I kind of like the idea of the "newbies" section. But one thing that causes me concern is the possibilite of someone making a story in some other section. Then having ADMIN relocate it to the newbies section. Could affect the original story's auther as degrading. Like "why did my story" get moved to the newbies section. This could be away to sweep stories under the rug, keep then off the everthing page, let alone the front page, without having to delete them, which by the way is not a bad thing.
On the other hand, if someone humbly posted to the newbies section, I can't see the harm in it. Also those of us who are so-called "regulars" might be feeling extra patient on a particular day, and troll thru the newbies section, posting valuable links, and opinions. Perhaps even follow a newbie section story to help it evolve.
AS ALWAYS the Newbies(in the newbies section) would have to follow the 'caveat emptor ?) line of reasoning, should they be able to. the same thing that happens anyway, and im probably guilty of giving some less than perfect advice at times. They will have to accept, its more polite, to inquire basic questions in a space dedicated to that, intead of posing such questions as 'what to all you genious's think' on the current everything page.
Tom has a good suggestion. To my knowledge there is no "recent activity page" ,if one was created, it could balence out the feature of ADMIN moving any story to the newbies page(which does exist at this time). In-essence there would be 2 'everything' pages. One for 'recent activity' and one that passes muster on the 'everything' page.
I don't think someone should take the attitude that we have enough sections. If the newbies section exists, then its only proper a recent posting page exists. That way there could be balence oriented towards the new page, by a counter part. AND the everthing page moves up a notch, and diary's can still be off topic in 'good taste' The recent activity page is heavily moderated by ADMIN. The same way the relation between the current front page and everthing page works now.
In that way the Board could have the best of all worlds.
If you just want to get to the good stuff and dont have patience for the 'recent activity' page, then you could view the 'everthing' page and get what you want at the time. On the other hand if you felt the need to help newbies you could go there and wade thru that. But this would be the readers choice.
This forum has moved forward a great deal in a democratic way. Thats what makes this site so special. A newbies page carries that spirt as an attempt to not delete storys. Im not suprised by it.
JW