Reconsidering the newbie policy

[Vandroiy]

I am fully aware that a lock-down against new users was required in June and July, when the forums massively degenerated to a flamewar between madmen, trolls, channers and superpositions of the three. But this was a short event that has largely calmed down now.

Yesterday, I heard the sentence "That forum is locking itself down from serious users, instead encouraging kiddies with too much time on their hands to join." Generally, I agree. Someone who simply wants to comment on a discussion will not want to play strange (and largely useless) games to be able to do so.

This forum is a central point for the Bitcoin community. Warding off newcomers is a serious problem, since it might decide whether they stay with Bitcoin in general or not.

My suggestion would be to try revert to a quick join policy. Maybe get a few more moderators equipped with banhammers, adding temporary IP bans. Quick bans are entirely unproblematic, they only go against people who can't behave.

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[Maged]

In many ways, I agree. We just don't have as much conversation in the Newbie forum that newbies can take part in anymore ever since the rate that new users joined dropped. In fact, I've found that I've been approving about 80% of the whitelist requests, compared to more like 10% back then, pretty much for that reason.

That being said, it's done wonders in keeping the community stable. Whether that's a good or a bad thing could be up to personal interpretation...

[theymos]

The next software will fix this. Until that software is finished, I think it's better to keep the restrictions.

[Brian DeLoach]

The next software will fix this.

Are you switching to a whole new software suite?

[theymos]

Are you switching to a whole new software suite?

See:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45372.0

[eldentyrell]

Yesterday, I heard the sentence "That forum is locking itself down from serious users, instead encouraging kiddies with too much time on their hands to join." Generally, I agree. Someone who simply wants to comment on a discussion will not want to play strange (and largely useless) games to be able to do so.

+1

It's pretty embarrassing what we put the Xilinx_guy through; this does not lend credibility to bitcoin in the eyes of established businesses.  I can't help but wonder how many other people have been driven away by this policy.