Topic: What should be done to support newbies? (Read 437 times)

Well, we need to teach them how to obey the rules of the forum. The only way not to get banned is to follow the rules.
Another side of this issue is that majority of the newbie accounts are old members trying to find new ways to get away with this forum...and as such they disobey the rules more often.

I would definitely stay away from any groud that teaches stuff about bitcointalk.
It makes no sense in the first place and I have a feeling that most such groups are focused solely on how to earn as much as possible around here. I've seen enough stupid videos on YT on "hot to do bounty" so I wouldn't be amazed there is a channel where an army of posters is coordinated.

But I must admit the curiosity of what can be discussed there is really starting to get the better of me.

It's not just regarding Bitcointalk but in any place, one should read and follow the rules before taking any action. New users are eager to earn money and get personalised assistance so they tend to create a new topic without bothering to take efforts for searching about it and it creates unnecessary repeated content on the board.

Experienced and senior members are always ready to help newbies and everyone who needs any help but don't you think that asking the question 'How to earn bitcoin?' more than 74657 times would piss them off? Newbies should think about it but they don't because they are newbies. LOL.

I think that already enough has been done to support newcomers. Many higher rank members share their advice, make recommendations and direct newbies. Questions don`t remain unanswered, beginners, who write decent posts, are noticed and rewarded with Merit. But for any activity, efforts are needed from all sides. We can`t make a comfortable environment for newbies based only on our own enthusiasm. There must be desire and diligence coming from newbies, they should want to take and use the knowledge that they are given. Otherwise, our help becomes meaningless.

The real problem is that the category "newbie" is too broad. New members seem to be acolytes, apprentices, speculators, spammers or beggars, and there are probably some other categories as well. Ideally we should cnvert them all into believers, but some seem to be beynd hope, and some need to be contained, as their behaviour is disruptive on the boards.

It’s only a problem really if you don’t apply common sense to what you do on the forum. One shouldn’t even have to be concerned with being banned, unless he is going to cut corners. You see, the most frequent reasons for being banned are:

   - Plagiarism: Copying and pasting somebody else’s post or article, be it fully or partially, without quoting and/or referencing the original author. If you introduce slight modifications that is still considered plagiarism.

  - Very low quality posts: creating posts that are meaningless, and do not add anything of value (i.e. “too the moon” type of posts).

  - Having Alt accounts that break the rules related to having multiple accounts (i.e. farming accounts to participate in the same campaign).

Those are the top reasons I’ve come across, but there are more. Take a look at the rules here: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ.

The duration of the ban is at the moderators discretion, ranging from a few days to permanent (plagiarism is permanent in almost every single case). If you are banned, it is you who is banned from the forum, so you are not allowed to use any Alt accounts nor create any more new accounts ever again (except to set you case in the Meta section).

we are newbie and we need some guide about how to avoid banning in bitcoin forum. But i can not find any info about this problem

I don’t know of any Telegram group to help supports newbies, but whatever you need related to the forum can be found or asked on this forum for sure. Concerning Telegram groups in general, as with any other environment, you need to have your defences up though, as there are many scams being performed on such platforms (see for example Is it okay to trade on telegram?).

Reading through prior to asking questions is the best attitude. It is way better to post a specific question on something you want to know, that to post a generic question that denotes you have not done your prior search for the information.

Beginners & Help section is often answered in a kinder tone than in other parts of the forum, and if you do some background checking before asking, you should be on safer terrain.

I'm very new to this forum and with reading a lot of threads and post I get nervous with what to say and where to find all the information I'm looking for ..all the member that have helped me give me good direction on where to find the rules and and all the info I've ask for ....some times I find it hard to ask questions in fear that it might b a stupid one to some people ,but it might b relevant to me at the time...
Thanks for all the help

I read somewhere that there is a Telegram group which can help support newbie but I don't know much about this group. Could anyone help me?

We can only support newbies who show willingness to learn and be useful on the forum,firstly stick to the beginners and help board, and read the stickies as well as educative threads so as to get up to date with the runnings of the forum...

