I'm glad this got implemented. A forum really is a kind of community, and the best way to join a community is listen first, for a little while, then start posting a little bit (and a newbie forum is just fine for that), and then posting a little more.

It makes the mods lifes easier, and it won't really keep anyone who is seriously interested in joining the community from doing so. But it will make life much harder for spammers, idiots, people opening multiple accounts to pretend their opinion is the opinion of multiple people and other stuff that's not in the best interest of Bitcoin or the people who really care about Bitcoin.

Kudos to the forum admins for this change!

The issue with people not speaking English is a valid one, though ... maybe new people should be allowed into those forums ... and people posting English in those forums be banned after second warning ;-)