As someone who recently joined HN, I think it would be very reasonable for new members to have lots of restrictions.
I won't pretend to understand the situation fully but I believe there is a learning curve with any new community before new users fully understand it.
I understand there is already a number of karma milestones for features but I think this system could be taken further to be even more beneficial.
- Perhaps a new user can do nothing for the first 30 days or similar.
- Followed by original comments only, no replies (except to own thread).
- Once some karma is achieved, allow replies and up-voting and slowly increase their abilities.
- Once they have significant karma allow them to make submissions, this may stop lots of random submissions in the hope of quick karma.
In my opinion the greatest benefit from this is not in preventing new users from participating, but in slowing them down long enough to understand and respect the current community so they may participate in a constructive and non disruptive way.
I won't pretend to understand the situation fully but I believe there is a learning curve with any new community before new users fully understand it.
I understand there is already a number of karma milestones for features but I think this system could be taken further to be even more beneficial.
- Perhaps a new user can do nothing for the first 30 days or similar. - Followed by original comments only, no replies (except to own thread). - Once some karma is achieved, allow replies and up-voting and slowly increase their abilities. - Once they have significant karma allow them to make submissions, this may stop lots of random submissions in the hope of quick karma.
In my opinion the greatest benefit from this is not in preventing new users from participating, but in slowing them down long enough to understand and respect the current community so they may participate in a constructive and non disruptive way.