Topic: What should be done to support newbies? - page 2. (Read 437 times)

Isn't the bitcointalk rules shown at registration yet? If not, if I remember correctly they're already planning on doing that to hopefully prevent rule-breakers. Users get banned mostly due to ignorance of the forum rules. After this gets implemented, the newbies would then have hopefully no "I didn't know!" excuses.

About plagiarism though, I think there's pretty much nothing we could do about that. Plagiarism is frowned upon pretty much everywhere, not only on bitcointalk.

From my perspective, one should not even really "need to know" the rules by default, but rather know of their existance. I mean, they are set to deal with things that shouldn’t be done here, and while the default personal behaviour should rarely encounter a breach in the rules, it’s cutting corners that often leads to then not being met. Plagiarism is I believe the main cause of account ban, along with nuked/banned accounts often for a track of spam/unsubstantial posts. Those are cutting corner behaviours, looking for a quick buck and or merit.

According to @suchmoon’s post on account ban (see [MERIT][NSFN] We're destroying more merits than we're sending. Like, way more), during a measured month period, there have been 6.704 permanent bans, 4.228 of them being Newbies ,and another 1.244 Brand New (there are also bans at all other rank levels, but in lesser numbers). On the other hand, there are 1.200 account created per day on average (official stat state a third of that, but 1.200 is the right figure lately looking over recent accessible data).
It those two figures kept a steady pace, it would mean that around 14,88% of Brand New and Newbie created accounts get banned on a monthly basis. That is quite a high figure, but if we spin it around, 85,11% don’t.

There are two conflicting strengths on the forum: post quality and campaigns quotas. There are people more lenient to one side than the other (some decent hybrids too), and that determines how one proceeds on this forum.

If English is not their first language, then its better for newbies to stay on their local boards, or if they wanted to go out and have some questions that they're local boards can't answer, then I suggest they visited Jet Cash Fit to talk English. Or if they can used the forum's Search function before opening new thread, then that will be great as well.

The moderators are strict when it comes to newbies infringing on the rules, because "newbie" accounts are misused the most. My advice would be for Newbies to show moderators that they are not one of those "Sockpuppet" accounts that are being misused and to stick to the rules of the forum.

Once you have proven that your account is legitimate and that you are contributing constructively , moderators will leave you alone to do your thing. It takes months/years to build a good post history and also a good reputation.  

I am not saying that higher ranked users are exempt from the rules, but the mods will consider your post history to see if you are a habitual criminal   or if your actions was just a minor infringement.  

There is no rule that can lead to ban that is only meant for newbie alone every rule is meant for every member but the thing is that newbie fall most times against the rule. Well its best to always check the rules and regulations of the forum.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657

So far, we have mentioned that newbies should:
1. Avoid plagiarism
2. Stop begging for merit
3. Be directed to unofficial rules of Bitcointalk forum,
    Guidelines and FAQ
4. Shun spamming


Please can we have more guidance, what should we do to save newbies from being banned from the forum?

Direct them to Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ so they would know the do's and don't of the forum, the house rules.

It only requires them to read for about 10-20 minutes just to know the basics including plagiarism and other common mistakes a newbie do.

I wouldnt call it "Uncompliance", I would call it spamming, begging for merit etc. Most of the bans I saw lately are because of such a behaviour, a simple FAQ study would have helped to prevent this.

Most only really get banned for plagiarism though, and not doing that should be common decency. Everyone is taught at school not to plagiarize; why some people think it's fine on other platforms, including this forum, is beyond me. There's not much we can do to help them if they go down this route because they shouldn't be doing it in the first place, whether here or not. There's also the fact that it's in the rules, which they should read.

Teach them to read the rules of the forum as well as the specific rules for the subforums they plan to post in.
Read the sticky threads and ask questions if you are not sure about what to do before you break the rules and get blacklisted. 

I have observed and seen the lamentation of most newbies who have being ban from the forum due to uncompliance to strictly adhered rules on the forum.


The question is as experience as we are, what should we do to support newbies so as to imbibe them in the knowledge of how to stay alive on the forum?