Quote from: MagicSmoker on January 30, 2018, 01:01:30 PM

In other words, RTFM... Or in this case, the whitepaper.

But that's not quite what I am driving at here, rather, it's that what the aforementioned calculator asks for and what the wallet gives you appear to be different.

Surely you don't expect everyone who wishes to stake their TZC coins to have to read and understand the whitepaper first? That would be analogous to requiring every person who uses US dollars to first understand how the federal reserve works; while you could argue - and technically be right - that people /should/ understand the Fed, it's unrealistic to expect or demand it as a precondition for the use of their money.

So I guess what I am trying to emphasize here is that it should be easy for the average Joe who wants to use TZC as a general form of payment and storage of value to easily determine the interest rate, so to speak, from parking their coins in their wallet (ie - staking them).

I'm not asking you to explain it to me like I'm 5 - or even explain it all, really - but I am asking the wallet and/or coin devs to consider making the staking function of the wallet a bit more user-friendly.

I really did not intend to be dismissive... so I hope that is not how you took it.
[Hopefully you could tell that I a) took time and effort to try to carefully explain some things and b) did not intend to speak to a tech-only audience.]

What did you mean by the calculator and wallet "appear to be different"?
Maybe you meant the calculator fields are a bit confusing or seem mislabeled?
If so, I tried to indicate that in an earlier post:

Quote

Since it's alpha/beta state though--and an unofficial volunteer contribution--it's a semi-finished tool...

For example, some of the field labels might not mean what you think they would.
If you play with the calc a bit though, it's pretty easy to figure out what's going on.

Hopefully going forward, the original volunteer or someone else may decide to edit/update the tool.
But for now it is certainly an as-is volunteer contribution.

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

It occurs to me that perhaps it's worth noting something about TZC's PoS. Many other Proof-of-Stake models use a fixed or target return rate. For example, they might shoot to provide a 5% annualized ROI to a holder. This method, while being easier to understand, creates some security and fairness concerns. For this reason, TZC's developers chose to implement what has been called 0% PoS. (To be honest, I would have preferred something like Variable PoS but I'm not a dev.

)

To put it very simply, that means that PoS works like mining does in PoW--i.e., your returns will vary based on the level of interest and participation of others. So for those that have been exposed to mining, perhaps it would make sense that there are multiple variables involved and it's not easy to give someone static and simple values for what they should expect to make or earn on a particular coin (over periods of time greater than a day or so). It is because of this complexity that third-party tools/sites like WhatToMine were eventually introduced. Perhaps if variable PoS becomes more widely known, similar tools will appear.

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

The above is also a roundabout way of addressing the issue of whether a user should be required to understand something complex in order to use it--in your example, whether someone who uses US dollars needs to understand the Federal Reserve system.

I guess I would say, people who want to use TZC don't need to know anything about the PoS. Just as they would not need to know anything about all the intricacies of PoW/mining--how to select/purchase/build systems, how to troubleshoot myriad OS/driver/etc. issues, how to calculate expected profit with all the uncertainty, and so on. If someone wants to buy something with TZC, they would simply transact--no need to know those details. So to me, the comparison to using the US dollar holds?

On the other hand, if someone wanted to invest in TZC, that would be different. But prudent investors--for example investors of a company stock--are expected to understand a lot more about their investments and those companies than a simple user of the same company's product/service. So it seems appropriate to have at least a somewhat higher expected threshold of self-education and understanding?

At least those are my thoughts (and opinions).
Not sure if that helps--if not, please feel to clarify what you meant or ask further questions. Grin