Funny, this is only my 4th post but I have 7 days of logged-in time and 8 months of registered time. Feel like a regular but really just a dedicated lurker, I guess...
Logged in time doesn't count. You have to actually be on the forum and scrolling and moving through topics, replying etc. in order for the time to count. It's 4 hours of actual involvement time, not 4 hours of logged in time. Hope that helps. I just found some spare time to knock out my remaining 13 minutes of jail time... I mean "newbie" time/