When I ask a follow-up question, I usually hear nothing anymore. I'm still trying to figure out what works best.
as theymos says most users that hit the fee are for valid reasons, and in my mind its up to them to convince me.
They often ask me what to do to convince me. If I answer that, it would be far too easy.
Yeah, that's exactly what my experience has been. I'm not inclined to whitelist anyone unless they absolutely convince me they wouldn't be detrimental to the forum. Obviously, this is likely a little too strict, but at the end of the day they've already hit one of the barriers to registering, and giving the benefit of the doubt (as there is obvious legitimate reasons why they might hit it) would probably do more harm than good in the majority of the cases. My criteria isn't something that is rigid at the moment, its more if the user can convince me or not.