Bitcoin Forum

Preamble:
The forum and its users (especially the older users) have witnessed generations of newbies. Most of these newbies follow a predefined pattern that makes it possible for established members to successfully predict whether or not the newbie will be successful in the forum.
Some newbies start very well, but their success meets a sad end of premature failure. Yet, in some rare cases, some newbies who rather started poorly becomes successful on the long run.
In this thread, I will outline some factors that makes a promising newbie who is expected to spike end up failing.
Failure in the context of this thread

• Being Banned
• Stocking in a particular rank
• Having a legitimate negative trust
• Prematurely exiting the forum

Importance/Purpose of this thread

• To Newbies: This thread may serve as a reference or study guide to avoid making the mistakes of predecessory newbies
• To other members: This thread can give clue on how promising newbies fail and how to preserve the future of bitcointalk

• Over Desirous To Grow (#post_point1)
• Faking/Starting Wrongly (#post_point2)
• Owning an Alt (#post_point3)
• Forum Attacks and/or Policing (#post_point4)
• Plagiarism (#post_point5)
• Under-Meriting (#post_point6)
• Creating Enmity (#post_point7)
• NegativeTrust (#post_point8)
• Mission to the Forum (#post_point9)
• External Factors (#post_point10)
• Conclusion (#post_point11)

1. Over Desirous To Grow:
Growth is a natural tendency, every human wants to grow in any organisation they find themselves. In as much as the aspiration to grow is good, pursuing same desperately may lead one to engage in unethical behaviours. You will notice some newbies, all they post is; How to earn merits, How to rank up very fast and so on. These sets of over desirous newbies are the ones that can involve in merit buying and selling, sharing merits with alts and when these acts are discovered, it might be the end of the promising newbie.

2. Faking/Starting Wrongly:
In as much as it is not wrong for a newbie to study the methods or styles of successful users of the forum, it is very dangerous for the newbie to copy verbatim the writing style, the ideology and even the personal attributes of the supposed model. This might not be called plagiarism, but if a newbie does not have his/her own natural way of communicating in the forum, it will be difficult to grow. The hardest part of life is to live a life that is not yours. You will be a learner forever if you do. I was almost caught up in this clause in my early days in this forum when I made a forced (induced) topic My Dream Bitcointalk Forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5356724.msg57791399#msg57791399). Though it was a quality post, but I struggled to make it. It was not long before I discovered my natural way of contributing to the forum, and from then, things has not been difficult with me in the forum.

3. Owning an Alt:
Being able to have an alt account is a privilege. Then, having the choice to make your alt known or not is a bigger privilege. This is because many online forums, casinos and exchanges do not allow the possession of alt accounts. I was surprised when I was being accused of being someone's alt few days into this forum and surprisingly till date such frivolous accusations have never ceased. The privilege of having an alt account sometimes hurt some promising newbies. When a fast growing account suddenly slows down or stocked in a particular rank, it is a likely indication that the newbie has created an alt account(s).

4. Forum Attacks and/or Policing:
Some promising newbies upon arriving this forum recieve a hostile welcome. To already members of the forum, it might seem normal, but a genuine (first time) newbie who knows nothing about how things work here, may immediately say goodbye to the forum. This would have been my fate, not until I met The Pharmacist in Pm and he said this to me

Quote

...In other words, if you're a newbie making suggestions about how the forum should be run, you should have a thick enough skin to withstand (and defend) any blowback from senior members, which you're obviously going to get.

Peace.

The message above gave me the guts to repel some hostility and moved on.

Again, I acknowledge the efforts of all that contributes to sanitize this forum by catching cheaters, bursting scam, reporting spam, catching ban evaders etc. Without them I can't imagine how the forum will be. But I am sorry to point out that some times policing contributes to the failure of some promising newbies. In my lower-ranked days, there were promising newbies growing together with me, but today I see them no more. Users like Rainbowkun, kxwhalexk, kaggie, etc. Though it can be true that there was a big farm then according to Ratimov claim (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5356476.msg57781096#msg57781096), because after the claim, majority of the listed accounts that were flooding the forum then went silent and others banned. Then, a promising user like Rainbowkun failed. There were tons of quality bitcoin articles he wrote, but he couldn't continue, rather he visits the forum occasionally and unnoticed.

