You are willfully ignoring my point.

I'm not. I didn't know that was your point. If this is your point:

If enough people had been using your feature when I joined hubski, ten, a hundred, whatever, then I likely would not have stayed because the conversations would have struck me as nonexistent or very limited.

...then I would point out that the people that would have ignored you for long enough for you to bounce would not be the people who would have kept you in the first place.

Here's another insight:

I am not, in general, a hostile and antisocial individual (believe it or not). However, if I am feeling hostile and antisocial, IT BEHOOVES US BOTH not to interact. If I have already concluded that your capacity to irritate is due to your recent appearance, I will prejudge all comments from new people as irritating.

If I'm in a state where all new comments irritate me, it benefits not only me, but those new people who are commenting to prevent me from interacting with them. And that's where you're ignoring my point:

You see this as censorship. I see this as voluntary withdrawal.

I'm not saying "keep the n00bs from posting." I'm not saying "silence the n00bs." I'm saying "let the n00bs go about their business without risking my wrath."

I am one user. I wish for better tools to shape one user's experience. The impact of those tools will most directly affect one user, and may or may not have any effect whatsoever on the experience of other users (ignored users' comments still show up in your feed as a strikeout - it's not like they're X'd from the earth). Yet you think this is better:

If it comes to something like this, I think I prefer the up-front approach I mentioned below of alerting new users that they aren't allowed to post for a few days (or maybe until they do their first hubwheel thingie).

So whereas I'm saying "help me quiet the din of the chattering class with a better set of earplugs" you're saying "let's keep it down by enforcing a code of silence."

Your alternative sucks. I'm not attempting to shape anyone's behavior but my own. I'm not attempting to curb anyone's user experience but my own. I'm not attempting to alter the makeup of the site for anyone but myself. You?

You're inflicting a draconian and arbitrary solution on everybody.