Lately, I've found it exceedingly difficult to get into the Novice Network so I can do as a mentor is expected to do, save for the dead hours of the night/morning.

The problem is that it gets clogged up by countless mentors who don't even use it and either aren't even aware they're taking up space or are simply sitting in there like it's some kind of status symbol.

I think that defaulting the auto-join to off when first becoming a mentor, or better yet, on every log-in would help alleviate this issue and mostly keep out players who aren't actually interested in it.