5. Plagiarism:
This is the notorious cycle shortener of the forum users. It's respectal of no user. It is possible that plagiarism committed during newbie days could hurt a user at high rank stage. The common excuse is "it happened in my newbie days when I don't know that plagiarism is not allowed in the forum". Most times the pleas fall on the deaf ears of the moderators, especially when the user contributed nothing to the forum. Plagiarism is one of the fast ways for promising newbies to fail. So, it should be avoided.

6. Under-meriting:
This is not common, but there is this feeling that some good posts go unmerited. This might be because of the boards and threads these posts are located. I have read an accusation that someone is posting in meta in order to recieve merits. It gave me the understanding that if some sections of the board recieve more merits, it means some sections recieve less merits. Especially mega threads in trading board and gambling discussion board. It is therefore right to say that a good newbie whose favourite board is gambling discussion might not grow in the forum.
It is therefore my humble plea to merit sources to occasionally tour the boards they don't frequent and spread some merits.

7. Enmity :
I might not have gotten the right caption for this, but a good or quality newbie who does not involve in arguments, debates or misunderstanding with merit sources is likely to grow faster than a quality newbie who goes about engaging troubles with merit sources. Some promising newbies who started well with merit sources, may end up not receiving further merits from them immediately they fall out of love. Merit might not only be for quality, but at the above instance a favour. So, in order for promising newbies to maintain their pace of growth, it is expected to be in peace with all men if possible.

8. Negative Trust:
No matter how promising a newbie might be, immediately a legitimate negative trust hit his/her profile, the journey of growth is 50% ended if not 100%. The ability to trade, offer and recieve services will be limited.  Negative trust (legitimate or not), hence it's from a DT member, is a factor that fails some promising newbies.

9. Mission to the Forum:
Under this factor, failure is subjective. What others see as failure might not be a failure to the user. If a newbies' mission to the forum is to shill a project, once the mission is accomplished, the user could abandoned the account and we can't confidently say that the user failed. Another instance is when a user's mission is to scam, once the scam is successful, the user will care no more about the account. Again, we see some users who are newbies but have legendary member activity because of only focusing on bounty. We cannot say that such users fail because to them their purpose of coming to the forum is achieved.

10. Environmental Factors:
There is a world outside the forum. That is the real world. And whatever happens in the real world affects a user's activities here in the forum.
Factors such as;

• Sickness
• Covid
• Work
• Death

Are factors that could make a promising newbie fail in the forum.  :)

Conclusion:
The above factors I outlined are my personal observations about my 11 months old in this forum. Since I am not old in this forum, some of the above points may be wrong. Please! Feel free to correct any obvious mistakes or misconceptions by me and I will not fail to edit, delete or add as the  case may be.

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If you like this topic, you may also like a similar topic by me Some avoidable forum mistakes of Newbies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5379867.msg58900293#msg58900293)

You have pointed out important things but I would like to emphasize one thing, it is "value". What can you do for the forum and how can you be helpful to others, that is what comes to my mind as a newbie.
There was a particular thread that discusses why some members preferred to merit legendary ranks over lower ranks and out of all the replies, one person said it's a value, legendary ranks are experienced, add value to others and provide help where necessary, so what can you do to be better than them in the forum.
I began to question myself about what can I do to help the forum since I'm a newbie who has little knowledge about bitcoin, I searched through the forum and there were many of them that you don't really need to be too technical about bitcoin to help others like to clean the forum by reporting scam and plagiarism, help others to answer questions in technical discussion, Bitcoin technical supports (you need the knowledge to achieve this), economical aspect of bitcoin but while doing this, stick to the forum rules and regulation.

Respect users and their opinions as long as they are not misleading others. Keep reading, someone's personal text once said reading will not make you spam.

Nice thread OP, I think this is good summarize for the thigns newbie should read. However, I think the words with hyperlink is confusing to others. When Ive clicked it I thought Im gonna direct to a certain thread detailining the words but instead to the samw thread in which it was explained. I think its better to change that into a bold instead. Just a suggestion.

