We need a stickied topic for newbies...

[MoonShadow]

We seriously need a stickied topic for newbies that collects all of these regularly recycled "I'm a newb and I am the first person to think of the Great Bitcoin Flaw (tm)" subjects.

So I'm starting it right here.

First off, before you post anything about the GBF (tm) that you have thought of, read the whitepaper here...

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Once you're finished, go get a coffee, use the restroom, and come back and read it again.

Then sleep overnight, and in the morning, read it again.

If, at this point, you think that you understand Bitcoin, you don't.  Read it again.

Only once you get to the point that you start to think, "WTF?  How does THAT work?!"  and "How the hell does that contribute?!" are you finally starting to 'grok' Bitcoin.

At this stage, come back to the forum and use the search function on those terms that you found.  Ask some questions.  And in about two weeks, give or take, you'll begin to have a functioning grasp of how the system actually works.  Ask more questions.

Hopefully, this process will allow you, Sir Newb, to understand why you're not the first person to think of your Great Bitcoin Flaw; why you're wrong; and perhaps even how the community has progressed past or mitigated whatever it was you were imagining is wrong.

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[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

And a link to the deflation topic.

[MoonShadow]

And a link to the deflation topic.

A link to all of them.  Dude, put it in!

[repentance]

Cleaning up the stickies in the Newbies forum might help.  Many of those threads are so long that newbies simply aren't going to read them.  Ten stickies at the top of any forum is too many.  A single "Bitcoin primer" locked sticky with links to notable threads on various issues would be better.

Megathreads get around the problem of 73,000 threads on the same topic, but you still have the issue of the same questions coming up repeatedly because many people won't read threads over 20 pages.  Maybe if we can prune some key threads to a few pages each and link to them we'll have better luck.

To be honest, search sucks and it's not readily apparent to Newbies that if you search from within a forum only that forum will be searched.  

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Cleaning up the stickies in the Newbies forum might help.  Many of those threads are so long that newbies simply aren't going to read them.  Ten stickies at the top of any forum is too many.  A single "Bitcoin primer" locked sticky with links to notable threads on various issues would be better.

Megathreads get around the problem of 73,000 threads on the same topic, but you still have the issue of the same questions coming up repeatedly because many people won't read threads over 20 pages.  Maybe if we can prune some key threads to a few pages each and link to them we'll have better luck.

To be honest, search sucks and it's not readily apparent to Newbies that if you search from within a forum only that forum will be searched.  

I agree that there's too many stickies in the newbies forum. Here's my thoughts:

"Bitcoin Businesses and Developers, Let's Get Started!" -> whitelist requests
"Membergroups; or: Why do some users get colored coins under their names?" -> not bitcoin related, move to meta?
"Official Newbie BitInstant Support Thread (Active Customer Support)" -> private company that is currently having problems overselling BTC (and might end up with a hundred people scammed). why sticky?

Put Helpful articles for newcomers and terminology together.