And newbie jail didn't protect against that, it just delayed them a few days. I remember I graduated newbie jail pretty quickly.
A few days? I think it was initially four hours browsing time and few posts but then was reduced to just one post I think before being removed completely. There are pros and cons to it but it probably turned many users away instantly and only confined the spam to beginners and help for a short while before they quickly broke free.
Newbie jail was a long hell
Remembers it was a four hour accumulated browsing time, with post limitations directly related to the accumulated browsing time
It took a while to get out of that status too (Although Dogie might have lurked a lot so it was fast as heck to get out of if you were reading topics XD)
Anyways it held back a lot of users at the same time it was a damn effective spam filter, the effect might be less now though considering how many accounts have broken through newbie jail since it was last implemented.
(Aka past it a while ago and are on standby)
The main benefit was that the conversations were usually of a higher level since people had to read and learn, then after a while gain the experience and knowledge to actually participate in conversations.
Also lot less stupid questions since people learned how to use the quick search since they couldn't just ask away