Originally Posted by SmashedHombre

Not necessarily. Obviously we have the rep points where promotion is achieved automatically as soon as you reach the required number of points. But to be honest the majority of promoted posters dont come close to reaching the required number of rep points, because they're spotted and promoted by an admin before they get a chance.

I read through the newbies every day and I know most of the mods/admins do. If we spot an intelligent/funny/well worded post then we will generally mention to the others to keep an eye on said poster. Assuming the poster comes up with a few more good posts and no stupid ones, we generally promote them early.

Its not a bad system and seems to be working ok, although obviously some loons somehow manage to trick the system and get promoted. No ones entirely sure how rimaldo got promoted, rest assured though we are looking into that one.

It will, as you say, be a shame to lose some of the better Cordoba posters if they get bored of the newbies and leave, but I'm not sure that can be helped. How many do you think are planning on signing up here? If there's a fair few then maybe Brads idea of a stickied Cordoba thread could work.