I've argued with the fellas about this kind of thing a bit. I've always thought a new user should be defaulted to the tutorial but not suggested anything immediately. If they care enough to contribute, they'll figure it out, is my thinking. I'm in the minority (apparently with a voting bloc of one). But I don't hate the idea of "new mode". Will discuss further, for sure. Personally, I like a lot of the new contriubutors, and I hope many will stick around, but I don't really like talking about Hubski that much (although I see it a necessary sometimes). Already the huge traffic spike from the last two days is dying down.
Then you have become my congressperson, whom I now petition. Default them to the tutorial, suggest nothing, let them figure it out. Put it this way - if you give them your opinion, they're learning from you. If you let them poke around, you're learning from them.
I was kicking something similar to what kleinbl00 suggested above around in my head last night -- how about an account called announcements or (I would say hubski but that's taken) something that's mandatory for everyone to follow? Similar to reddit's mandatory subreddit, I guess, although their announcements are never relevant to me at all so let's do better there.
I think we should name it Tom, you know a little nod to myspace. Really that's what mk uses the Hubski account for. When he makes an update from it it goes in to everyones feed.
My former boss is a member and took me to dinner there once. It was alright. The golf course is amazing though.