It's a little bit unusual, but I completely understand the reasoning given the nature of this site. All explained in this post.
Hi Carra, and welcome to EC! It's for security reasons. All members start as regular members and can apply for full membership after being here two weeks and making 50 posts. Full membership will let you use PMs and the chatroom, Having people start out as regular members and then apply for full membership means we can vet every member before giving them private communication through PMs, and it stops people looking for hookups in the chatroom, so it makes EC nicer and safer.
Hmm, Regular Members can't even use the chatroom? I understand the need to prohibit private communication from people who haven't been 'vetted', but I thought the chatroom was public and moderated so people couldn't use it for hookups anyway? Then again I've been a Full Member for over a year now and I never use the chatroom. The chatroom is way overrated, there's usually hardly any people in there, and the few times I've been in there I've found the people that are in there act very cliquey and not very welcoming to newcomers. People don't even say hello to a newcomer who enters the chat room unless they know them already. So I find it very hard to enter a conversation when it seems like the people in there all know each other and are engaged in a conversation amongst themselves, I usually end up saying nothing and then leaving.
Staff members are not always present, and so any particular issues may only be dealt with once the damage has already been done. With this filter in place, the chances of anything happening to anyone are vastly reduced. I think and hope that you'll find the chat room to be less cliquey and unwelcoming than you think. I've never seen an instance of hostility towards a new member who enters. It is true that people may not say hello, but that could be due to many factors, such as people doing other things while in the chat room, or people being a bit shy themselves at daring to interact with someone they may've seen around on the forum but never really interacted with, and so on. If you do find yourself in the chat room, I encourage you to speak up and you should be able to get integrated. It's often random and whimsical in terms of conversation topics, granted, but it's a nice way to interact with others in a very different way than usual on this site.
@Rakkaus: IMO, It's relatively easy to become a full member. And I like the chatroom, but... responses tend to take a while. The good thing is, if there's a topic that I don't care about, I can use an "Away" status, go about my own business, and come back later! In my experiences, everyone was pretty friendly when I first entered the chatroom. It all depends on your preferences- quicker responses vs. longer responses.