Just to point out briefly some of the comments that came to mind:

I don’t fully concur with what you state on the matter of Alt accounts. Alt accounts are allowed as long as they stick to the rules (i.e. not created when banned on a prior account) and behave in an ethical manner (i.e. not meriting each other, no fake conversations between them, no same campaign simultaneously).

There is no mandate to lists your alt accounts, which one may wish to keep completely separate from their main account for a variety of reasons (business, opinions, etc.), but it is true that Alt account hunting/detecting is a thing on the forum, so any wrongdoing such as what I mentioned before could, sooner or later, be spotted and highlighted.
This can of course produce false positives, due to patterns and or/similarities with other account’s styles and whatnots, so in a sense, you are right, although in theory you should only be right when they (account + alts) behave wrongly.

The case you mention was a weird story, but in terms of what he wrote, I personally found it too hippy-cult unsubstantial, to a point that he overdid it far and wide, pointing things towards his personal project (which is legit in intent, but no need to be sly about it). Neverthlesess, I can understand that others may have liked his writings.

Rather than have Merit Sources roam boards they know little to nothing about, it would be better for board usuals to bring forward a case on Meta as to why there board is undermerited, with concrete examples and quantitative numbers.
If I were to go to the gambling board, I wouldn’t have the faintest clue what to merit, and would really need to get into the likes of the board to develop a reasonable criteria.

Sometimes though, the opposite happens, and in order to try to gain favour, people echo and mimic actions of others (there is a word for that). I think this is less of a thing as of late though.

Everything is a good suggestion but if something is too carefully handled, so I think a good result for the next few months or weeks Because newcomers are always afraid, and there are many reasons to be afraid and if someone is not altered, then newbies is normal to be scared because the new ones are ignorant about most of the issues and there are many old members who are not aware of all the issues.


Finally, anyone follow your suggestion so I hope the good result and grow up every new and all member sometimes grow up slowly but successful one day the rank.

Newbies who fail to reach higher ranks and become established members do so because they didn't come here for the right reasons. In the past, people would sign up on Bitcointalk because it was a great forum to discuss and learn about Bitcoin. Then you have the marketplace where you can engage in some trading with other members. There are local boards where you can talk with people from your own country who speak the same language. And there is an altcoin section to discuss alternative coins if you like. As you spend time here, mature and gain knowledge, you realize you can earn a bit by getting into a signature campaign. In the early days, you could earn nicely in bounty campaigns as well. Nothing wrong with that when you take it one step at a time.

The problem with newbies is that many are not interested in any of the things I said, except the part about bounty and signature campaigns. They want you to tell them what they have to do so that they can get into a signature campaign. That's where they meet resistance and start calling the world unfair. Anyone with a genuine interest in Bitcoin who is ready to take part in normal conversations, won't find difficulties on this forum. Some need more time than others, but that's normal and that's the way of life.   

Thanks very much. The essence of the hyperlinks taking you same to the thread is, when a thread is somehow long, not everyone has the time and patience to read through. So, with the hyperlink (contents), one can decide to click a particular content that is of interest to him/her, read it and goes away. I don't know if you understand me.

Also, remember that this is a discussion forum, and therefore has a lot of users signing up to ask questions, without ever intending on staying on the forum. The thing is, there's no mission, and there's no expectation that a new user is going to try, and reach the highest rank. Not everyone cares about such things, and they just come here to ask the occasional questions, and you know what that's fine. It's not a failure if you haven't progressed all that much, this isn't a place that we should be comparing who's the best, and what not. Ultimately, this place is here for information, and if a new user or even a old user wants information, and doesn't want to participate in the community, and achieve the highest rank/merit it can, they're perfectly within their right, and most certainly aren't a failure because of that.

So, on that note I don't agree with the prematurely leaving remark. This isn't a race, isn't a competition, and is a place of discussion, that's all.

Having Value is one of the key requirements for everyone's progress in life and not on the forum alone, there must be a particular solution that one must be able to implement, as we all know how there's challenges in every areas of life and same is expected to encounter while on the forum but the value in you will bring a solution to end such, permit me to use another synonymous word "significance". We should always remember that to build a house take process but to destroy it only take a step, what significant impact is one's contribution to the forum community at large.

