The chat room is only usable by Full Members. It's for the same reason that we don't allow Regular Members to PM non-staff users, for security reasons.
When you first sign up for EC, you're automatically a Regular Member. Regular Members can use most of the site's features, but can't send PMs to anyone who isn't staff, use the chat room, or leave comments on photos or blogs. Once you've been a member for two weeks and made 50 posts (which aren't all in Fun and Games), you can apply for Full Membership. The staff will do a check of your posts and your profile, make sure everything adds up, and vote on whether you qualify for Full Membership. If you do, you'll be promoted to Full Member, and will have access to chat and PMs.
Well I'm already at forty-six posts but I can't remember where they all where for, Fifty seems to be a lot. I've been here for long after two weeks though, I do wonder wouldn't it be easier to add a report button in the chat room? What exactly does Fifty posts prove, I enjoy talking & answer the other users?
We needed a cut off point for members who seem to be dedicated to EC and have been active enough that there's enough stuff to make a decision on. Fifty posts and two weeks was chosen for that. We often ask members who have 50 posts to apply at a later date, if there's not enough to go off. Opening up the chat room to all members is something we would be very cautious of doing. Member security is held in very high regard, and we want to ensure that all contact between members is appropriate.
Well, it all flows from the nature of the site, really: the main purpose is to have a place where people, and especially younger people, can discuss coming out, being non-straight and get input on their problems. However... this comes with risks. For paedophiles and creeps, the idea of a concentration of young teens opening up about their issues would seem more like an all-you-can-eat buffet. If we kept the site unmoderated, you'd get more inappropriate coments than helpful advice. To make sure that this is not a risk for our members, we decided to keep chat and PM areas out of bounds for regular members. Those can be used for more private communications, and we're not going to allow that to someone we don't feel comfortable trusting. So, that's why we ask for a substantial number of posts over a longer time period. that way we can get a better feel for members.
Tym, no offense, but EC has been doing what it has been doing for years, our policies are well established, and have served us well in keeping the community safe with over a million posts and 11,000 members or some such. Don't you think it's a little presumptuous for you to be suggesting that we don't know the best way to run a community and set rules for who gets access to what parts of the site?
