Bitcointalk needs to be more noob friendly

[Grover]

There's other reasons why the restrictions were imposed. Scammers were making accounts en masse and changing accounts once they're being found out, and the restrictions make their lives harder.

I think this is on topic if not remove the post.

Spammer scammers can still do what you're saying.  A kid with a "Speak n Code" (lame joke about "Speak n Spell") app, like a macro app in FF or Google Crime can make ten or more accounts and still have the spares ready to go when one gets booted.

The definte on topic part is that I have spent at least 8+ hours on here and so far have credit for 3h:12m.  Instead of pointlessly clicking on links to keep pinging the server I've been trying to read and learn, but I'm getting killed in my time stats for trying to play the game according to my perceived intent of the rule.

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[notbrain]

Agreed. And I gets my 3rd post!

and let me guess - about 17 minutes on the clock?

2 *HOURS* and 17 minutes. 4th! I'm a pro now? The main annoyance is when I do actually have something productive to say in a non noob section. Oh yeah, I have to hit refresh another 5000 times.

There are probably some really good automatic detection algorithms we could use to automatically trigger extra hoops to jump through/filter posts like gmail does for spam, some kind of heuristic algo. Nothing will ever be conman-proof but this is the intarwebs. There has already been months of discussion and quite a large pool of BTC to go around for a new forum to be developed, but I think I'd rather shepherd 450 feral cats.

[lukestokes]

As someone who just recently got out of the newbie jail, I think it's a good thing.

However, I do think there may be something worthwhile in the OP. When you're involved in a community for a long enough period of time, you forget what being outside of that community feels like. A newbie like myself then has insight you can't obtain on your own. That insight may be valuable.

Was I annoyed by the jail? A little bit. Do I think it serves a valuable purpose? Yes. In fact, I've used it as a positive attribute of this community when describing it to others.

Here's the larger concern: The forums are overwhelming.

Want to learn about ASICMINER? How much free time do you have to read through 106 pages of forum posts?

It's understandable for those who have put in the time to be frustrated with those who are unwilling to do so. My thought is, most of the population has no freaking clue how their money works ("But... I thought the money I deposit in my bank is actually in there...?"). For Bitcoin to become more widely adopted, these are the type of people that will have to feel confident using it. People fear change and many fear technology. Sure, they could read the wikipedia page and get up to speed rather quickly, but most probably won't even go that far. The bitcoin wiki is helpful also, but again, there's a lot of info there for someone to read if they are still trying to evaluate "is this worth my time?"

So what's the solution? I'd love to see more videos explaining bitcoin. I'd love to see a "top posts" summary section in the forums. Maybe even some weekly summaries of the best discussions, filtered down into usable pieces of information within specific categories.

Someone could even setup a business for this. Charge a small subscription fee, pay contributors a small reward for writing great content. etc...

But hopefully my original point is understood. The forums have so much information at this point that new members feel overwhelmed. Maybe there should be a separate way for them to learn about bitcoin, get their questions answered and not lose 3 or 4 weekends doing it.

Or we could just keep things as they are.

[MilesDyson]

yes the newbie corner is not a good idea because you cant get any answers to questions regarding and issues you may have regarding mining or pools, so i have to spam other threads in order to get to the technical support..... 

[GodfatherBond]

One of the struggles bitcoin needs to overcome to achieve mass acceptance is ease of use and understanding. Bitcoin Talk plays an invaluable role in this process as noobs and not-so-noobs venture here to understand, to teach, to help each other and more broadly bitcoin.

I guess this forum is good as it is... Bitcoin need to be more popular - somehow generally accepted / know type of payments... Just as easy to use as Paypal for general public when most oh them are not interested in technical etc. things = not interested in this kind of forums. There needs to be place like that to discuss just backend etc deeper things beyond simple use. So, there might be no need to change Bitcoin Talk too much. Just my two cents.

