[peterska2]

You can also do this via usergroups and promotions without the need for any modifications. This enables you to lock down forums or features until a certain post count, time registered, or reputation.

For example, you might want newbies to just have access to site feedback and the introductions forum. So you would set your usergroup permissions for your registered users group to that add a new usergroup with access to the rest of the forums, and create a promotion to promote the users after one post. This basically forces them to introduce themselves, otherwise they can't post anywhere else. You can even take it one step further with permissions and have that that they can only create a thread, and not reply to anyone elses until they have been promoted, so they have to start a thread, and so will more than likely introduce themselves.