Originally Posted by 'Vyndree',index.php?page=Thread&postID=77506#post7 7506
The problem with restricting access to newbies is that you're also restricting access to informative posts in specialized forums.
If the newbie is a smart newbie and can find the perfect PvP post that discusses their problem, or something along those lines, then they will be prevented from participating and will clutter up the newbie forum.
I think the primary problem we have is that it's...
- very hard to find information, since stickies are in multiple forums and the wiki button isn't big enough that a new user will find it.
- very hard to discern what IS a "newbie question" and what would be more appropriate for the software forum or the hardware forum -- making the newbie forum harder to navigate/search
I think perhaps even having a "Guides/Stickies" forum would be useful (where new threads are disabled, making it easy to navigate), perhaps along with cross-linking stickies to the guides/stickies forum where appropriate (i.e. sticky link from Software forum to the actual guide in the guides forum). Or even making a "Wiki" link similar to how we make our "Community Guidelines" link so that the wiki is more noticable within the meat of the forum...
More aggressive moderation can help reduce clutter as well -- I'm all for assisting with that. The one thing I worry about is disheartening the newbies or losing the newbies if "Hey, my thread disappeared from the General forums! Where is it? *repost*" starts happening.
In any case, I think better definition of "what post goes where?" would be appropriate as well. For example -- the software/hardware forums used to be for announcing new and interesting software/hardware that might work for multiboxing. These days, it's more of a support forum for "My hardware/software isn't working!". Should we seperate Software Support and Hardware Support?