I have to tell you, that your policy that I cannot post a request for services until I have 25 posts is truly a hindrance. I am a business professional looking to have design work done, I have no interest in discussing design or graphics, it is not my area of interest or skill and not a good use of my time. By forcing me to have a certain post count you discourage me from offering jobs to your designers, many of whom pay for premium membership to your site. I understand your interest in making sure that only reputable designers can offer their work in the Buy/Sell/Trade Forum, but to require that of a purchaser of services is absurd. -Jared Ross Wow, really mature administrators on here. I bring this to their attention and they start issuing me infractions for old posts that were in the wrong forum BEFORE I KNEW BETTER! Designers, I highly suggest that you not waste your money one premium membership here, your target audience is being excluded from the site. Oh, and now my post count is down, guess I'll have to make up some posts to keep the administrators happy.
While you may use this site exclusively to find services, it's not really what this site revolves around. The ability to use the Buy/Sell/Trade area is a benefit to our existing users, not something the site revolves around. Personally, I'd be fine disabling Buy/Sell/Trade completely, but I suspect existing users wouldn't like that too much. That being said, in the future, there might be an option to be able to use Buy/Sell/Trade "prematurely", but nothing in the short-term.
I see your issue, although you are not very nice about it. You seem to be very mad because you have to make 25 posts. Is this a really big deal to you? I would seriously take a deep look inside to see if you may be just being a little too nasty about such a minor thing. You also see your problem in such a self centered way. You want them to make it that people can post straight after they register for you. Well, did you consider the fact that there are 100 people registering week here to spam members with mass pms without making a single post? How about spammers who want to flood those important forums like the one you want? That's why the rule is in place. So my question to you is do you still want it so you and 1000 spammers a month will be about to post after registering? Oh yeah. They do that a lot around here. If you annoy a moderator by making a topic like this then they will do a check on your previous posts poke a few infractions in.
I'm not even sure what posts you were referring to, but your argument that you shouldn't get infractions for breaking our rules because "you didn't know better", really isn't valid. An infraction is nothing more than a way to let you know that you broke the rules. Unless you keep doing it over and over in a short amount of time, it's not going to affect your account what-so-ever. http://99designs.com/
Yes it is a pain and a waste of time. I'm not a designer, I'm not interested in the finer aspects of design, if I was I would do it myself instead of hiring someone. I'm trying to spend my hard earned money to hire someone to do a job. Why make that hard for me, it hurts me and it hurts your designer community. There are better ways to deal with spammers, phone verification, requiring non-free email addresses, etc. There is still nothing to stop them from spamming other treads. I'm being honest about what I see as a real problem. Seeking revenge for honest constructive criticism is IMMATURE, PERIOD! I've tried 99 designs, I have not been impressed with their designers or their turn around times, and their prices are on the high end for small projects. I can't even quote your post because it has a link in it, what a PAIN!!! There are so many better way to deal with spammers that don't negatively impact real users.
It doesn't take long to get 25 posts, so I'm not sure why it's such a struggle for you. Think about it a bit more. If BST could be used immediately, there would be a lot more spam and scams. You could have your dream and deal with a lot more cr@p when trying to find designers. It's a free market place, so what are you expecting? There are other markets out there than take some form of fee, therefore they can do more vetting/moderation, etc. As Shawn mentioned, it's not primarily about BST. Your problem isn't with DP, but the fact you're having problems finding a good designer at the right price at the moment. You could try learning to use a search engine better as there are a lot of other marketplaces out there. You will also notice that a lot of designers make posts offering their services, too, so if you put as much effort into trying to find a designer as you do complaining you would have one by now.