Topic: Bitcointalk needs to be more noob friendly - page 6. (Read 5637 times)

The noob requirements are a good thing simply due to one point.

There are the same questions asked again and again. I have no problem with that. Noobs mostly have the same questions again and again and I answer them again and again 

But it's good to have this repeating questions sorted in one board so we don't get the "real" Bitcoin discussions "spammed" with them.

It's seems like an unfair thing for the people who have already spend some time learning about bitcoin before they join, but it's just the only wai to not get the Bitcoin discussions board flooded with questions about divisibility, 21 million limit, Free Bitcoin Sites, Should I mine or not, Give me Bitcoins, [Exchange Name] scammed me, Could Bitcoin be hacked, The Flaws of Bitcoin (that aren't), Bitcoin is unfair, etc.

So it's really a good thing.

Get over it.

It might also be useful to include a few links to the "newb thread" in strategic locations.  Point it out in the confirmation email, perhaps have the registration confirmation forward the user to the newb thread so they can get informed right away, or maybe also include a link in the confirmation description.  You might also be able to figure a way to have the thread posted as an announcement only to newbie members at the top of every forum. 

I know that these things may take a bit of doing (boy do I know!), but any of these would save time and hassle.

Why - God forbid people have questions, I know it might be tedious to answer them but I guess that is what we all, as custodians of bitcoin, should be happy to do.

Not wanting to answer those questions is one and the same with not wanting new people to become involved with bitcoin.

There are partial solutions, for example setup a shapado install on a sub-domain, but being anti-noob is totally counter productive.

Part of the unfriendliness to noobs is caused be the endless repetition of  allready hundereds of times answered questions (for the fourth year and counting). A part of the solution could be learning material and tests before you are allowed to post on the forums, possibly separate materials and tests for different forums.

Before I registered, I found a lot of answers here. But this forum is very hard to find your way around for non members.

Your only option to follow what is currently being discussed is the last 5 posts section at the bottom of the page.

The moment I registered and got my "unread posts since last visit" things got a lot clearer.

So maybe, "unread posts since last visit" should be based on visiting IP instead for non members, that would bring a lot of newbs up to speed faster.

It would also make it less important to register so it might be counter productive.

and let me guess - about 17 minutes on the clock?

Agreed. And I gets my 3rd post!

We shouldnt hide the dark side of bitcoin.

One of the struggles bitcoin needs to overcome to achieve mass acceptance is ease of use and understanding. Bitcoin Talk plays an invaluable role in this process as noobs and not-so-noobs venture here to understand, to teach, to help each other and more broadly bitcoin.

While I understand from a spam protection point of view, bitcointalk needs to have measures in place to deal with spammy bastards, there is a fine balance to be struck between controlling spam and facilitating the participation of newbies.

I've spent about 8 hours trying to accumulate the required 4 hours logged in time, because I can't just leave a browser open, and the session doesn't seem to carry for a few minutes (so if I spend longer than a few minutes reading a thread, those minutes aren't counted) - I've also found there to be a little bit of elitist attitude to participating in the forums. ie. "you need to know enough about bitcoins before you can participate" - that's not the right attitude, in fact it should be "welcome, you are new and you know nothing, so welcome into the fold, we will teach you".

I'm not one to criticise without making practical suggestions:

1) Definitely reduce the "total logged in time" - arguably to as low as 30 minutes should be more than enough to fight off the spammers.
2) Noobs need more forums where they can discuss things and feel included, rather than just a "noobs" forum.
3) A general attitude change to welcome noobs - to be honest I haven't found this place too elitist, save for a few threads in the noobs forum
4) Some hoops noobs can jump through to get verified more quickly - ie. the "Get me out of here" thread should theoretically auto-approve posters because they are clearly not bots. Or some other form of second stage authentication.

The other thing I noticed when I first joined is the noobs thread took a bit of finding, and I only went looking after I discovered I couldn't reply to a post. I'm not sure what measures are in place to provide info to noobs about their restrictions, my feedback would be to make this more obvious/prominent.

Meant with the best will in the world, for the betterment of bitcointalk and the community in general.

Vince