Newbies come along every day, and we kindly explain them how pastebins
work if necessary. Freenode has a webchat and it's relatively easy to
reach.
Aren't you affraid that your newbie list will grow much larger than
the lua-l ? Assuming newbies go there first, you're going to
canibalize lua-l (which may be fine), but your new users will stick
around, and I don't see what would make them leave (even if they later
*also* join lua-l). In the end you will end up with a larger list.
This is a problem with mailing lists, joining is easy, leaving is
harder (not hard, just harder). IMHO a better format for an
intermediate platform would be a forum, a group chat (be it #lua or
any other medium) or even the lua tag on StackOverflow. If for some
reason you stop actively attending, you're out of the question, and
the population stabilizes.
