reading documentation in this manner can be provided on all the pages :slight_smile:

Another future addition I think would be worthwhile is a new History tab for the top links in the website.

  • I imagine this page to be maybe at first a listed documentation and “timeline of historical upgrades and CIP’s” on an simple clickable historical timeline of sorts that you could scroll through and sort from “recent” or “oldest.” This community picked list should include all CIP’s, historical bugs or fixes and even represent honorably historical founders and innovators in the community as architects of Counterparty.

  • It could include a separate “timeline of historical assets” as well that shows off Counterparty’s history is a very fun and informative fashion similar to WhiteRabbit1111’s work here: The origin assets of the digital antiquities market (NFTs) | by WhiteRabbit1111 | Medium but SPECIFICALLY oriented to Counterparty History only.

  • This could also be a great place to involve many community members to continue to expand or refine this list of publicly viewable “firsts”. Which would include influential community projects and community assets over the many years Counterparty Protocol has been experimented with. Many users of which are still very active in the community and many started on their artistic cryptographic journeys with Counterparty. Why not show that off?

At the end of the day I think feedback to these changes, ideas and starting a conversation about each of these topics is something that will help improve the website and involve more of the community for the future.

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Features Page: Features | Counterparty

add to Tokens list this use case for distributing company shares (https://samouraiwallet.com/ uses this, any other companies?)

A better example here could be the JPJA book w/ dividends to show utility:

https://jpjanssen.com/jpja-2014-book-nft-defi-pioneer/

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Support Page: Support | Counterparty

  • The “Create a Support Ticket” should forward to a form creation for Counterparty Forums. This page could also include information and education to try to push users to visit documentation before posting their issue. At the moment the support ticket seems to indicate some sort of support “team” which in this case would just be the community of users and devs. Also the link is broken as it points to the older Counterparty Docs as mentioned before

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It would be good to add these too to the projects page and give them some descriptions as well:

These two have become very popular to use with Counterparty assets in recent times and would be good to show for new eyes in my opinion.

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:+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2:

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Hi all,

I agree with Davesta; it would be great to add/update some important information.

Before delving into the content, perhaps we should consider modifying the design and user experience of the website. In my opinion, the front page should have less text and more concise.

To give you an idea of what I have in mind, I made this quick powerpoint schema. As an example, for the homepage of https://counterparty.io/, we could have a presentation like this (see pic below). Some explanatory texts would be in the underlying sub-rubrics

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Please let me know your opinions/remarks.

dTNG

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Hey dTNGHeuristics

Since there is very limited funding, tackling this modification of the design and user experience would either require:

  • Funding a Website Designer and rigorously going through a long process of community involvement to get a new layout agreed upon and continuously updated. (Sounds like a headache, especially if they don’t know what Counterparty is about)

  • Having someone reorganize and retune the ‘look’ of the website while also keeping in respect to color scheme, still using older logos and keeping the historical ‘image’ of Counterparty. And doing so without pay or by donation only.

This is why I just thought it may be best to keep all the same “structure” of the website but just update key text information. Maybe add another page (like adding the historical timelines), but one that would emulate the style that is already there to keep costs and time spent low while keeping the historical and recognizable ‘look’ still intact.

In my user opinion if you made it this far, you are pretty accustomed to reading alot of text. And truly I don’t think the present website has “too much” of it, unless you are diving into the Doc’s section. In the past this space invited many developers to use the tools already built to experiment on top of Bitcoin.

Though I don’t disagree maybe the Wallets section and others could be spruced up and “beautified” in a manner with ‘nodes’ or ‘sections’ laid out in a cool UI manner. But in my opinion website changes like that can turn into a much longer process and can be tedious.

But hey if you wanna take a crack at it I’m all eyes open. Could be something useful for newer users.

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Another great idea I have heard from the Community is changing our “tagline” on the website:

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From what I am told it used to be:

  • Pioneering peer to peer finance

This was changed to

  • Counterparty extends Bitcoin in new and powerful ways.

Maybe something new along the lines of:

  • Extending Bitcoin utility since 2014

  • Pioneering peer to peer finance on Bitcoin since 2014

Brainstorm sesh? I’m sure we could come up with something better, or agree the original one… maybe was better? :slight_smile:

For the record I personally like the “And we’d love to see you on our team!” :slight_smile:

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I’d like to suggest adding not just freewallet, to the existing counterwallet, but rpw.wtf. Freewallet is the most popularly used wallet now, and supports trezor, but rpw.wtf is another good option, and supports ledger hw.

In addition, I think a section giving some common sense security best practices would be helpful, considering many visiting counterparty.io will be first time users.
I could potentially help write something, here is something I helped write for the Curio Card project as an example,
Protecting Your Cards - Curio Cards Docs

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I agree with adding rpw.wtf and with more research I found it would also be best to add Freeport to the recommended wallets as well.

I think its very very important to mention the open-source projects of Developers that have been in this space for many years, especially when they are more often used in recent days and supported with active development.

When you mentioned: “I think a section giving some common sense security best practices would be helpful”

  • I think this alone should be the main theory for future Counterparty.io updates. We should always be giving deep resourceful and peer-reviewed information for the user to experience the highest form of safety. Which means that Counterparty is linking easy self-education tools that are readily available.

If you took a stab at writing a few general security practices I would love to see something like that added.

…There is also the task of updating and looking through broken links on the Documentation section as shown in the Counterparty github which will also need community consensus.
^ Edit: Did some of these mentioned in Pull Requests on the Counterparty github here, and here, as well as here, dis one, and dis other one

If I am to understand this correctly, this process of adding the Freewallet User Manual/FAQ will involve some beefy pull requests…

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The Historical Counterparty Timelines mentioned here, including the Token/Project Timeline as well as the Developer Timeline has been moved to this Github repo:

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