What do the people who operate these bounties think of the newbie invasion? Also, people should not be required to post in order to get paid; that's already against the rules.
An idea I had in this vein was that upon registration you'd have to pick one of two paths:
- "I want to discuss things"
= Banned from all money-making/spam-hotbed sections until Jr Member
- "I want to make money"
= Banned from the more serious sections until Jr Member
= You have to pass a quiz before posting which tries to inform you about basic forum rules, how not to get banned, maybe some basic English knowledge, etc. (Quizzes are pointless to stop dedicated spammers, since an answer key will quickly be compiled, but it may help in cases where clueless people are ending up here.)
I am in favour of the request of 1 or 2 merit points to become a Junior because I have seen tens of alt-Juniors farming bounty campaigns - which means thousands of useless posts a day - and it is going to continue since getting to Junior is just a question of just posting at the moment.
It would be hard for me to choose between money or knowledge, I want both, and probably a newbie would have an even bigger problem with that decision (or make an alt account since day 1).
Regarding the quiz, it is an excellent idea - upon registration the user could get a link to a thread with the very basics, like a 1 minute reading really, and be informed that he/she has to pass the test to become Junior. It is absolutely fine if the answers are eventually compiled because in any case the user will actually read the right answers and at least be aware of them.
I would avoid the English questions, there are local boards and non-English speakers can be active and be a good asset for their communities. Ideally, newbies should be pointed to rules in their own language.