As GeneralAntilles and timsamoff said, you start out as a fan, and if you hang around long enough, and are helpful enough to people coming in behind you, you end up on the council.

My biggest fear about this community is that, as new people join, we're going to lose some of that great spirit of, "Hey, here's what I've just learned, you should try it too!"

A good example of this great spirit is JayOnThaBeat. He joined us a few months ago while he was waiting for his N810 to arrive, joking around in the off-topic and speculation threads, but once he got his hands on his N810, he began asking lots of questions, then turning around and sharing stuff that he had learned. This is a great recent example: Using VNC Viewer Over an SSH Tunnel (Step-By-Step)

Stuff like that gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me think that, despite all the stupid flame wars and trash talk lately, we're going to be OK.