Also you can click the up arrows on the quoted texts of threads you find interesting to follow the thread upstream directly so you only follow the thread your interested in and not the general chit chat, I do that all the time when I’ve been away. 
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As forgiving as we longtimers would be to the filthy n00bs, one still might be hesitant to add one’s comment without having achieved full RTFA status. Even if everyone’s nice about it, one never wants to be redundant.
In the end, I just think More Threads equates to More Accessible Discussion. Those already engaged in a long discussion might not feel any particular urge to actively open it up to new participants, but maybe they might, and they just might not realize that a several-hundred-post-long thread really does discourage new participants, whether they intend it or not.
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I just learned something new. (to me)
If you click the Summarize This Topic button below the first post in a topic, it seems to filter it down to the top posts as selected by the community. I assume it just picks X posts with the most likes and then displays them chronologically. I had always assumed that button would open an edit box to allow me to summarize the topic manually, as in I would like to Summarize This Topic, so had always avoided it. Whether or not something like that would be useful in a topic like Wanderthread, it did bring it down to 100 posts, which might give someone new to the topic a reasonable refresher before diving in.
Insert boilerplate excuses about why we don’t (officially) have a blog (or why I haven’t been doing as much with the site) here. It’s probably second or third on my short list of site priorities right now.
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I’ve seen that on other forums – and I’ve left every one of them.
Lurking for a bit when you’re new to get a feel for the place – sure, that’s only sensible, and models what people often do when they are face to face in a new group. And reading any FAQs or other material to learn about the local rules – sure.
But if a group, or strongly speaking individuals within that group, are shutting down noobs instead of helping them – that’s a group which doesn’t actually want new members, however much they may protest to the contrary.
Example: I once belonged to an on-line writer’s group which was dominated by retirees living in the US. They explicitly said in their welcome page they wanted more non-US members, and members of different age ranges than “old enough to be retired”.
They also had rules about posting stories, and posting feedback on stories. No posting multiple stories a day; no posting feedback if a story already has a few reviews, and so on. Keep a good post/review ratio. Totally reasonable.
Except: new members tended to last only a couple of months. Why? Because by the time anyone who either worked full time or lived outside of the four major American time zones sat down to engage, all the stories had been reviewed, and there was nothing to do but post your own. The first story I posted got slammed for “spelling errors”, only for the reviewer to add a note at the bottom: “I just remembered, you’re not American, are you?”. No, I’m not, and that’s why “colour” and “labour” consistently have Us in them.
And that’s how it went with all the other non-US, non-retirees. Our post/review ratio would go to hell, the feedback we received was only useful after we waded through the US-centric errors, and the moderator would send us a polite e-mail saying our membership was being discontinued.
And the moderator even asked me in the polite e-mail why I’d struck out, because my stories and the bit of feedback I’d manage to squeeze in seemed good and gee, they were such an inclusive, friendly bunch.
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That’s true, and that is definitely not our group.
I don’t mean to imply that our intent is to discourage participation by new people unless they get up to date. I’m saying that some new users will themselves feel uncomfortable entering the conversation until they themselves are satisfied that they know enough of the pre-existing context.
It’s kind of like putting out a welcome mat and hanging a “Come On In!” sign on the door. If people walk up to a closed door on a house without those things, they typically won’t barge on in without knocking. If nobody happens to hear the knock and nobody answers the door, the vast majority of knockers will turn and walk away. “Why don’t they just come in?” the occupants might wonder. “It’s not like the door is locked or anything.”
But just as our culture has conditioned us to believe it’s rude to stroll into an unlocked house uninvited, we’ve many of us been conditioned to feel it might be rude to enter a conversation in medias res without obtaining all available context… because in lots of situations, it is rude to do so. And even when it’s not rude, again, one doesn’t want to bring up redundant points.
So it’s not really about whether or not we’d be welcoming and tolerant of the missteps and faux pas of new users. It’s more about us actively putting out that welcome mat and hanging up the Join In sign, so new users automatically feel able to join the discussion without an unspoken (and unintended) obligation for ponderous research.
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At least one of you apparently took that as a challenge; 99 Like Notifications this morning… 
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Guilty. I’ve always meant to catch up; this thread may have had something to do with timing, but not with me actually going through all the posts.
Personally, it’s because I’m obsessive and a completionist.
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LOL speak for yourself, mate. I’ve had total strangers (Mormon elders on walkabout or whatever it’s really called) walk straight into my living room and stay, trying to proslytize, while I stood there in my nightgown and robe telling them to leave. In lots of places a knock followed by sticking your head in the door and calling “anyone home?” is just the norm.
The house metaphor doesn’t work for any but the most closed of forums anyhow. They’re more like lounges or cafés, which indeed are the very metaphors we use around here.
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I’m not one who strongly feels the need to keep my front door locked, but nevertheless… kinda glad I don’t live in a neighborhood like yours! The Witnesses in every place I’ve lived wouldn’t dream of poking their heads in uninvited.
As for the forum, well, every user will arrive with a different sense of propriety. We have established that some users are reluctant to enter a long thread without catching up first. Some people are okay with that, others will want to avoid creating an atmosphere that might inadvertently appear daunting to anyone. Whether or not that noob’s reluctance is valid is immaterial; some will feel the way they feel regardless if they’re considered oversensitive or not. If we want to avoid people feeling like that, we might want to consider tending toward more granular threads, that’s all.
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This is the approach I use as well for really long threads that I don’t follow too closely. Skip to the end, jump through quotes on interesting posts.
Also, don’t discount the usefulness of the “Summarize this Topic” button at the top for helping to efficiently navigate long threads.
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It can be daunting. One of the things that you can use are the keyboard shortcuts. I tend to scan with the J/K keys then peruse the actual posts that catch my attention. You will find yourself at the end of the long wandering open threads before you know it.
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