Can anyone help regarding the Authority part of the question?
John,
There is no need to apologize for the number of posts you have put up, esp. when it's only seven at the time of this writing. There are some members here who can not control their need to interject themselves into has many topics as possible and have ended up, to date, with 794 (!) posts on this board (and another 428 posts on another board like this one), mostly consisting of:
- wild guesses at answers to members' questions (I'll say it again, if you have nothing concrete to offer regarding a topic then DON'T POST),
- speculation at possible answers (which, at times, ends up discouraging those who know the exact answers from bothering to post),
- thank yous (when those are assumed on these boards and really should be IMed/PMed directly to the individual member, if one really feels the need to say thanks), and
- questions that - if the particular member had the most basic of reference materials on hand - would have been answered by doing some simple research.
The bottom line...don't worry too much about post counts. Those in the know realize that while someone might have almost 800 posts, they still may not know what they are talking about, while someone with, say, only 20 posts might be (a) on the money each and every time with an answer, or (b) have asked well posed questions that have lead to intelligent discussions. Judge each poster (and each post) on its own merits.
Good luck,
SCANdal