[quote name='Spanky']I see people still on here who joined 3 years ago but only have 6 posts the entire time.[/QUOTE]
I feel like I'm one of those people, mostly because I hate stating an opinion in any online forum. And while half of my posts are "sure, I'll enter your contest by posting here, thanks!" I also set up a "contest" (first 5 or 6 to reply, not much of a contest) when I had something to give away, and I went out of my way to help figure out why IE and FF were having trouble with a proposed new method of code drops, even though I use Chrome and had no problem at all, because I felt I could at least try to help the community a bit.
I don't really know that I have a point other than the cliché "don't judge a book by it's cover," but I guess I just think however people try to thin the herd with restrictions and requirements (make the codes invisible so you have to be a member, or make a minimum post/year requirement), it just sort of feels like it does more harm than good. I've won one contest (designed someone's avatar) and picked up one code drop (I said thanks, mind you), while having given away half a dozen codes (those Halo 7-11 dashboard theme codes last summer) in my 30 posts in a year and a half (this is number 30).
All that being said, I won't complain if someone makes a contest that rules me out because of post count or join date or something else, because they're the one giving something away. I just hope that even those "lurkers" who aren't members but hang out in the forums anyways would take a minute to sign up and show appreciation for someone else giving them something for nothing by just saying thanks. It doesn't take much to say thanks, but it feels pretty good when someone takes that minute to let you know they appreciate what you did - reading dotCody's thanks a few posts up made me feel like I actually helped someone, and it felt good.