Another cogent factor to consider is "Character" and this goes along way, this portrait the real image and identity of a person, I don't need to see you in physical before assuming the type of character you've developed, here on the forum many think they can hide under what is uncovered, but immediately they type and make a post their real sense of humor got exposed unknowingly to them, character is like a flame which can't be hidden, sometimes one need not to post when he had nothing to offer, character is what makes a user discern from when his voice is heard and listened to than making a nuisance around, good character places one on a good reputation.

OP, I want to tell you that your post is the most adequate guide, and you are the same person who felt every point you described. And right now it looks very right since you have acquired not only "thick skin", but also good skills. Newbies coming to the forum with such guides seem ridiculous because everyone understands that this is either not a real newbie, or his guides have not been lived through by their nerves.
I also remember my attacks on you when you, as described in the first paragraph, wanted to grow up quickly. But today, please accept my respect and advice to all beginners to use this topic as a good parting word for further growth.

Based on this, I can also summarize that the example of a beginner who grew up before our eyes was combined with such qualities as friendliness, acceptance of criticism, understanding, and correcting one's mistakes. And also a strong desire to prove to everyone that you should not give up, longing to be noticed on this forum. Again, ambition is a very good quality.

About your alt account point.

So if I don't have any good topics to create and I just feel bored about posting for a while it means I have lowered my standard because I don't create posts like I used to and that means I probably move on to another account? Bro this point is pointless, I don't have to make quality posts every time, you are simply asking too much from me, which can lead me into creating nonsense topics, imagine if this forum has such rules 🚷 .

Well, community set standards don't always correlate with forum enforced standards. So, as long as you aren't breaking the guidelines, which you'll know since you'll either be warned directly or have posts deleted, or you'll be aware of it yourself, you can carry on posting like you do.

It kind of touches upon my earlier post that not everyone is here to be acknowledged for their knowledge, not everyone is here to make money, and some are here just to discuss about Bitcoin/Cryptocurrencies which is absolutely fine. Quality is demanded by the community, and while I do think that's a good thing, it doesn't mean every post someone makes has to meet it. I mean, there are plenty of extremely good users that post quality content, but also post rather lacklustre content to their usual standards, but they aren't spammers.

I Concur @welsh, you said it all, you said it all 🙇‍♂️

As you told about promising newbies who fail in the forum, I will accuse the sixth point which is Under- Meriting. Because New users are always trying to learn as well as they are working hard to grow up. But when they have some good posts but no one supporting directly by sending at least 1 merits then they get demotivated. And they have a wrong thought which is, Higher Rankers send merit each other.

So I think new users should get more merits so that they can be motivated.

Merits are, for many, a motivation, as it is both a stepping-stone towards rank and a sign of appreciation in a sense. Threads often receive multiple answers, and when one merits, one may tend to focus on those that were more useful or had more substance to them. More often than not, on a thread with multiple answers, lower ranks may not bring the best answers in comparison, and since Merit is about content (in spirit at least), it is logical that people that have been actively longer on the forum are able to come up with better content in their answers.

On the other hand, sometimes people take into consideration the above, and may lower the bar for posts from newer accounts (at least in some sections or local boards). Perhaps this exercise is easier said than done though in general terms, but the accounts also may need to place time and effort to better themselves.

It depends on how newbies drive him/herself cause we all know that every one of us here in the forum past that stage or let's say newbies rank and we do our best to learn and contribute to our community.  And merits have been given to those worthy enough and good contributors here in the forum. As a newbies part we motivate our self not only by merits but also from knowledge shared to us.

Yes, this is a category of newbies that I didn't capture and they might not have fit into this topic. When I said promising newbies, it means that the user has already spent sometime in the forum and contributed in such a way that the community expected him to give more. For a newbie that signed up to ask questions and exit, he/she doesn't belong to this category.

When we discuss issues of general interest, we intend to pay attention to the choice of words. If you can visit that paragraph again, I said "it is a likely indication". Which means not in all cases and we cannot also deny that it happens. The activities of a user having 1 account cannot be same as one having 2 or more. The efficiency must drop.

Under the point called under-meriting is because some newbies didn't post constructive that won't be merited for that reason and some didn't get merited even if the post is merit worthy. I have said in my other post that I know someone who is a  newbie and are introduced in Bitcointalk correctly but still he did do a plagiarism which gets him banned even though I told him about the forum rules. Some knows about Bitcointalk the wrong way so those newbies will surely quit.

