In my opinion nothing will change if we mix all and propose to change things which are not badly working. I’m refering here on the system we have for not beginners players.
So we should focus only on how to welcome beginners better. For that you need to determine who is beginner and i don’t really see better friendly way as to ask directly when someone register.
The welcome process could be more elaborated as now. I too don’t think a test is the way.
The way is
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Let them play together (shouldn’t this be obvious?)
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Give them an opportunity to have a kind of coach (we have the means to do it).
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Let them be automatically registered as 30k at first (why asking them to do it?)
Starting from that we can build a specific system for them to make them experiment the best beginners’ place on internet.
Mods may not agree with my perception so It’s a kind of question about the sandbagging problem. Is there so many beginners that we could not assign a tutor/coach for each of them? I mean a 15k or stronger who on his will take care of the first steps, helping to close boundaries, understand the 2 eyes, the scoring… Same time isn’t this a very good filter against some sandbagging intention?
On a side note i think live games are much more appropriate as correspondance games as it was suggested.