I got this idea because I received an infraction for multiple postings in succession. I made a post and then worked on a scripting issue for an hour or so and then posted a followup with other issues I found during my investigations into the code and then another shortly after that indicating I was going to post a working copy of the script with new instructions for it after I had resolved most of the issues with it.
I didn't realize that multiple posts were such a serious infraction here. I've seen other sites have that rule of etiquette, but they don't actually penalize people for violating it. So I started to think why this site is different and why it's enforced so strictly and it seems obvious that the reason is because we have this requirement of a certain number of posts before you can become a Junior Member. We're essentially creating an incentive for people to make lots of useless, unproductive postings. In the thread I was posting in, for example, there were tons of posts from people saying how great the script was when the script wasn't even working.
I think if you change this requirement, it will remove the incentive for people to make lots of stupid posts like that and clutter up the forums and the overall signal-to-noise ratio will be increased. Also, it will eliminate the need to constantly police this activity, saving moderators time to do more productive things. In fact, you wouldn't really need the rule at all. It would just become basic netiquette like it is on most sites. I'd like to see Junior Member status be granted more on the merit/quality of your posts rather than quantity. Have users submit links to a few examples of their posts after they've been on for at least a week and moderators can glance through them and give a thumbs up/down. If you want to save even more moderator time, perhaps evaluate potential Junior Members by endorsement of posts by other Junior (or higher) Members with the caveat that endorsers could receive infractions for endorsing a bunch of losers. Then it could be almost automatic.
Just my 2 cents. Feel free to comment on or make modifications to this idea...


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Oh well, was worth a shot