Good observation and useful thread for everyone not just only for newbies, what I think is most of the newbies fall for the rank trap so they work hard and at sometime they feel exhausted if they didn't get the appreciation what they worked for but this js the forum and we are here to learn things about bitcoin so yes it's okay to be average since not everyone is intelligent as some newbies we can see. Don't concentrate on the rank just try to contribute in the way you can.

Very nice observations OP, on my part there's nothing to correct but to add. There's one more i have observed that i will like to be added to the long list. I can describe this with one word which is "Effervescence" - where something starts up very vigorously and burns out all the energy that they could habe used to get a while further. Not like i'm trying to undermine newbies who have started very well, but in my opinion, it is best for me and always good if you start slowly as a newbie and pick up speed here in the forum, rather than starting really well and slowing down to almost a stop along the way.

So far there are 3 newbies who are interested in this forum after they know I have been here for a long time. It's true they only think that this forum is about money when in fact they never know anything about crypto even they never know what bitcoin is.

Their main motivation for being on this forum is because of money and I think that makes it too difficult for them to get out of the wrong zone to move up the rank up to higher ranks because from the start they have maximized their time just to be bounty hunter. I'm trying to tell you that this forum isn't always about money, but it doesn't really matter to anyone who only cares about money.

I can confirm that as of today they are still newbie as they only focus on bounty. There's nothing I can do for them though I can say that they can rank up by increasing contributions through quality posts but I have to fail about that and let it go with its interests.

Sadly, this is the case most times and I believe the harshness sometimes is unnecessary. However, to stay real on this, I think some newbies act overbearingly and that could irritate certain users. The end result of such irritation is often harshness. I sympathize with genuine newbies who get such toughness melted on them and they wrongly conclude that every senior ranked account is snobbish like that. I normally find it a problem with newbie accounts which masquerade as experts in what they know next to nothing. Also, for instance, we often see newbies who come here to advertize trading tools, ask for loan or offer loan services, advertise and vouch for sites they largely don't know anything about. Such newbies may not be treated as innocent and genuine newbies. They've something sinister up their sleeves.

The OP is one i must applaud for taking out time to draft down such informations at least for the benefit of the newbie's and prospective ones.

But I wish to draw the OP attention to the area of NEGATIVE TRUST, I believe negative trust as a tag is aimed at deterring any user from involving in scam activities and others alike, and also as a red flag to other genuine members in the forum to be on alert with the possibility that they might be dealing with a scammer so as to take caution.

Which is very welcomed and ingenious.

Though ignorance is not an excuse to the law cause some might use ignorance as a defense when that's not the case, but in  few cases  a very few could just be victimized especially through a misuse of negative trust tag and or out of an act of ignorance, lack of knowledge from the victim with negative trust etc.

In all what am saying is, certain cases should be well investigated and scrutinized before a negative trust tag, though some might worth it but a very few in my opinion might not be.

Such victimization could demoralized a user moral and interest to give his/her best in the forum.

Yep, it pretty much sums up what I feel as well.

Also, remember that users' interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency cannot last forever. I mean, only a fraction of users can keep their passion and hunger for crypto topics, the rest could get bored, and need a new "hobby." That's pretty common in any communities (I call it "natural selection," lol).

I feel this topic comes from the perspective of increasing rank for the sake of a signature campaign.

Not gaining anything will make them fail and only few newbie can last long here since some of them aiming to earn quickly so if they cannot get something in return for staying here they leave and find another things that can possibly catch up their interest. Maybe for now its good to see them quit but for sure they will be back if bitcoin price soar up and many opportunities open up again for them to grab on.

I think I understand this. Some newbies start as if forum will close in one month time and before one month they have given all that they have and then becomes bored. Next is to die gradually or exit the forum. Lolx..
May I liking it to this;

The above statements are pointing same direction and correct. Though Welsh has clarified that this is a discussion forum and people may naturally get tired of the discussion and find another way of life.

I would be very brief on why so many potential great newbies fails, one thing is certain they want to move faster than they can cope with, I have seen many newbies get there first 20 merit and then feel so reluctant and become very complacent or many that goes faster than their knowledge can carry then, the best solution for any Newbie right now is to understand that patient is a great value to have and become great in this forum.

