In many ways I would agree with you, however it wouldn't be fair for some members to receive preferential treatment simply because they can afford to pay for a vendor account when others who have not done so are forced to get to 50 posts. I get what you're saying about having paid to become a vendor (which is a refundable bond, so they do get it back if they meet the conditions of the bond), but it just wouldn't be fair. That is how two-tier societies develop, from something as small as being able to pay for something and receiving extra privileges, and that's not something we want to encourage in the Silk Road forum community. Just in case anybody's wondering, the 50 post rule was brought in to protect the main forums from the mass-spam that you sometimes might see in the Newbie forum. We delete that as soon as we see it but if we did not keep it confined to one place it would get out of hand and make discussion on all of the forums impossible. Libertas