I was lurking on the technical forum and there was a post where the poster had asked a question related to the theory of distributed processing, of which Bitcoin is just one example. I happened to know the answer (or more precisely to be able to come up with links to the computer science literature that analyzed this question and which would be what the poster really wanted to read).
But there was no Reply button. Nor any reason why there was no such button. Eventually, after wasting several minutes I came across this idiotic quarantine zone and the rules to wait for hours, make a fool of myself with useless posts, etc...
If it's SPAM that's the issue, this is easily handled. Considering that this is a Bitcoin forum, there could be an address that accepts a modest BTC donation that would allow newbies to escape prison. The BTC could be split between the forum operators and the moderators who could interview the newbie to see if he passes the Turing test, etc...
It's not idiotic. These rules are stated when you sign up. And it's not just prevention against spam, but for a number of other reasons too. Whilst the donate BTC might be beneficial to some, most newbs just wont want to donate anyway and just bide their time. This donating to avoid newbie quarantine can also be abused to get round these rules. You can always try post your request in the whitelist thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15911.0