I guess that is expected for most of the newbies that they are not yet capable to make constructive post since they still lack the knowledge and experience, unless you're a professional newbie. And yeah, i do really believe that there are boards here in the forum that are often to receive mostly the merits compared to the other boards, but maybe because some of them are certainly quality posters so they deserve the merit. However, when it comes to plagiarism, that is a big violation in the forum and will definitely make the owner of that account permanently banned.

This.
This is exactly what I am actually. Although I am here to just chill and join discussion, I do not have the desire to rank up nor establish myself in here that's why I do not initiate topics unless I really need to, otherwise I just use the search feature when I am searching for an answer.
In other forums as well like Reddit, I do not really aim for getting a millions of karma. I usually just read there and join with the discussion of each subreddits that I am interested at. This is not a workplace where you are needed to grow once you got involved in here.

Thanks for the acknowledgement and seeing my guide as adequate. Yes, I fit myself into many points I wrote above. It is not long I joined this forum, so the chronicles of my growth is still fresh in my memory.

Tbh, I was fed up with the attacks then as it bothered me so much. But, immediately I started seeing the attacks as constructive criticism, I learnt to deal with them and use them to shapen myself.

Thank you so much. I am glad you can say this to me. Meanwhile, you sent me to your distrust list then, am I still there? ;D

Your choice of words and grammatical arrangements seems like a poet. I appreciate your efforts personally and to all newbies who show inclination to become good forum users.

Just exactly what i did. But thanks OP for sharing all of these as they may be very vital to make them aware and never fail in the forum. For newbies, its always an edge if you keep learning everyday through research and experience. Since you will never come to fully understand all of these just by mere reading. But when you come to experience failure, hopefully you will learn to figure out and reflect on these.

A good thread, it's true that in this forum we have to be careful in acting especially when it comes to the rules in this forum. for a beginner, it is important for him to grow and learn well the things that can or cannot be done so as not to violate the rules of this forum. Ambition is good but if you are in a hurry and rash in doing something then it will affect our mindset and behavior so that sometimes it becomes a boomerang for ourselves. A beginner can grow well and be successful if he understands his goals and responsibility for himself. , so he will be more careful and try hard to grow well in learning the crypto world.

Yeah I get your point. Ive just thought that these hyperlinks are connected to others thread where there is a much more explanation to thr topic. Ive mentioned since most bullet hyperlink threads are always like that when tou noticed too.

But there is not much an issue there, just suggesting it but its always up to the OP to deliberate design to his thread.

Your observations over newbies failure and post unmerited are awesome, but you need to know that not board the post or thread are cited is the factor of not earning surplus merit alone..one of the other factor that can contribute to that, is the arrangements of the worlds or the composition.

some of them may come up with good title and end up with wrong arrangements..so any place you create your thread provided is quality people who come across it and like the article will show appreciation by merit.. because some quality thread that has been created after two months or fives months do gets merit whenever someone visited the user profile.

Not true. I was surprised by this joke. I don't even remember when I removed you from there. Likewise, I think a very long time ago. You must have bookmarked that page, as you are not on my list today.
I have long understood you and your friendliness to the forum. Therefore, of course, newcomers come in different ways, and it takes time to learn something from a person. Therefore, here I see that many advise not to wear a mask but to be yourself. Sometimes what we hide in ourselves is much more interesting than what we want to appear.
Check again, mate. How many weeks have passed since page 150? :)

That is my aim, It has been my desire to contribute in shaping or grooming newbies that will have the forum culture, be beneficial to the forum and its users. I have created similar guides before and only newbies that are interested to learn will research for them. Many good topics are not pined for easy accessibility though. An honest newbie that loves reading will no doubt be ahead of his colleagues.

Everyone speaks as it affects him. We know that some negative tags are not worth it and that is why there is the word "legitimate red tag". However, I have also seen some DT members create thread to question the genuineness of some negative trust given members by their fellow DT colleagues.

For your case, I see that you have a negative tag because of 1xbit. I see you no longer wear their signature, consider to Pm JollyGood, give reasons for him to untag you, he might consider.

