I do believe in the other thread there were one or two replies to your suggestion and one of them to me represents a big issue that would need to be addressed. If we restrict new members from starting threads then if they have a question they will be forced to either not ask it or to potentially hijack an existing thread to ask it (or search for the answer.) I realize that quite often new member questions tend to be ones that have been asked and answered before, and that this might force new members to actually "search" for an answer before they could ask it. This though could potentially cause a different problem and that is new users must become proficent "searchers" of FT information before they can really get useful information that helps them. Or, based on my previous assertion, they would clutter existing threads with potentially OT to that thread content. I'm not sure that we will have helped matters if either situation happens.

I'm sure there are a number of folks who might think that forcing someone to at least get somewhat familar with the search feature is a good thing, and that is probably a fair point up to a point. But what is that point and does this cross it or not?

Your second proposal of limiting URLs might be a good compromise as there are probably fewer reasons for a new poster to ask a question that requires a URL. But now we potentially limit a new users ability to help answer questions. Quite often I answer with a link to a specific thread/post or even a diffferent website. So the question becomes is the benefit of this limit worth the potential cost?