Bitcoin Forum

Does anybody else think the newbies restriction doesn't make sense?

Yes and no. Yes since bots and spammers in general can really mess up your forum. No because this approach actually does not work and just serves to annoy legitimate users. Nothing rubs me the wrong way as being thought of as a spammer off the bat.

This isn't the only forum that has something like this...

I think it does stop the creation of some spam accounts. Mostly because of the time limit, which isn't hard to reach if you're a legitimate user. However, if you were trying to create 50 spam/scam accounts, I wouldn't want to be the one managing them all to 4 browsing hours.

I think its a decent system, it encourages the use of the newbie forum which is here for a reason. TBH i'd prefer a system which requires a unique email domain ie, can't be from gmail or yahoo. I'm a member on another particular forum that goes by this approach and it works well.

Yes it makes sense to stop spam bots and the such. It's a good idea.

5 posts isn't that much anyways. I lurked for a while and finally decided to make an account. Already reached the required posts in a day.

Whilst I do have email accounts from unique domains, I still prefer using my gmail address for things like forum logins etc...

Sure that'd stop bad accounts, but that would also stop a lot of legitimate users from signing up, as these are the most popular domains.

It's like this on almost every other forum I'm on and while it's a nuisance, I see the logic behind it.

The nuisance is the logic ;)

It really doesn't, to be honest. I do see some logic though.  :P

Well, if preventing spam is the main reason behind it it does make sense. However, I'm pretty sure it discourages lots of potential users from posting in it, and security should never prevent or discourage the use of anything if it's well designed. In any case, if they're doing this for security reasons then "newbies" is definitely not a good name for it...

One of the main reasons is for new users to get acquainted with the forum. Hence "newbies". Plus it puts all the n00b questions in one easy to manage place :P

Seems kind of excessive though....

I agree with the getting acquainted with the forum part. As for the noob questions I don't think so. Probably most of these questions is just people needing to post. This is my third post by the way!

I think that the "new users getting acquainted" part is the main reason why the new user restriction is in place, with stopping spam as a secondary goal.

I can understand the early restrictions, but is there a requirement to put a custom avatar up?

I mean maybe I'm just a dipshit, but all I have are the stock crap photos to choose from. I need to put my angry Walter face up!!!!!

Yeah there is. Just below the stock photos, there's an option to upload your own pic or link to an online image.

I've been waiting to be able to reply in other forums besides this newbie forum...  be patient jedi, your time is yet to come.

It's a small hurdle at worst.Anything pertinent to post today,will probably have relevance tomorrow.Also, some of the better threads are in the "newbie" section.

There's a learning curve that has to be understood for actual noobies. Give 'em 4 hours to drink up the vast knowledge before jumping in head first

Being a literal newbie I understand them fully. Its just basically to prove that you are "trust worthy" enough to use these forms and to also prove that you aren't just going to sign up and spam other sub sections of this forum.

Kind of, think of it this way; there is no real security in the world.

Why do people have fences? To deter people from entering their property of course.... but i can just jump your fence if i wanted to. (hence extra effort required)
Why do people have firewalls? To stop people from Trololololing their servers yo. But i mean hey, if i wanted to, i could physically make an effort to break into the property of X business, plug in my ethernets into their ports, and hax0r their servers. (hence extra effort required)

The "Newbie" restriction sort of works in the same way. It prevents nothing for sure, but what it does get rid of is auto signups by bots and if bots get through, theyll be restricted to the newbie forum and go crazy. So someone would have to write up a specific bot to hax0r these forums if they wanted to do it that bad. But then there is the passphrase step as well which bots have a hard time getting by on the signup phase. (notice all these steps to put a whole bunch of extra effort required in for the hax0rs out there?)

Just because a legit newbie posts on the newbie forum doesn't mean they're trust worthy at all. I've been lurking these forums for months now and i've seen lots of untrustworthy idiots posting on other subforums on bitcointalk. Even people that were recently labeled as "Scammer" when they had over 300 posts on their account.

What the newbie forum does do, is hopefully direct us noobs here so we read up on all the stickies and random bits and peices, so we can respect the rules put in places by the moderators - this is their home afterall.

Well I never said it was a fool proof plan. A dedicated scammer could pull out 5 posts in little more than 5 Min. and then they could just leave their browser open and play some mine sweeper or what ever. I think they do this also (because your reasons are awesome too) to sort of deter the lesser of the spammers/scammers who don't have the Patience for it.

Just an Idea.

One day i'll be able to post with the big boys :)

Pretty sure you can't just leave the browser open. You'd have to at least refresh, or go to another page, which is a little more prevention.

I wonder how this policy affects participation in the context of the 1% rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)).

Well you could just make an auto refresher.

until then...you play with us, lol.

I use to use auto refreshers bacccccccck in the day of neopets =D they figured it was an excellent idea to push out completely random events to some of their pages, so if you had a refresher going, you'd stock up on tonnes of valuable freebies.

Bitcointalk = Neopets? =p

I understand the reasoning for the restrictions, but theyre a bit of a pain in the backside, especially when I need to ask questions in other sections

The four hours thing does, I think.

I think the timer is a great thing, but the whole "x posts" is a little detrimental I think. It sucks when you're like me, someone who's lurked for quite a while (hours a day) and signed up an account to respond to a thread today, only to find out you can't because you now need x posts and x time spent logged in as well.

I think it makes sense, but I still think it is somewhat annoying.
I just want to talk about gambling, but can't!

It's understandable, but yet annoying when you want to participate in the auctions.

It's bearable  ;D

The restrictions were introduced back when sockpuppet accounts from Something Awful trolls were so rampant to the point where they outnumbered the genuine users in number of posts. So the goons kind of won in their attack to disrupt the forum.

same here. I just would like to send somebody a PM message but am unable to do so since I am a newbie.

4 more hours to wait then...

Four posts and five hours still seem rather cruel. Especially when you want to make a transaction. (trying to buy something here...)

Just reply to five "Hello I'm XXXX" newbie posts and you're set :)

I prefer quality posting to quantity posting. Anyway, the rules are there for a reason.

Also trying to buy something. It's annoying but I can understand why it exists.

Hello,

well, i think this restriction is actually BS.

So often i wanted to ask some serious question or answer to an other one but yet i am forced to do X bla bla postings here for finally being able to post in the forum

This really sucks