I absolutely hate this piece of advice that the OP gave. This advice is ONLY good for people who:

A) Do not care that they will lose their "New Adventurer" (leaf) status. This is important for some people. It is a visual representation that you are new. For these players, not being a part of the chat channel and having their status are seperate matters entirely.

B) ONCE TURNED OFF, IT CAN NOT BE TURNED BACK ON. Once you disable your status, you are out -for good-.

The better option, instead of doing what the OP listed:

1) Turn off the chat as another member suggested, by filtering. It sucks that people still have access to you on the Novice Network's list, but that is only one way to do it.

2) Stop goddamn blind inviting people to the Novice Network. Ask if they wanna be a part of it. Seriously, what kind of mentor just says, "Hurr hurr, you're in the network now" without so much as ASKING if someone wants to be in it?