>Message #780210 from someone claiming to be Eric Johnson is a blatant troll (not known at the phone number given, address is a PO Box, no company name, no response from e-mail, and the UT account is very new).
>
>With the great publicity that VFP is getting on http://slashdot.org/, www.LinuxWorld.com, www.TheRegister.Com, etc. we can expect more of the same, especially originating from new accounts created specifically for the purpose of trolling (Joe Bob springs to mind).
>
>Can anything be done to the message title area to indicate that the member is:
> - very new (account less than a month old)
> - Or their post is one of the first say ten posts, etc.
>Here is one idea: In the U.K. learner drivers must display a large red L on a white background.
>
>Another possibility might be to have a nominal charge (say $5) for non PUTM's, that must be paid by credit card - this being a mechanism by which some form of identity can be verified (even if the credit card is not in the same name as the UT member).
>
>Or, the sign-up process could be made a little more onerous.
>
>Anything that can be done to reduce the time wasted by the likes of Ken Levy when responding to asinine imbeciles is a step in the right direction.

Our signup process already contains the basic validations. Each new accounts go into a pending mode and each and everyone of them are verified manually. This is a process that takes several hours per months. That includes phase one validation against some hackers, etc. Some of that also includes additional validations for specific routes targeted from malicious users. So, if for all other sites allowing a user to create a free account, which I doubt most of them are doing as much as we do here for such verifications, that would then mean they would fall in "a little more onerous" criteria, as per what you said.

There would be a need to provide much more justification than just a reference to only one message posted by that member which doesn't include anything on it against the site Terms & Conditions. Despite the fact that the assumption could be right, there is no malicious content in that message that would justify any action on our part. And, during these days, we might have much more serious issues to deal with than just one single message which doesn't contain anything bad in it.

If you have suggestion on UT, you may send them to me by email or in the Chatter - Universal Thread related topics category.

As for the 5.00$ base charge, I see you are basic member. I assume you consider that this would apply to your account also.