While admittedly correlation is not causation, and there is significant increase in attention to Bitcoin, there is no denying that this forum has become far lower quality in terms of signal-to-noise since April 2013, and especially beginning September or so.

I don't like newbies being relegated to some socialist-like same-punishment-for-all Newbie Jail as it used to be. It would be far preferable to the current situation. However, I'm a firm believer in the notion that there are always more options than the ones given. (Given options are: Keep it as is, which we all know sucks, even the newbies; or, return to the prior jail system.)

I note that we also seem to have lost the ability to paint awful users yellow by clicking their *ignore*. If you're newer around here, the way it worked not long ago at all (before the last hack and downtime, actually) was you'd click the IGNORE link, and there were two side effects. One was, you didn't see the posts: You just saw that they posted, and could selectively expand the post (for example to figure out the context in the even that someone *else* replied to them). The other was, the more members clicked it, the brighter yellow it would become, eventually looking like this:

Ignore


I'd like to see this re-instated. Moreover, I'd like to see it include the Lurker ratio to modify the hue of yellow. As in: The newer you are, the less Ignores it takes to paint you yellow; and, with a bias for quality over quantity (the lower your Lurker ratio, the quicker you become yellow as well).

...I guess I should define the Lurker ratio for those who don't know how it works. This is the two figures beneath an avatar (well, where the avatars used to go; now only older folks have 'em. So, where the nickname/handle goes), entitled Activity and Posts. Activity represents the amount of time you spend actively logged-in and browsing the forum. Posts is as it says on the tin: Number of posts. A high Lurker ratio means you spend a lot of time logged-in and reading, but little time talking. It doesn't guarantee high post quality, but it is a strong indicator of a user who is *likely* to produce higher-quality content.