I would like see some sort of minimum post count be required before someone can start a new thread. Two reasons:

1) It would stop non-FT or sales threads by renegade posters who have no desire to learn from or contribute to FT. Case in point: Sunday there was a religious thread on MilesBuzz, which was quickly deleted by the moderators. Although I have nothing against the author's viewpoint, FT is not the place for it. Not a biggie in itself, but then there's my pet peeve:

2) I'm sure I'll take some heat on this one - newbie threads. To me, most of the threads I read that are started by newbies (in terms of number of posts) are looking for information that has been covered ad nauseum. Case in point: the number of centurion threads on the Amex forum. Yes, we were all newbies at one time. Some of us tried to learn from the latest threads, or we learned to use the search function, or both. But some people want to be spoon-fed. These threads move other (and, dare I say it, more informative or relevant) threads down the list, a faster-than-necessary bump to the dreaded page 2 of a forum which usually indicates it's close to death. In my opinion, these threads are clogging up the boards.

I'm sure this will strike some as an elitist view (now that I'm over 1,000 posts). I know that over time, I've tended to start fewer threads because I've stayed current with the info here (other than this thread, I've started one thread in the last six months). But I find myself having to wade through a ton of old topics disguised as new threads in order to do it.

Blast away.

RE: The religious thread. I didn't see it, but we seem to have attracted someone with the last name of grassi or grossi who posts some sort of religious stuff, with the caveat that the post will probably be deleted. I've reported at least 4 or 5 of them. Chance are it was him/her again.

The idea of minimum posts before starting new thread is a good one. I've also seen minimum posts required before being able to post a link. That one may get rid of the people who register only to advertise their business.

I'm sorry... but I believe many new posters bring new insights and oftentimes ask very good questions.

I have also seen members with 1000's of posts ask questions that could easily be answered with a simple search... so number of posts is not necessarily indicative of member knowledge of what is available on Flyertalk.

Finally, by implementing a minimum post count to start a thread will only cause people to make more invaluable posts to pad their post count. We do not want that, do we?

Some do, but I think the vast majority do not. But since I frequent only the MilesBuzz, Amex, Starwood and Hilton forums, my experience is limited. I think FT should give UpgradeMe some sort of special recognition for busting the chops of people too lazy to do a search.

No arguement here. I can think of one member with over 1,800 posts whose every thread started is a request to be spoon fed. But I do think there is a high correlation between limited post count and limited member knowledge. Of course there are, however, a few exceptions - but not enough that I've seen to make me change my position.

Actually, I'd be fine with this idea. I've seen people that started padding their count just to get on Omni(?) or the Coupon Connection, but it seems they give up well before reaching their goal - it's not worth the time. Hey, if I see someone who seems to be doing just that, I just add them to my ignore list. But if the same person wants to start up (what I deem) a usesless thread, it does bump other threads down the list and I can't ignore it at or near the top of the forum topics page.

Have to agree with wharvey on this one. This will always be an ongoing problem; just like the old time posters who ask questions without searching.
I don't thing this is one of those 'change the world' things.

Maybe someone should start a list of all these annoying things.
Omni, here I come.

There is a lot of criticism of people who start threads without doing searches but we have to also be able to admit the truth: The search function is of very limited help.

Let's say I want to find out if Delta offers a bonus for bringing in new SkyMiles benefits.

Yes, I will restrict my search to the Delta Forum, but what keyword do I seek?
"SkyMiles", "bonus", "new", or "members" will all get the 500 hits which is the maximum shown. (And if there was no maximum there would be many thousands of hits for all of these words.)

Until a search offering the possibility of seeking out a combination of words is possible, we have to expect new threads to be started on old topics.

Dov, hate to break it to you, but FT Search does NOT restrict you to one keyword! @:-)

Also, there are options on the Search function that will help limit the number of hits to something manageable.

For example, you can do a search on "titles only." That is usually what I use.

Or you can limit the date range, for example, to a certain number of days or months ago, if you want to find recent threads and not dredge up too many ancient ones.

