This thread is here to preemptively answer any questions regarding our PM rules.
What
We require a user to have a post count of 5 before they can use our PM system. You can still receive PM's (so forum staff can contact you), but you will not be able to send or reply to any PM's until this requirement is met.
Once you gain your 5 posts, we have an update routine that runs every 15 minutes (on the 0, 15, 30 and 45 mark of every hour) that upgrades user permissions. You'll have to wait until this routine is run before you have access to the PM system (thus, you will have a maximum wait of 15 minutes, probably less).
Why
We do not force this requirement to encourage posting (as some users suspect), but to reduce spam. Before we created this rule, our members were suffering from PM spam. To ban these users, we would have to wait for a member to report it. By the time we got around to identifying a spammer and banning them, many other members would have received spam messages.
Since we have put this requirement into action, our PM spam has reduced dramatically. In fact, at the time of this writing we have been free of PM spammers.
How to gain your 5 posts
Look to our sidebar under "Featured Polls / Threads" for links to some interesting threads. Also, you could introduce yourself in our intro forum. Do that, and right there you've got your 5 posts.
Be sure to read through the rest of our
rules.
