You won't be able to post a thread until after you've "Graduated" from New Recruit, which I think is like 90 days after joining and the purpose for that is to encourage new members to look around, get a feel for the community, and try to get some projects done on their own before giving up and trying to buy one. The 405th is first and foremost a costume and prop building community, not a costume and prop selling community. We want people to at least try to make things on their own because there's a much deeper sense of pride and accomplishment from being able to say "yea, that's right, I built that myself" than "well, I went out and bought this."
And we get it, not everyone has the time, the resources, the workspace, or the knack for building things themselves. But we don't want people signing up, making a purchase, and then leaving a dead account lying around until they want to buy something else, either. The restrictions on access to the "classified ads" has been reduced immensely since Art took over (use to be you couldn't even see that there WAS a classifieds section until after 3-6 months and at least 100 "noteworthy" posts), but the intent of it remains the same. We build costumes and props here, but we're also building a community. We want people to stick around, share projects and ideas, and take part in the general camaraderie of the 405th as a group of people with a shared interest, not just vendors shilling their wares, you know?
