The welcome message is the very important message for new comers. It contains informative details, strong warnings and of course it inspires good newcomers to start their journey, adventure and career on the forum. Since the welcome thread is not locked and if theymos undecided if this request is necessary, some concern users can bump it daily to stay on top on meta section.
It is not official rule but I believe only thread owners are allowed to bump their threads without any contents. Just a post like "bump" and it is limited to 24 hours per bump, old bumps have to be deleted.
So if you are not thread owner, and want to bump a thread, you need to have a reason to bump it with something new to discuss with the others. There is no harm if a thread is bumped like that but if many people post a bump (one or many bump(s) per day), it will become annoying bump.
It would be welcome update, but I doubt it would really have much of an impact as a pinned message. There is so much information pinned on top various boards (particularly Meta and B&H) that are useful to forum members, the
Newbie - Read Before Posting thread is another excellent compilation, a little similar to the Welcome Message.
They are different despite of some points are similar. It can be my thoughts but I feel them different with different messages to readers.
I think another stickie thread might actually make board headers start to look cloggy with too much information for newbies to digest.
It is similar as badges for forum members, I agree. Fortunately, the forum has limited pinned threads and I think there are enough space for other pinned threads (if they are important).
Current N
o of pinned threads:
The welcome message was to be shown on the registration confirmation page and would be difficult to miss without clogging the forum.
I would definitely want it to be given more priority as some users register without proper guidance (especially when there is a language barrier) and could get lost in some sections easily. A little guidance would help.
It is a point, I agree with you as well but you are missing another point. Most of newbies ignore the welcome message. They are in a hurry when creating accounts. So later, if they need to find the message again, they probably won't find it.