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.
there are many reasons why having your mouth shown shut is bad for the progress of society. one instance quite relevant is this, on hell night last saturday a prospective bitcoin adapter/vendor came on looking for information on why he she accept bitcoins on his site, who was there to answer his questions? newbies trying to rack up post counts. what a great intro into a community.