I've been involved with using bitcoins for several years and would appreciate if I could get whitelisted.
I own shares on BTCT and invested in just-dice...hopefully this makes me not a newb (just a fool instead)
Welcome to bitcointalk.org! This thread goes over the basics of bitcoin, so I would suggest checking it out. Look below for more info about the forums.
Newbie Restrictions
You can only post in the Newbie and Local sub-forums till you have made one post and waited 4 hours. This post must be substantial: at least several sentences. The other two restrictions are you need 1 post to be able to send a PM and 10 posts to put a link in your sig.
See the old newbie restrictions thread or the whitelist request thread.
Forum Tips
theymos (the forum admin) explains how to use Watchlist. This feature makes it easy to keep track of threads you have posted in.
Sent PMs are not saved by default, to change that:
Go to 'Profile'
Click 'Personal Message Options' (left side)
Check the box that says 'Save a copy of each Personal Message in my outbox by default.'
Click 'Change Profile'
It will save messages in your outbox after you send them from now on.
Please use the report feature if you think a post deserves it! We will take action on reports.
Other Information
Do not trust people! Check out for some good reasoning.
This thread has some solid security protocols.
Don't make threads or posts solely for putting up referral links, that's what signatures are for.
Be careful with PayPal, deepceleron's thread does a good job explaining why PayPal is bad to use when exchanging bitcoins.
Membergroups explained - Check this thread out to learn what the icons under usernames mean.
Want to know how to create a really secure wallet? Check out this thread for a good guide.
There's a lot of weird terminology, this thread is a good guide.
If you think you deserve to be whitelisted, write up a post then PM me with the link. Messages without links (or a good reason) will be ignored.
Hopefully this thread helps with some of the beginner questions. This thread will be locked to keep it clean, you can reply over here!