If I should advice every local board need too translate this into them local languages and pin it down, so as,any newbie incoming will see this first as they want too relate with he's kr her local board.
A great summary of how it should be done for newbies, as you'll always get what you work for, working both smart and hard really pays off.
Hopefully newbies and some recalcitrant members get to read and see this and keep them at their finger tips, this will sure be a good guide if you can learn to practicalize em! Good content OP!

What can I say?
It could be that I came too late because I have read where some certain posts are pinned or translated to local boards. I don't really know the process that makes it happen.
It could also be that the energy of the forum has waxed cold. The newbies of today are money anxious rather than knowledge. Could it be that newbies already know the system before joining the system.  The later is not wholly true because many newbies are banned in the forum.

Apart from this, a thread of mine which I feel newbies need to read is  Some avoidable forum mistakes of Newbies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5379867.msg58900293#msg58900293)

This is one of the major reasons why most beginners fail apparently. If we are to run a survey on most of the newbies as we have them now and how they found the forum, your sure to have a good number of them to have been introduced to the forum and most of the users that introduces them always certain a focus on making money or earning coins.

I tell you, there  is hardly any newbie that won't wish to stay the path and gets to earn money too. They obviously would put effort at the initial, trying to se how quick they could fly but unfortunately, the system in bitcointalm is designed to ensure forum decorum rather than keeping users that would want to bend the system. Hence, you find users not appreciating posts the way OP expects, deleted posts, activity series and all. Playing a role in the reorientation of the newbie and that could make them give up.

Reverse this as a newbie and you might have a good chance.

I wouldn't say that anyone who failed to achieve a high rank or isn't progressing in their rank or simply left the forum has failed. This forum is not a career, it's a place to learn. Maybe a new user decided to learn from other sources, or they decided to stop being involved with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency altogether. Merit is not a measure of success, it's just a fake internet point.

not every thread you see is worth to translation, if you want to translate is basically individuals task base on the love you have for your locale community, because this types of thread might been discussed in some locale community some years ago but never brought to the English community for general view, if topic impressed you, check your locale boards first if such has been discussed before translating it. And in addition obtain permission from the [op] original poster, before the commencement of the translation.

Good points, these are some of the factors that hinders a members growth if not all. Plagiarism and negative trust are the major factors that leads to failure in the forum prematurely. Alot of newbies neglect plagiarism rules and so they face the consequences. When an account is tagged with a negative trust it is believed that they've engaged in a criminal act before and as for me i see them as an ex convict and don't ever want to associate with them in any way.

Each of those sentences you made has wisdom embedded in it. Collectively, the wisdom in them should make a Solomon green with envy. Apt and spot on, were what my lips uttered. Your last sentence is a double bomb!

I guess the only reason users bemoan lack of merit is because it pushes them to rank up and get higher pay based on that. So, they think it's a kind of meritorious endorsement. Anyone who isn't getting their posts merited is judged a "not too good a poster" or not a constructive poster; and no one wants to be called a failure. Most campaign managers make the situation worse by demanding it as an enrollment requirement into their campaigns.

All you said above is correct and was earlier pointed out by Welsh when he said that this is a discussion forum, anyone can decide to leave anytime.
But I want to slightly differ with you that merit is a fake internet point and not a measure of success. Merit could be fake as you said, but it is the major measure of success in this forum. We cannot deny this fact.
If you have 3000+ activity but with 2 merits and another user has 3000 activity with 5000 merits, there is no how I will give you attention more than the other user.
Facebook has likes and quality posts has more likes. There is no how a post with 2 up_votes and 100 down-votes will be quality than a post with 2000 up votes and no down vote on reddit.
So, in this forum, there's no justification to disregard merit as a sign of success.

It is true that not all threads needs translation to local languages, and the purpose of making this thread is to raise good newbies and not to be translated. But, this topic is not like some generic topics that occur everywhere in the forum, even if it has been discussed before, which I doubt, it is not discussed as a compilation above. Maybe the individual points were discussed separately.

I really appreciate this thread. Every point you made seems valid and it would be very helpful to newbies. I want to add that one of the reasons why newbies fail is because some of the rules in this forum are unwritten and the written ones are not in a single document. You would find these rules in different thread discussions. Locating these rules sometimes is very difficult and complicated. Most times these newbies are unaware of some rules which make them victims since ignorance of the law is not an excuse.   