With time such newbie with get acquainted with the forum as well as its rules and be confident in posting in other sections of the forum

In my personal experience a newbie should not start posting immediately, instead he should first select a topic, and read more indept about it make some genuine efforts to google if something is not clear. I believe they should stop hiding behind the veil of language barrier, many of them are not proficient in English, so my advice is stick to local forums, make use of online translators, read how people are making well constructed statements and then begin to post. Another major issue with newbies I observe is FOMO, if they don't post enough they'll never get merits, or be able to wear signatures to earn extra income it's about time they learn it's quality that matters here not quantity.

Most newbies are mules that have come here because plastic carrots have been dangled in front of them.  They plod around on the boards wearing signatures without understanding the messages in the signatures, and then they complain when they realise that their carrots are fake, or somebody has cut the string that dangles them in front of their noses.

What we want are newbies who are budding race horses, and then we can show them the winning posts and the prizes. We can also help them to become lean and fit, so that they can earn those prizes. No matter how good a trainer you are, you will never be able to train a mule to win the Grand National, however by discouraging a race horse, you can make it believe it is a mule.

Advise them to stay long in begginers and help and meta section. This is the section that has a lot of complains arises, questions raised and even ban apeals in meta. Know those things why they were ban, know how users interact here because this forum has a wide audience coming from around the world with different culures and attitudes. Interacting with these users will be a great help for the newbie. The users here are also willing to help because many were motivated to help because of merit system. Helping may lead one user to be awarded with merits.

So, newbies here could found a lot of help and guide. It is just a matter if they want to get help by visiting this section and meta. Anythings else will follow and that is all about learning cryptocurrency discussions in the Super Mega Threads. Yet, I do.not advise to stay more on those sections because it all flooded of spam post that one will not going to enjoy the post and the replies. It was just created for bounties promoting signature they wear.

This is my viewpoint for the new comers. They are very welcome and will be accomodated by legend and low rank users that are willing to help to be awarded. Merit is the key and motivation. Good thing it is being implemented.

Why are you writing with a newbie account? In any case, I am in favour of directing newly signed members to a set of rules and take a mini-test about just the 5 or 6 most basic rules that tend to be broken frequently.

I think to avoid bans the very first post should be with the forum rules. Those who get to the forum for the first time find it difficult to navigate here. And the more so immediately find "Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ" So post everything. And if this is a Russian person, then there is generally a dark forest.

As for Merit. Beg those mostly who were Jr. Member, until recently lowered. I was also Jr. Member. And in order to earn honestly Merit you need to create topics that really matter. And since there are a lot of topics on the forum, it turns out that spam and plagiarism. And every newcomer wants to get Merit. And on the Russian branch is impossible to get Merit. They are all greedy. This is no easy matter to deserve Merit.

I look back when I was newbie that I wasn’t sure where to ask questions and where to find the button. Off course newbie need to follow the rule and try not to spam. It might take time for them to understand the rule. I think it is better to ask if you don’t know the rule and searching first, often there are already good answers in the old thread. I find this section is really useful for newbie and I remember I found my answers many times here.  There are a lot of senior members here use their own time try to help newbie and answer their questions all the time, I am very admire them and I hope I will become one of them one day

Well aside from reading the rules, you should actually read some topics and its post. Newbies often do create topics that has been asked before that are easily answered which makes them create potential new megathreads that are a breeding ground for spam. One thing I don't like about this is they are not aware what they have done, they never thought that it would lead to a lot of shitpost, they never thought that it would lead to a lot of members trying to hunt shitpost to report getting their precious time to hunt on other threads. I just want to see newbies create threads with meaning as it would really help a lot.

Totally agree with this one. As I am also a newbie but I have been told that the first I should do is read all the sticky topics and learn first then post. People here joining it just want to earn and that's obviously not possible without knowing what to do and how to do. They just post about getting merit or they wanna be welcomed.

Newbies are expected to used their common sense, why should one spam a forum, engage in meaningless one liner replies to topic, engage in scam and participating in a forum without getting to know the rules and regulations guiding such forum?. If your intention of joining forum is pure then why create multiple accounts or engaging in copy and paste (claiming ownership of something that's not yours? Almost everything on bitcointalk is self explanatory the newbies that get banned most times do deserve it. The greed in them makes them to try cheating the system to earn before learning instead of learning before you EARN. The forum have done enough already to support them it's left for them to support themselves by taking time to learn before becoming an active forum user.

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?