Q:

How do inexperienced members get enough reputation to participate in the chat rooms?

I recently found out there is a chat room on this site. Previously i had just thought it was forum questions
My question is how do i gain reputation needed to get access to chat rooms
I've tried answering questions in forums but it seems to be above my level to troubleshoot problems. I have 2 sites currently developed at http://digitalgenesis.com.au and http://www.aicm.org.au so i'm not totally useless, thank god
Any suggestions would be much appreciated, i have posted some questions in terms of php pages for mailing lists and such, and have got some decent answers but i'm still confused as a web design trainee.
As a note i have no technical supervisor so asking anybody within my workplace will not help unfortunately. Would appreciate some guidance

A:

The simple answer is that participating in the chat rooms is a privilege that you don't earn until you have accumulated a sufficient number of reputation points. But that doesn't seem to be your question: you seem to feel like you're missing out on something in chat, since you can't participate.
The chat rooms don't really help you become a better programmer. The information to noise ratio is substantially higher in the chat rooms. In fact, that's probably why they were created in the first place—
to give people a place to "chat" without cluttering up the actual, useful content. Stick with asking questions, answering questions, and reading answers that others have given to questions. That's how you're going to learn something and better your skills as a programmer.
Coincidentally, in doing so, you will probably acquire at least a handful of reputation points, which will enable you to start wasting time in the chat rooms. 

A:

Another valid way to get points is to ask good, insightful questions that others find useful. If those questions are voted up you will get reputation points.

