If the purpose of the Novice Network is to help new players get help and most mentors and sprouts leave because they cannot stand the chatter/chat scrolling filling up their logs/or lack of help, then perhaps a general chat could be helpful. What would motivate players to move to the general chat? Not having to meet the NN conditions?

As a mentor who finds the NN too voluminous to keep in my chat stream most of the time, I feel conflicted inviting sprouts to a channel I myself don't like to frequent, even though the Mentor agreement thing says I should be doing that. I want to help new players and I'm always offering help everywhere else I can, including by inviting players to purpose-made linkshells.