new users i disagree but i've had a similar conversation in the past wherein i made a number of compromises giving links to varius newbie pages it took me a seemed to me to be anyway long time to figure out what was going on here on the wiki while wikipedia welcome newcomers is fine and the wikipedia tutorial and wikipedia help desk links are good they need to know what the mailing list is and how to handle a dispute etc as well i guess i disagree w your general complaint but i am open to some specific suggestions particularly if they don't involve shortening my list of links which i get copious compliments on btw have a look at my talk page archives spade jul utc