200 posts? ... well, I guess that counts me out ... I'm only at 152 posts, including this one, total; you too, since you appear to be at 78 posts as of this reply.

One's reputation / intent can't be determined from their post totals nor even how often they login to read the boards nor how long they have been registered - all of these are unreliable indicators.

I understand your point and perhaps a variety of technical measures (ie. number of posts, IP range, session heuristics, time on-line, etc) could be used to determine if one should be granted PM access or not ...

However, charging a membership fee is a much easier way, which doesn't require lots of programming / maintenance, to reduce abuse, while also helping to cover the high operating costs of running this website.

I realize we may never agree on this, but explaining why it is the way it is ... hope you understand.

Ron

p.s. you may want to add a AIM/Yahoo/MSN, etc contact into your profile - the icon(s) will show up on your posts - many folks here communicate privately through those services.