I know it's old but since I'm the loudest about it...
Your avatar (the picture under your name) changes depending on how many posts you have. For example, timothytrotter went from being a Dungeon Master to a Magister when he made 99 posts.
Some people used to make posts just to increase their post count and get a newer avatar. To crack down on this, the mods decided that correctional behavior can be administered effectively through your avatar. For example, if you make 52 random posts because you're 52 posts away from being Lord Soth and a moderator catches you, your post count could be set so far back that you could never reach Lord Soth, even if you posted every day for a year.
And then there's me, who really looked forward to being the pretty Emerald Dragon for 500 posts and got...the Quintesson.
Like a lot of IW avatars, the Quintessons are from the Transformers cartoon series. They're a race of harsh lawgivers. But that's not why I don't like it. The Quintesson is big and ugly. There are several nice Quintesson screen caps out there. Why we get the big purple egg is beyond me. (This may also be a personal thing, but I don't like having an avatar that's bigger than my average post.)
I don't post a lot, and it took a while to get 1000 posts, let alone the 1300-1500 necessary to be an Red Dragon. (It used to be that 1000-1500 was Emerald Dragon, but something happened and Ziroc made a new avatar for 1000-1300 posts and bumped Emerald Dragon back to 900-1000.)
It's the little things. It's a pleasure and privilege to post at Ironworks. I just wish I didn't have to be so ugly.
(PS: Other than my civilly disobedient signature, this is the most I've said on the topic since I made rank. I'm amazed.)