I judge people more by their avatars than their post count. I don't even know what mine is, but I will learn after I hit the Post button. I'm going to guess higher than I think it is because I'm usually underestimating this sort of thing. I guess 220, about twice what I feel I've done. Drumroll maybe?

yes be nice to new accounts and stop banning them instantly!

My own personal anecdote:

Joined VGC cause I like sales numbers but my first thread was to say that my PS3 died on me (after only one month). I could turn it on and navigate the menus and all but it wouldn't read any discs (blu rays, dvds, games, etc...). So I'd thought I'd share to see if anybody had gotten this problem too. The thread didn't get a lot of posts but almost all of them were to call me a troll... Tough times for poor little me!

Anyway, that was my only instance of paying for my low post count. The community herew is fine with newbies, just stay reasonable in your posts!

lol slap

this right here is what happens to new accounts. We've had a massive influx of new posters after E3 and a lot of them have strong opinions on games and systems that may not line up with how most of the forum things, or they may actually be trolls. However, I see tons of posts complainig about all the new members and how everyone with under 50 posts is a troll. However, this isn't the case, as it is just a few people who start off on the wrong foot, and a few actual trolls make it look like all newbies are trolls just because they are all faceless as we get to recognize you.

I have run across a few members who have only 30 posts (probably more by now) who are better and more reasonable posters than most the people who posted in here, but they are fewer and farther between, so again, people get the impression that if you are new you are uneducated in sales.

Very well put.

Hey... we all went through that... it's not fair to give the new kids a free pass.. It's the only way to separate the good from the bad...

Though I'm probably one of the people that do do what you've said tedsteriscool, I would imagine a fair number of us that do it do it for this reason.

Much like in life, when you come into a new scene or a new click you either slowly bring yourself into the group by adding to discussions and adding people here and there OR you nose dive in and start dictating conversation and steering it. Sure, for some people the latter works, but for the majority, you just seem like an arrogant tool.

On the internet, if you're the latter, that's fine, so long as the question isn't "How long until the PS3's price drop steam runs out" or "How many more exclusives have MS bought this year". It's clearly a topic meant to cause a bit of a stir, if it isn't, you clearly worded it poorly. It's okay to have an opinion, but be aware you are entering into a space in which people have an established mindset about issues AND conversations like this have occured already.

It's not that it's not okay to bring them up again, but when doing so remember that there have been many battles fought on the issue already and much metaphorical blood shed. If you don't speak with caution, you'll get the fangs (and in some cases, rightly so for not thinking about it first).

There have been some amazing contributions to dicussions from some of the newer people, but I believe that the majority of the ones I've noticed are replies to threads, as opposed to newly created ones themselves (I can only remember a handful within the last few months that were from new people and stood out as contributing to things). So there should be "blame" placed on the newer people, because you are entering into a new scene and you should be mindful of what you say (it's the polite thing to do). I know it's not their fault that of that 100 or so people that join up every week (hypothetically) 90% of them are trolls (hypothetically) and they have to suffer because of that. But at some point we all went through the same thing.

Also, it should be noted that a smaller post count doesn't mean a point is less valid, there are many veterans of this site that have a sub 1000 post count, but when they speak, it's almost always something good to read.

I think this thread makes a very good point. I've never had any problems despite being classed as a 'newbie' by post count. I like the VGChartz community. I set up my account way back at the beginning of last year, but only started using the forums regularly this year. Even then, I don't post that often.

A high post count isn't indicative of intelligence. I like to think most of my posts are fairly reasonable. Quality is better than quantity.

As someone somewhat in between the two (solid post count, but this marks only my 9th month on the site), i must say that my assimilation here was quite a smooth process, though i went in with the idea of starting slow, so as not to ruffle feathers unnecessarily.

Plus the fact that i lurked regularly for a few months before i actually decided to join, so i was halfway familiar with what i was getting into.

This concludes my self-centered anecdote.