This is a discrimination against to all newbie who were just starting up and learning in this forum. Of course newbie could barely get a merit because of the nature that they were new and still learning in this forum (unless if they were just spamming). There is no need for this to do to all newbies out there. This will limit them also to express their thoughts that could be back up by URL links to their claim.

OP you were just generalizing all the newbie. I know that you were after for the good of forum yet instead of scrutinizing the newbies here in the forum, we should welcome them. Sooner or later newbies could contribute brilliant ideas that could be a highly valuable input for the forum.

Besides the merit system introduce to jr. member rank requirement was effective in reducing spam posts.