This is a great idea. I think the flow of newbies is good but, besides being trolls themselves sometimes, they create other, subtler problems:
1. Constantly Feeding Trolls and Low-Quality or Dupe Threads. This is, to me, the biggest of the problems. Because today's newbie isn't working as hard as older members, otherwise well-intentioned ones don't have a clue that a topic's been covered 11 times in the past three months, so they jump all over dupe threads. They also don't have the ability to discern a
real plea for help from another Indian Race Troll or One-Ism Troll (
write-up on this variety forthcoming) trying, for instance, to figure out if he's "attractive enough" for this
one girl. If something is straight-up retarded, I tend to just ignore it or flag it as such, but I invariably see that seven newbies have already answered (fed) it. Newbies aren't following the suggestion in the original rules, of lurking for a while, so they don't understand the culture of the forum--what's tolerated or expected.
2. Hitting and Running. Not Committed to the Forum. A lot of these newbies are coming in and getting an answer to their (simple or uninteresting) question--creating a new thread toward that process--and just taking off, without ever really contributing. While this is
part of the forum's mission, I believe, this creates a situation where people that aren't committed to the forum's goals are
diluting the pool of quality threads.
The balance between givers and takers gets skewed too much. I'm starting to think that this is discouraging other, longer-standing members. I don't know if this is the reason, but the G-Manifesto--a member since jump street, with one of the highest rep and post counts--hasn't been around here for like six weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if other members who have gone silent are being influenced by this dilution process.
3. Doing Random Obnoxious Shit. All sort of other behavior that isn't part of what we do here is becoming more common--what Roosh tried to address in the "cool" and "don't be a dick" rules. Newbies with a post count of 6 are coming in big-baller and telling others to "shut the fuck up," or guys are coming in and semi-spamming their products or blogs. Newbs are coming in and telling long, drawn-out stories announcing their arrivals on the scene and detailing their journeys here.
This rule should help toward adding new members, but members who are: (1) committed to the forum; and (2) aren't just impulsively asking a question in the midst of a crazed fit of one-ism. We aren't in the business of curing psychological problems or helping guys "get the girl." This should do wonders toward reducing trolls to a trickle.