Over Desirous To Grow is actually a two-edged sword. On one side, lies the motivation that pushes the newbie to think and research on topics to write about. Because they want to share the knowledge. It pushes new newbie to seek for ways to contribute to the forum. However, when these efforts don't yield the desired results that's when you see the other side of the sword. They lose their motivation quickly and if they don't become shitposters, they may engage in activities that are frowned upon by the forum, or they just go ahead to abandon the forum entirely.

Good to understand your view about this. But to say and as I always say, there are no strong rules in this forum. Anyone who doesn't intend to cheat and who has good morales will be successful in this forum. Plagiarism is not acceptable and Plagiarism is the highest rule I have seen in the forum.

Saying that there is not single thread of rules, if you can be able to read this Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0), you are good to go.

You have voiced out your own points, and they are not incorrect, the rules are not the way you want it because this forum doesn't have rigid rules, many of it is bendsome and applies delicately different per case. Theymos said, and i quote:

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If the rules are to be made hard and officially written, it will not work in accordance with the 'forum's mission', because every case will be considered exactly how it is written in the rules rather than individually. Locating the rules is not very difficult, virtually any violation that can cause a problem for the member can be seen here (1 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0)), it is unofficial doesn't mean it is hard to locate, but rather because of how it applies differently to every case.

I think the 'strong rules' in this forum are the ones that are obvious and unspoken, like the natural laws of life. If you think that you are cheating your way in the system by plagiarizing or spamming, then you are putting yourself in a situation where your future is guaranteed- which is to be banned by the moderators.

Most of the problems of newbies stem from the fact that they visit this forum with only one thing in their minds- which is to earn profit. While this kind of mindset is not entirely negative and bad, what makes it worse for newbies is they fail to contribute to this forum which only leads to a number of spams.

So many factors could make one a failure on bitcointalk forum especially when one is a Newbie. A good number of  
these is being listed here for our timely consideration especially for we, Newbies. Yes, it is worth the while for Newbies to consider their steps and learn lessons from matured forum members than try harder to outsmart others instead. So that, being promising as it were will never again be placed side by side with failure. Newbies, we are, so we should walk with caution. We should always walk a step first with one leg into the river to test its deepness than than to walk in and get drown.

this is a major challenge that must be overcome. The first topic written will not always produce results. Sometimes ignored or not getting merit as a reward for writing.
if this happens, then as a new member who really wants to grow, must keep writing and contributing.
I also experienced this at first, but didn't give up on the situation and continued to do what I could.

It is a challenge and I rather blame newbies than established members for it. Whether said or not, the number of merits you receive is directly or indirectly influenced by your rank. I didn't say this for anyone to believe me, because I might be wrong from your perspective. When I was in lower ranks, there were some posts that I put much efforts to make, and they will recieve 1merit from different members. But if I put such efforts and make same post now, you will see higher amount of merits from each merit sender.

This is because some people don't want to waste their merits on someone who will eventually get banned for plagiarism or cheating. But once you are trusted that you won't be banned easily, merits will start coming your way.
So newbies shouldn't feel demotivated when their posts are not getting good amounts of merits.

I have already learned a lot from this thread as I hope to continue this way as well as learn with great integrity. Thank you OP for the guid.

This is where Newbie are required not to be lazy to read and ask questions, Newbie who have just joined the forum still need guidance so that they understand everything that must be obeyed in the forum. They can also ask more senior users here about what they don't know, such as written or unwritten forum rules.
Respect for juniors is still very strong and they (Seniors) will always take the time to explain at length to their juniors so they can understand all the rules that must be obeyed.

This thread is also not to be missed Newbies who want to continue to exist in the forum, every point is still very helpful. Regarding forum rules, you can directly visit here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.msg7955645#msg7955645

Hello @Okayreke, Looks like you are still very new here, even though your account was registered since March 23, 2022, but if look at the number of posts (2), you need to study and read a lot to improve your knowledge in forums.

@Okayreke, no need to quote the entire content of the post written by Op, just use this format to make it look neater and not fill the page content.


Hope you can understand.

These are some great suggestions for newbies to make the best of their time on this forum.  I’m new here. So, thanks for this!