[Clytie]

I've had three of those messages today. They're a dratted nuisance, especially when you have your prefs set to popup new private messages and/or notify you via email about new private messages.

Is there anything the forum admins can do about this? Perhaps disallow private messaging for a user until they've posted once? Or is there a better way?

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the users to cope with this individually. Surely it's more effective to confront it here.

Edit: my husband (sysop at our local ISP) says what works for him with phpBB, is either deleting these people as soon as they sign up (if they are few), or (if they are many) simply disallow registration for a while, or require admin approval for registration for a while, which bogs them and gives you a chance to vacuum them out.