BitcoinTalk: Newbies no longer have signature, Jr Member now requires 1 merit

[dragononcrypto]

Posting this for reference sake, expect in influx of newbies going elsewhere from BCT. And there was me thinking BCT was about welcoming people into the crypto space? Of course not! Bottom line is Newbies aren't allowed signatures anymore unless you have 1 merit (to become Jr Member) as BCT continues it's campaign of exclusivity against new members. Maybe the merit business is booming so this is another way to increase the value of merit selling for high ranking members?
What are your thoughts?

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

Note that this does not affect:
 - PM rate-limiting, which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 - "You must wait ___ seconds...", which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 
But it does affect:
 - Voting in polls
 - Patroller jurisdiction
 - The "ignore newbie PMs" option.
 - "The body is omitted from this email because the sender is a newbie."
 - BBCode limits
 - Reduced-accuracy link filtering
 - Board restrictions

Many of these limitations can be eliminated with a copper membership. In particular, you can set a signature at Member level if you wear a copper membership.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies. I'll think about tying some of those to activity instead of rank in the future.
 
With help from DdmrDdmr, I just added 36 new merit sources, which should help newbies achieve the requirement. But if you're incapable of posting anything worthwhile, then you will never rank up, and you shouldn't: this isn't the forum for you.

Reference: https://bitcointalk .org /index.php?topic=5030366.0

[Altcoinstalks User]

Noticed that too since. It seems time to check out altcoinstalks.com. Newbies must be redirected to altcoinstalk and check this platform. Of course this forum has rules too and I like altcointalks rules/moderations than BCT.