Just to follow up concerning the "newbie restrictions" ... I certainly understand the desire to keep a "clean" forum and see the desired "balance" they are attempting to achieve. However, they attempt to cut down on "useless spam" and yet at the same token, FORCE new members to post some "meaningful chat" consisting of a few sentences (which, is, of course, limited to THIS forum...). Quite frankly this post is probably something which constitutes both 'meaningful chat' (intellectually pointing out that they are contradicting themselves, forcing new members to attempt to come up with something meaningful, and yet separate from their desired conversations), AND is completely unnecessary in the larger scope of the forums (i.e., this really adds nothing to the bitcointalk community). Thus, they have forced me to SPAM the forums with a 'meaningful chat' which I would NOT have otherwise posted.

So stick that in your catch-22 self-referential pipe, and smoke it. (and grant me more than provisional member status  )