[Anon136]

Part of the unfriendliness to noobs is caused be the endless repetition of  allready hundereds of times answered questions (for the fourth year and counting). A part of the solution could be learning material and tests before you are allowed to post on the forums, possibly separate materials and tests for different forums.

i dont mind this so much. I expect that it usually takes me a lot less time for me to quickly answer a basic question than to than it does for a noob to search though archives in-order to find that answer.

[sublime5447]

I am going to admit I did read the whole thread just the first couple post, but I would say what is needed is a tutorial. If there were a 5 min video that could explain the main points of of how to use and behave on the forum it would greatly help.

I do have a friend a who is a video producer if the forum wanted to pay him i am sure he could make a decent video for cheap.  

I think the reason that your time wasnt logging is because you weren't active on the site. Which is the way it should be.

Sorry if I have posted information already covered.

[Teferi66]

Agreed. And I gets my 3rd post!

Mine too!

[Explodicle]

Part of the unfriendliness to noobs is caused be the endless repetition of  allready hundereds of times answered questions (for the fourth year and counting). A part of the solution could be learning material and tests before you are allowed to post on the forums, possibly separate materials and tests for different forums.

i dont mind this so much. I expect that it usually takes me a lot less time for me to quickly answer a basic question than to than it does for a noob to search though archives in-order to find that answer.

+1. After a while one learns not only to recognize a n00b topic, but which n00b topic it is and how to best answer it. Some topics come up extremely frequently, like deflationary spirals and eventually losing the last coin. I know I asked my fair share of questions when I started so I try to pay it forward.

Heck, even THIS topic has been brought up before! But we shouldn't expect everyone to wade through a somewhat-applicable thread from 2010, particularly with a less-than-perfect search function. Once you're a die-hard bitcoiner reading those old threads is fun, but when you are first investigating you don't know for sure that you'll even use bitcoin so it's not worth your time yet.

Experienced users: If a n00b annoys you, don't respond. It's really that simple.

n00bs: On behalf of Hero Members everywhere I apologize for what feels like excessive barriers to participation, but trust me you'd rather feel this pain than lose your coins to a scam because we had weaker barriers.

[darkmule]

To get the last couple hours of online time I just had a clickbot hit F5 for me on a busy thread for a couple hours.  I'm sure the kind of people who scam could easily do the same thing.

In fact, it's pretty obvious they do, if you look at the Ripple giveaway thread, where a bunch of very suspicious accounts are posting addresses.  Anyone who really wants to scam is doing it anyway.

It also doesn't seem to stop idiots much, since the normal non-noob threads are jam-packed with idiots, droolers, trolls, kooks and lunatics.  As is most any high population message board.  The high quality posts are still there, and arguably, it would be even worse without noob hell.

However, if this particular implementation of a noob hell was all that great an idea, you'd see forums all over the net adopting it.  Instead, I've never seen anything like this at any other site.  It's idiosyncratic and weird.

Oh well, whatever.  If it bothered me enough, I'd set up my own forum.  Everywhere has its quirks.

[sublime5447]

I love when all the noobies rally together, if you don't like it here, start your own forum it is that simple, we all went thru this processes it is life get over it. It really isn't that bad, if your active on the forums and bring in good content you will be accepted otherwise just leave now.

I love when "hero's" are the typical dicks you expect them to be. It is nice to know that you are going to be given a hard time by someone with a superiority complex every time you ask a question or have a suggestion. It really does a lot to grow the digital currency market, you see by creating such a hostile environment it makes new comers just fall in love with btc and will quickly adopt it and be sure to tell there friends how great it is!!.
Yay for assholes Yay for bitcoins!
 

[sublime5447]

Ya but I know I am an asshole I think people should prove themselves too. This is a post about how btc needs to be friendlier. I agree.
Saying if you dont like it start your own forum is bullshit. That is like if you dont love the american military you can just get the fuck out of my country.


