I made a few updates that may help the activity levels around here, but with a catch.
It’s now much easier for people to post because the system won’t moderate users by default now because new users are now set to Trust Level 1 on registration and Trust Level 0 is now used only for enforcing the moderated posting on problem users.
This means that you will need to be more proactive in the future and flag spam posts when you see them. If you’re not sure if it qualifies as spam or is just something that should have been posted in Links, Classifieds, and Reviews instead go ahead and flag it so that the @moderators can deal with it.
Now, that said, some of the new user restritions will apply to any user who is at Trust Level 1 for 24 hours after your first post. Sorry about that, but it will only affect new accounts going forward or users who never posted before.
Also, just to be clear I’m also removing the moderation settings on the Announcements section. Don’t abuse it because I, unlike @Penguin and @Leah, won’t have any issues silencing abusers.