Ask HN: Why are new users highlighted in green?

7 points·freshGreenUser··9 comments

It's good to be able to spot noobs, but I don't think highlighting them in green is the way to go. My initial thought was that these accounts were in some way verified or premium. Maybe just appending " [Noob]" to the user name would be enough.

I agree, this will only make unscrupulous users create new accounts to get more attention to their links (if they don't care about karma).

Higher probability of a new user spamming the site I'd imagine. This allows users to notice spammers easier and flag them.

Shouldn't their submissions get less noticed instead of getting more attention?

No, they should get more, and earlier, notice so that inappropriate submissions and comments can get flagged earlier to help teach them what this site is and should be about.

It's an experiment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2434333

It's testing out ways to try to halt the current perceived decline in civility and quality: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696

It's been prompted by the departure of some long-standing, high-profile users:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2402730

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2161427

It is pretty easy to spot the spam submissions, but it seems like there is more spam comments now so this makes it very easy to spot those and flag them.

I thought the green might be trying to encourage engaging with those users. When I was new I never used my account because I felt like a nobody.

Probably to make it easier to spot potential spammers

cause we're noobs

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