The official Steemit FAQ Page is a key tool for recruitment and retention!

It is vital that users understand the platform, and have a place to turn to if they feel lost or have questions. The Welcome Page has been a great tool for getting users started on the platform, but we also need a full blown FAQ that explains all the ins and outs for users who really want to know how everything works.

Today @pfunk and I submitted a pull request to update the Steemit FAQ Page with new content! The pull request has 140 questions/answers, as well as a table of contents with links to each question. The links will allow users send individual questions/answers to other users, or link to them in posts/comments.

You can view the updated FAQ content here:

https://github.com/TimCliff/steemit.com/blob/cd668f13e9c515ae3df4cc4b63a8529d4cea49e9/app/help/en/faq.md

Note - while the FAQ is up on GitHub, the links within the repo (like the table of contents) will not work. Once it is up on a live site, the links will work.

The process to create the FAQ page started 8 months ago when @ned called on the community to contribute to the official FAQ. The community responded and provided tons of great questions and answers! @shenanigator compiled all of the content into a single official FAQ. Pull Request 935 was submitted to add the FAQ to Steemit.com, but only a very small percentage of the questions actually made it up.

The FAQ pretty much sat there for several months, until @transisto noticed that @pfunk and I were working on the Welcome Page, and suggested we try to tackle the FAQ too. We checked in with @sneak, who gave us the green light for the project, and then we proceeded to make the updates.

We spent weeks collecting content from many sources, most notably posts from @shenanigator and @thecryptofiend. Once we had all of the content that we wanted to include in one place, we started the long process of copyediting. @pfunk and I each took several iterations through the content, editing for various things. The questions/answers needed to be clear and accurate. They needed to provide useful information to users. They needed to use correct terms, spelling, punctuation, etc. It was a lot of work. Huge props go out to @pfunk for his amazing editing skills!

Once we had everything in place, we sent the final draft to Mitchell ( @zurvanic) from Steemit, Inc. to review. Mitchell had some minor updates to make, but overall he liked what he saw. After incorporating his revisions, it was on to the pull request. All of the content had to be formatted into HTML/markdown, and links had to be added. The table of contents was created, and that was it - then it was on to testing!

Thanks to @bitcoiner for allowing us to use his test site for some final checking! After a few last minute tweaks, the coding was done, and we finally submitted the pull request!

Here it is!
https://github.com/steemit/condenser/pull/1352

Note - the PR is not accepted yet, but we plan to work with Steemit, Inc. to make any edits necessary to get it approved. We hope to see it up on the live site soon!

A HUGE thanks to everyone who contributed to this project!!!

This is a culmination of effort from tons of people in the community. From @ned seeing the need and calling for action months ago, to all the people who contributed questions/answers, and everyone mentioned in the post above. This has been a major undertaking that we should all be proud of. Hopefully once it is up on the live site, it will lead to improved growth, a better user experience, and improved user retention going forward!

Great Job Everyone!