>I very much like the idea of consistent welcoming.

As a group moderator at yahoo, I joined the yahoo_group_of_groups group. They have a welcoming message, which you can't help but see when you enter; they also have six(6) moderators, and whichever one notices a new member, or someone struggling with the format, leaps to the welcome/rescue. Having multiple moderators may be the only answer to that here, without having access to the board software or the forum banner.


[As sole moderator of the wwftd yahoo group, I don't allow posts to the group without moderator approval, and the moderator always disapproves unless the poster is the moderator. You could say that I'm the least ambivalent of all dictators. It's all just a sham as a group; what I've really established, through these artifices, is a daily newsletter to the members of the group.]