Lol, shame. I'd miss pressing New Posts to reveal a list of threads entitled:

Hi
Hello
Hi
I'm New
Hi
Hi
Hey
Ummm, Hi

Hmmm good point.... but sometimes the conversations that come up in there can actually be pretty interesting.

Only if you're foolish enough to tell them that's what you've done. If they don't know why they're unable to make a thread and came here solely for that one thing they'll give up and go away.

no. they'll spam the crap out of the rest of the site until they hit the magic number in the post count so they can do what they originally intended.

if it's a time based limitation they'll create dummy accounts and let them sit inactive until they find out that enough days have gone by to post the spam.

I wonder if it'd be effective/reasonable to implement some sort of application process for joining the boards. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if new accounts were redirected to a form that was to be filled out, sent to, and looked over by moderators who would decide whether the member isn't here to spam, then that could be an effective first line of defense.
Members who's applications are approved would then be on a 'watch status' for a period of a week, and if they haven't screwed up by the end of it, they'd be full in.

The application wouldn't require personal information and all that... but just simply a form in which they explain why they want to join the site. It'd be sort of like when you post in the Member's Journal section and a mod has to approve it.

I know this sounds contradictory to the nature of a public web site, but really it's just preventative measures of control that are well within the discretion of moderators anyway, but are usually exercised after the fact.

I probably sound like big brother or something, but the idea just popped into my mind and I wanted to run it by someone who may be able to refine it if anyone feels there's any merit in it.

I think the whole form is a good idea in theory but I feel like if it was executed there would be a big collapse in the new members category, then again I guess it would show who is loyal and who is not.

Also, I've been to other forums where when you join you are restricted to post in a certain forum until you have x amount of posts or x amount of time, is that not possible on here? This is VBulletin right?

Reading is hard isn't it?

If they don't know why they can't make threads, and it's not posted anywhere to tell them it's just done they can't work around the system because for all they know they can't make threads. If they aren't aware that spamming the crap would help them they won't do it. Even if people are made aware the number that would then think "oh I'm going to spam to get my posts up" tends to be very, very minimal and it nicely highlights who the idiots are that are going to get themselves banned in short order.

I get what you're saying... but I wonder how this would impact new members who're actually interested in joining the community and contributing?

That would be quite effective, in my opinion.
And instead of dealing with spammers, the mods would be dealing with apps.
But I feel like it's far too selective for an open forum.

A new member here just told me someone thought he was a virus, and he's actually really genuine and wants to know about music.
I think it's hard to judge sometimes, and it might cause a lot of problems in the long run.

I wouldn't especially advocate that course, just pointing out the obsolescence of Mr. Dave's assertion.