You can also search for a particular poster's threads. And so on.

And you can combine these criteria as well.

Of course, you have to use Advanced Search to use these options, but IMO Advanced is the only way to search on FT. @:-)

I am very happy that you broke it to me! I just tried it and you are right.

I knew about all the other options but for some reason was certain that if I entered multiple words I would get hits which showed posts which had any of them, not all of them as I wanted.

This will save me a lot of work in the future!

Speaking as one of the many who mostly lurk, I can't see any problems with this type of restriction. ^ In the rare case where a valid thread needs a link, one of the friendly followups can reformat that info I'm certain...

Sadly I suspect that the reality is that no matter what system is in place, people will always try to 'game' the system - it's just the techniques that change. For a message board post padding is common; for FF points, it's a $25 SEA-LAX fare that permits routing through HKG or LHR (anyone find one? you can spoon feed that to me if you want ); for accomodation, booking a year of zero dollar reservations in a five star hotel. And for some of us there is the old standby of reading and posting to FT from work

Would it help the moderators if minimum post counts blocked some advertisers? I would think it might discourage casual/lazy scammers, but that's something the mods would know better... I'd hate to see a rule change like this, if it results in mods playing whack-a-mole on new post-padders...

As to the spam, I think it's easier and quicker to see (and disregard) spam in a forum if it's started as a new thread. This suggestion would merely encourage people to post to existing threads (where it would be even more disruptive).

As to legitimate users posting for the first time on already covered topics, I think the very minor disruption to established FTers (let's face it, if the subject looks like a question covered elsewhere, just don't view the thread) is outweighed by being welcoming to newcomers. Also, I've noticed that often people lurk for a long time because they think they have nothing to add. They'll then discover something new, and their first post if often a new thread of great value. It would be a shame to discourage this.

Agree 100%.

I also agree with Wingnut ^

As someone who was new just a few weeks ago, I did a lot of reading before posting, and then I tried to start by posting to existing threads, because I felt that that was the right way to start.

Ergo, I think it is reasonable to request that newcomers begin by reading a lot of threads, and then by posting at least a handful of posts to existing threads before starting to post.

However, the error messages returned by the Flyertalk system are minimal -- when I can't get into OMNI, for instance (not that I necessarily WANT to get in) all it tells me is that I haven't got permission, but it doesn't tell me what I would need to do in order to get such permission (yes, I have figured it out by searching the archives).

For a complete newbie trying to post a reasonable question, if FT wants to prohibit that, it should at least return a fully informative error message explaining exactly what they need to do before posting.

Finally, I think the requirements should be fairly minimal -- maybe just that your FIRST posting cannot be to open a new thread, for instance. Really I would prefer to see a READING requirement, rather than a POSTING requirement. E.g. before beginning a new thread in any given forum, one must have read at least N (maybe 5?) other threads in that forum.

But I don't know if the software is set up to accomodate that.

An interesting suggestion singlemalt

In the past FT has had some posters start a new handle, post from a proxy server or wherever, so they can't be tracked, post a few controversial threads at 2am or whatever, that cause a lot of angst and heat before they are eventually deleted by Mods.

Sometimes that is fast, and sometimes it can take a while. Anyway, it is a valid suggestion. If your suggestion were implemented this would not be possible.

I might raise it within Talkboard and see what other thoughts are, if others here think there is some merit in this suggestion.

Over to the readers.

I would prefer not to restrict new users. I dont know how much of a problem this is for the mods but as a reader although I have seen some of these types of posts they are a big problem for me as a reader. They seem to get handled relatively quickly by the mods or called out by other readers.

So, as a reader I havent seen this type of activity get to the point that I would be willing to restrict new users to eliminate the problem. Now, I am not a mod so maybe they have a different point of view especially since they are the ones that have to deal with the issues when they pop up and since they are volunteers I would be more concerned about their time dealing with the issue than mine.

I dont think it is a bad idea just not sure if the activity level has reached a point to put this kind of thing in place.