FatWallet

I think the existing newbie thread is fine as a stopgap measure until a newbie category can be implemented in FWF (hopefully soon).

"NEW HERE? Ask your finance question here! (after searching forums please)"

Can we make it blink?

I came here to rename the newbie, but it ran away...

I agree.

Plus, some people might do a google search, land on an existing topic, and without doing much research, decide to post.

So you have to gate-keep the path to posting, not the path to reading.

I have never created a new thread, so I don't know what it looks like.

But when a poster's thread count is less than X, perhaps the new thread posting program logic can ask the poster if he / she wants to post a reply in an existing thread (pointing to the newbie thread) instead of creating a brand new thread.

"STUPID QUESTIONS GO HERE"

Change the text when you click on "new topic" from

NOTICE: DO NOT POST
UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THE FOLLOWING!

to

(This should be a clickable link that automatically replies to the newbie thread, whatever you name it)
NOTICE: POST ALL GENERAL QUESTIONS HERE:

Just moderate a user's first few new threads. I think it is less work for the mods compared to all the alerts they must be getting for all those crap threads.

Perhaps we need to segregate threads differently....I think a logical move would be to hierarchically separate the levels of threads by "noobness" (e.g. 1 for noob questions, 5 for FWF elites), this number could come from either moderators or from the community (like the green/red rating). My contention here is that a noob question (e.g. "how does this affect that") can be good (i.e. green) while still being fairly obvious to the elites.

With this you could pick the level of threads that you want to see. The snobs could then set it to only show the 5s and not be bothered by us commoners who want to ask something relatively simple.

Maybe we need a way of expanding a thread from being a straight-line conversation to be a collection of smaller threads (as the conversation diverges).

-G

You could have some sort of mult-step posting procedure for those with <x posts, similar to what most sites have to steer users to self-help before getting live help. Once they enter their topic, or even a post, have a context based search list some 'Do any of these address your question' (should your post go in one of these?) thread links.