Consider this your first trial. Use the forums for a bit, have a look at what we have to offer, get to know the locals and then you'll be promoted to a fully-fledged member. You have to understand that as with any site there's a lot of users who register, post once and leave or worse, users who register, make a mess and get banned within the scope of a few days - that's the reason why Newcomers don't have all member privileges. Your question has been answered, so I'll report this thread for locking - you need to post 100 posts to advance. There is no way around this, we'd like to have a look at what kind of a person you are before you reach the official member status. Admins are indeed capable of changing your rank on occasion, specifically for members who are returning after long periods of absence and find out that their accounts are gone for whatever reason (server switch, forum backbone software switch, database errors etc.) - this is not one of those cases.