Newbie restrictions

[ft73]

This is just a pain ...

[obom29]

i dont wanna be a newb more

[Railgun]

Due to a mass of trolling, only established posters are able to post in non-newbie sections. You are considered "established" if you have spent 4 hours online and have made 5 posts (new topics or replies).

If you have really good posts, you can post a request for preemptive whitelisting in the appropriate topic.

Also:
- Newbies cannot upload their own avatars.
- You must have made one post in order to send PMs.
- You need 10 posts to put a link in your signature.

Note that it may take up to 10 minutes for your PM or posting permissions to be granted. (The system automatically checks every 10 minutes and promotes people as appropriate.)

One post to send a PM? I have posted but still have PM's disabled - have the rules changed or does the forum take some time to lift the restrictions on your account?

Railgun.

[preytec]

looks like they do count but there is still a cooling time for newbies. it's a good system when you think about it. but a pain in the ass for newbies. trolls won't come on if they have to wait 4 fours. some will but only once.

[micalith]

looks like they do count but there is still a cooling time for newbies. it's a good system when you think about it. but a pain in the ass for newbies. trolls won't come on if they have to wait 4 fours. some will but only once.

I guess it might discourage the more impatient of trolls, though I'd have thought that they wouldn't be on this sort of forum anyway... oh lovely weather isn't it

[TriplD]

Is there an age limit for newbies? I don't feel very "new". Just kidding.

[Thein2No]

Thanks for this, very sensible. I hate forums which get spammed by newbies ......like me 

[TheRonPaulKid]

same here...

[MoeJoe]

i´m hearing the jeopardy melody all the time 

[Drimacus]

I've spent way more than 4 hours in this forum, but never had an account. ...

[ccplz]

I just registered so I could post a trade offer.

[bulletproofd]

First post! PM's unlocked!

[sido]

isn't it contraproductive? that's weird restrictions

[ccplz]

Well,anything to keep the spammers out I suppose.

[deadweasel]

isn't it contraproductive? that's weird restrictions

It's a poor solution for a problem with nearly no solution.  It slows the onslaught of new accounts created by confirmed scammers.

If you're active, you'll be out of newcomer prison shortly. 

[dmj]

Long time lurker, but posting noob... so I was hoping to be able to post the following reply to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77206.msg1152188#msg1152188 (I know it's old, but it has been referenced to in a number of newer posts).
-----

If we call SHA256 a pseudorandom generator G, we can test the bias of its outputs using any efficient algorithm A such that A(G(k <--R-- ??)) (the algorithm run on pseudorandom numbers) returns 0 with sufficiently higher probability (called the 'advantage') than A(r <--R-- {0, 1}n) (the algorithm run on truly random numbers).

http://www.fourmilab.ch/random/ looks promising. I'll be back.

There are a bunch of non-intuitive issues with randomness/entropy testing, which is a well-studied field, and there is no one (practical) single test that you can run that should satisfy you. The gold standard for many years was the Die Hard battery of tests by George Marsaglia (who discovered, among many other things in the field, that Linear Congruential Generators are of poor quality "randomness", which is basically why fast-but-decent PRNGs use Mersenne Twisters these days). The Die Hard battery was recently rewritten, added to and GPLed by Robert Brown, see here: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/dieharder.php

That said, John Walker (Fourmilab that you linked to) is great, and I used his HotBits about 15 years ago when it first came out, and I wanted "true" randomness (and afaik, nothing else online existed - or for a long time afterwards).

[sido]

It's a poor solution for a problem with nearly no solution.  It slows the onslaught of new accounts created by confirmed scammers.

If you're active, you'll be out of newcomer prison shortly. 

yep, i got it

[crookedkr]

wait the restrictions are 4 hours online and 5 posts? i thought it was 4 hours since the membership was created + 5 posts...ug

[anpk]

wow didn't realize there was a 50 post limit once

[byergo]

Sane rule!