If I allowed brand-new members to use the messenger, we would have spammers sign up and immediately advertise their wares directly to CathInfo members.

By putting in an obstacle, 99.999% of the spammers will give up (moving on to other message boards) and forget about CathInfo before the 3 or 4 day waiting period expires. This has worked very well, and I intend to keep it in place.

And besides, who do you want to reach so quickly? Have you been lurking CathInfo for weeks or months? I guess if you had signed up 4 days ago, you'd already be able to message people!

 :scratchchin:

For that matter, you are also restricted to voting (thumbs up and thumbs down) on posts which were posted AFTER you signed up for a CathInfo account.

So the older the account, the more posts you can thumb up/thumb down!

Moral of the story: sign up TODAY for a CathInfo account!