I'm actually more concerned about the spamming that is done by high-ranked members (Member and up). This has become a pain in the ass in my local sub. Just imagine, a legendary ranked member post almost one-liner in all of his posts, doing a quote pyramid, almost like he is too lazy to just post a new reply properly.
The roots of all of this problem are, of course, the signature campaign. I don't mean that we should remove it, I just think that bounty managers should be more responsible for checking the post quality of all participants. If all signature campaign being run like ChipMixer, then probably there will be no spamming problem. SMAS blacklist is also great.
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To be honest, I do believe that a "newbies jail" can encourage the people to become a good poster, but if we approach the matter in a really different way than before (for instance, by doing contests in their limited board, by giving them some explanations about the forum, and educating them, giving them awards, and helping them to leave the jail once they get, for instance, 5 merits) .
I think theymos mean that newbie jail is like a barrier that makes new potential member, who wanted to participate for this forum become lazy to do so because they can't go straight to the sub-section or thread that they wanted to participate in. On the other hand, usually, the one who has the motivation to go through all the hassle is someone who wanted to gain 'something' (and I mean money). Eventually, they'll revert back to their spammy posting style after they've gone through it.
Meaning: if a post is good enough, then we must give merit, even if it isn't awesome, but if the post is amazing, ok, let us give far more than one merit. If the people see that, by having a decent behavior, they are going able to rank-up, then probably more will try. The actual situation is discouraging people, for, honestly, it is very difficult to rank-up beyond member right now, even if your behavior is quite decent. We need to change our mindset, to try to think again as a newbie, to wear their shoes for a while and to reward all that we are not rewarding now.
Even if merit did not exist, you should not spam in the first place. We are not talking about whether newbies are getting the merit they deserved or not, are we?
In a society, when there is no hope, then the people cross the street and become evil, lazy and sad. If we show the people that this is possible to rank-up, truly possible, then probably more will come with a new mindset.
It is possible to rank-up. Check out these profiles (from my local sub): HusnaQA, jillscarbrough, roycilik, abhiseshakana, manji, pandukelana2712, etc.