Well, we do have some restrictions for new members; you need to get established a bit before you can access profiles, send PMs and emails, stuff like that. Largely because it is safer, especially for younger members, if we do not let people send out messages before we have a rough idea about why they are here.
It appears you have managed to respond, to my inquiry at least.
Some people use the abuse report feature to respond to messages they would otherwise not be able to respond to. While this is not what the tool is intended for, it has worked fine in the past. Unfortunately the forum software does support different permissions for responding to messages and initiating conversations.