Despite being registered a couple of months looking for a job and being a real pilot, I get this when I try to send a pm to someone who's looking to share a float plane, which is what I'm looking for:

"We are sorry, but you are not authorised to use this feature. You may have just registered here and may need to participate more to be able to use this feature. "

So how much participation is required and isn't reading the forum on a regular basis sufficient?

Maybe, to weed out the spammers, make the user answer a skill testing questions, like what's the vis for SVFR?

Marc V