Usability problems for new users

[quesera]

I'm not sure whether this is beating a dead horse and I also realize that a spam protection mechanism is needed.

Nonetheless, my first 2 hours on this forum were a facepalm fest. Here's why:

• It was extremely difficult to find out about the newbie jail policy. I actually had to Google to find the answer. Possible solution: send a welcome e-mail outlining the limitations.
• People can't post in the Newbie section right away. There's a 6 minute enforced break between posts (understandable), but somehow creating an account is counted as making a post, which is sort of dumb
• If you get the 6 minute error, the post made is lost. If you hit back and then resubmit you will receive an error about the post already being there (when it's obviously not)
• For some odd reason "bitcointalk" gets removed and replaced with [Suspicious Website] (please see my post history). I mean, really?
  

That's about it.

Cheers,

[tysat]

• It was extremely difficult to find out about the newbie jail policy. I actually had to Google to find the answer. Possible solution: send a welcome e-mail outlining the limitations.

It tells you about the jail policy when you register.

[b!z]

I think the policy could be placed in a more obvious spot. The text in the signup form would probably not be read by some impatient people

[fattypig]

Newbie jail should be removed, what's the point of spamming 5 post in newbie section?

[tysat]

Newbie jail should be removed, what's the point of spamming 5 post in newbie section?

Someone hasn't read about how it works now... it only takes 1 post and 4 hours of waiting after that post.

[quesera]

I think the policy could be placed in a more obvious spot. The text in the signup form would probably not be read by some impatient people

Pretty much so (mea culpa).

Anyway, the simple fact that there are multiple posts on the web frustrated by this issue (just do a Google search for "bitcointalk can't post") is I believe a sign that an usability problem does exist and it is faced by a non-trivial amount of new users.

What's even worse, this problem most likely disproportionately affects organic new users (such as those coming from Google traffic) which simply want to contribute to a thread they have found. Spammers, scammers and sockpuppets are not really affected since most likely new accounts created for this purpose belong to already existing users.  

[Raoul Duke]

If you can't handle the forums' usability you better not touch Bitcoin at all j/k

[quesera]

If you can't handle the forums' usability you better not touch Bitcoin at all j/k

Ha! Good one.

I actually work in a field related to usability analysis (CRO) so I'm trained to spot this sort of issues. Call it a professional defect.

[dserrano5]

• […] somehow creating an account is counted as making a post, which is sort of dumb
• If you get the 6 minute error, the post made is lost. If you hit back and then resubmit you will receive an error about the post already being there (when it's obviously not)

I may be wrong but I think the "post" limit isn't about posts in the forum, but HTTP POST operations. Creating an account and logging in are both POST, as well as trying to publish a message (either successfully or not).

• For some odd reason "bitcointalk" gets removed and replaced with [Suspicious Website] (please see my post history). I mean, really?
  

I think that was about bitcointalk.us or something like that.

[quesera]

• For some odd reason "bitcointalk" gets removed and replaced with [Suspicious Website] (please see my post history). I mean, really?
  

I think that was about bitcointalk.us or something like that.

The exact deleted string was "bitcointalk's" without the quotation marks, but I believe you are right and the anti-phishing feature misfired.

[b!z]

• For some odd reason "bitcointalk" gets removed and replaced with [Suspicious Website] (please see my post history). I mean, really?
  

I think that was about bitcointalk.us or something like that.

The exact deleted string was "bitcointalk's" without the quotation marks, but I believe you are right and the anti-phishing feature misfired.

bitcointalk's
bitcointalks
"bitcointalks"

What are you talking about?