[EricH]

Originally Posted by buildmaster5000

I thought that the forums had a 'you must have this many posts before you start a thread' rule. It seems that there are a lot of spam threads that are a first post by the user. Could something like 'you must post 10 times before you start a thread' rule be put in place? Or something that required mod screening then locking the thread for editing?

There isn't one, and I don't think there will ever be one. Most folks making a first post as a thread are trying to find help; even if there's a thread on that topic on the portal they might not know to look at it until AFTER their first thread.

But the bigger reason for not having a "X posts to start thread" is this: They'll (both spammers and non-spammers) just post all over OTHER threads looking for whatever they're looking for, often wildly offtopic--and the spammers do that already. So instead of seeing new thread with a lot of links pop up, you'll see an older thread pop up and think that "Oh, someone just posted, let's see what's up--Rats, spam" after opening the thread.

There is an "X posts to Y" rule, but it's 50 posts and positive reputation to be able to give non-neutral reputation.