 

[nwbitcoin]

As a new member with 18 hours on the forum, I feel the Noob jail is fantastic idea - more forums need them!

As an early Internet adoptor, I was very aware of the 'Forever September' issue, where noobs always ask the same questions, and its like groundhog day on an unrestricted forum.

Bitcoin is a complex subject, after 18 hours, and a good 20 years of cutting edge IT experience, I am starting to get to grips with what a phenomenal job has been done so far with getting to where we are today.

In commercial terms, bitcoin is years from mainstream use.  There are far too many political and business issues to be resolved - while a few technical problems also need to be tested.

Noobs, and I count myself here too, usually want a short cut, and in the main, its a false economy at this time. For instance, I have had a few of my early understandings of bitcoin turned on their heads in the last few hours, and I expect the same to happen again in the next few weeks.

Maybe the answer is a fork in the forum, with a dumbed down version created with more pretty pictures and videos open to everyone. However, the reality is, most noobs in the next 18-24 months will never even look for this forum, because they will get their answers elsewhere, as the concepts of bitcoin become easier to pick up in other media.

[wachtwoord]

I love when all the noobies rally together, if you don't like it here, start your own forum it is that simple, we all went thru this processes it is life get over it. It really isn't that bad, if your active on the forums and bring in good content you will be accepted otherwise just leave now.

I never really went through this and only found out about noob-jail a year after I made my account. I must have created an account, not posted and started reading and by the time I wanted to post I could

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of the elitism. Having spend time actually reading before asking questions is nice though. And the measures in place today are likely correlated to that, but correlation does not imply causation



TLDR: May be the restrictions can be made a little less strict. How about a quiz?

[sublime5447]

Ya but where will they get their btc? They may learn about it some where else but where are you going to get them from? 1 of 3 places.

An exchange(puts you on the record),  bitcoin-otc (I am banned from there), or here.    every other option is not viable in my opinion. People simply are not going to do MP or Bit instant or coinbase, or mine in large numbers.

[Zakir]

This is a good place to learn what is frustrating to noobs and what to do about it!

[sublime5447]

I love when all the noobies rally together, if you don't like it here, start your own forum it is that simple, we all went thru this processes it is life get over it. It really isn't that bad, if your active on the forums and bring in good content you will be accepted otherwise just leave now.

I never really went through this and only found out about noob-jail a year after I made my account. I must have created an account, not posted and started reading and by the time I wanted to post I could

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of the elitism. Having spend time actually reading before asking questions is nice though. And the measures in place today are likely correlated to that, but correlation does not imply causation

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png

TLDR: May be the restrictions can be made a little less strict. How about a quiz?

I think elitism exist not only against noobies but every faction of bitcoin. The foundation members feel elite to the non-foundation members, Some bitcoin core devs feel elite to everyone else. I mean that is something that is going to happen in any place when money is involved. Also I think the whitelisting works well. I mean you have an idea or your doing something that is cool you talk about bam your out and talking about it. If anything the current situation could improve but I mean again you don't want spammers and scammer that are fly by night.

I could not agree more, that is why the forum needs to change and adapt, as scammers tactics change so should the communities response as the make up of the community changes so should who the forum is geared to. Obviously as it grows there will be more and more noobie users so the forum should cater to its market and work for the people who need the help and who bring in the new dollars. 

[td89]

interesting, and that is my last post

[ltc]

My assumption is that all those unfriendly actions are mostly to get rid of constant spam autopost attempts and to prevent scammers from registering hundreds of accounts. It's a pity I have to wait for a while until I post outside newbie section but that's the only way to go to keep this board clean.

[mootinator]

My assumption is that all those unfriendly actions are mostly to get rid of constant spam autopost attempts and to prevent scammers from registering hundreds of accounts. It's a pity I have to wait for a while until I post outside newbie section but that's the only way to go to keep this board clean.

"The only way?" I very much doubt that.