I agree with george. newbies have a valuable tool at this forum given the guidance of many 8051 pros.

I couldn't have reached the (small) level of embedded systems knowledge if not for the guidance of posters here.

the visibility threshold could be given by the score of a message (-1, -2, -3...), not by the users karma.

flamed posters will disappear very soon, but newbies would have their messages visible and possibly read and answered by more experienced users. this way people can filter bad messages and newbies have visibility.