Welcome to the forum Jetstream!
Yeah it's strange, but it does what we want, which is to keep spam out of the forum. At first it was like most forums, sign up and post immediately, but spammers did the exact same thing. To combat the spam menace it was changed to you having to email the Admin and hopefully in 2 to more days you would be approved, which is when I joined. That definitely kept the spam out, but a pain for the Admin.
Not too much longer after I joined (but not a Mod yet), it was changed to close to what it is now. It keeps the spam out and real people are approved much faster than previously...once I sifted through the literally hundreds of spam posts per day. But now with the redesign (and better antispam measures) we might be able to go back to what it was like in the beginning. So far I haven't had to deal with any spam since the site change.
Anyway, you may be here to post in the forum or you were confused and thought you needed to be a Full Member to participate in non-forum things. You don't actually. Whichever it was, means you can post in the forum whenever the urge hits you, if you want. Now I will tell you about the strange tradition aimed at newcomers.
At one time there were Pesterers who pestered you for poetry, but that tends to be very rare nowadays. Even though you may not be pestered, if you do go and post an original poem--usually haiku but any (clean) type is accepted--written by you, you will most likely receive a gift in return. The "gift" will most likely be useless or maim you...a little. Whichever it may be, it should be interesting and surprising. Lastly, this strange tradition applies to the pestering not the poetry. You are not required to do anything more to be a member here...unless you want a gift.
Now go forth and do (almost) whatever you want, just don't speculate in Reactions.
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