Unable to reply to posts or view member profiles

[gdv]

Hello all!

 

OK, new forum member friendly greeting out of the way... ...now time for the not so friendly rant!!! <<<(Intended to convey that while I'm really frustrated, I realize things like I'm reporting below are bound to happen, and I'm trying to maintain a sense of humor. )

 

I just registered in the forum in order to reply to another user, but I still see the grayed out Reply button stating "You cannot reply to this topic".

 

Furthermore, I can't view my own or any other member profiles by clicking on the member name. Instead, I get this error message: [#10245] You are not permitted to view member profiles.

 

Nor can I reach my own profile by clicking on my own username in the upper right corner of the page, or on the first option ("My Profile") in the username dropdown menu... ...However, ironically, I can reach my profile by clicking on the second option ("My Settings") in that same dropdown menu, and (as illustrated by this post) I'm obviously able to "Start New Topic"!

 

Finally, I'm unable to find anything that addresses this on the forum Help page, and if I click on the link listed below the above error message to Contact the forums administrator, nothing at all happens! [correction: an empty email message is opened in my email program for me to contact the forums administrator by email, which I will do in addition to this post.]

 

I figured the problem had to be something on my end, but I've logged out and logged back in and tried all of the above several times in fresh installs of both Opera and Chrome, with the same results in both... ...so I'm guessing there's just a glitch in the forum software, but I've spent a couple hours trying to figure out how to reply to an existing post, and it just seems Jacked Up!!!

 

This is totally puzzling, as it appears other users are able to reply to posts in various threads... ...so maybe it is a problem on my end that I just can't figure out. Is there something I'm missing???

 

Thanks!

[gdv]

Well... ...to add a little more info (and to add to my confusion), I see that now I am able to "Add Reply" to my own thread, but am still grayed out with "You cannot reply to this topic" for all other threads.

 

...I just don't get it!

[ianymaty]

It is perfectly normal to have some doors shut to new members in order to avoid a lot of things like hijacking others threads or spamming.

 

If you have problems, start your own topic, describe in detail and someone will help.

 

You are able to reply to your own posts.

 

In the meantime you can read FAQ and Guides

 

After some time here on the forum you can help others if you want, for the first is supposed that you are a newbie and have limited access.

 

If you have no problem, make a thread in Chat to hello the forum people and maybe you share your experience with ImgBurn and how you find about it.

[gdv]

It is perfectly normal to have some doors shut to new members in order to avoid a lot of things like hijacking others threads or spamming...

 

...After some time here on the forum you can help others if you want, for the first is supposed that you are a newbie and have limited access.

Thanks!

 

I wondered if it might be something like that (and I can even support that rationale)... ...but that only adds to my frustration since, as I said, I registered specifically to reply to another user's post, and I spent a couple of hours trying to find out how to make my reply, and now another couple of hours with this thread!

 

BTW, I forgot to mention earlier that I also already checked the FAQ to see if my problem (being unable to reply to another's post) was addressed there, but it didn't seem to be. Nor could I find any Forum Rules that indicate anything about the problem (e.g., explaining any newbie restrictions).

 

Did I miss this newbie restriction somewhere??? I certainly looked for it, and if I had seen it, I would have completely understood the rationale and wouldn't have wasted my time trying to post a reply or my posts in this thread, not to mention everyone else's time reading this thread!

 

I've run into one forum where newbie privileges are completely restricted (can't even access your own user profile) until you've made at least one post to introduce yourself, another forum where you have to complete a user challenge (e.g., Captcha) for the first 5 posts, and a third forum where you can't add a sig until you have at least 5 posts, but in each case the limitations were explicitly stated up front so you knew what to expect. I certainly understand the need to prevent spamming and reduce hijacking, but such newbie restrictions are certainly not typical on the VAST majority of forums, and I don't understand imposing such limitations without making them explicit so a newcomer doesn't have to experience so much frustration and waste so much time trying to figure it out.

 

Not exactly user friendly... (!) ...Even with your reply, I still have no idea how soon I would be able to post the reply I intended to post in the first place!

 

And even if automatic newbie restrictions explain my being unable to reply to another user's post, what does that have to do with being unable to access my own user Profile? (My guess is that average newbies would probably never have figured out that they could access their profile from the second item in the dropdown menu even though they couldn't by clicking on their name.)

 

Again, I understand the need to prevent spamming, and I've seen forums that were destroyed by spam when some kind of restrictions weren't used (registration at a minimum). But I'm sure the goal isn't to frustrate and drive away satisfied users of a fantastic product!!!

[ianymaty]

From now on you can do pretty much everything.

 

Please use decent language and don't spamm.

 

PS: Welcome and enjoy!

[gdv]

From now on you can do pretty much everything.

Thanks! ...Yep, looks like all my buttons work "as advertised" now!!!

 

So, ianymaty, I'm guessing you must be one of the forum mods ??? If so, thanks for your help... ...and I'm still wondering if I missed some info about newbie posting restrictions somewhere? If not, I'd still like to see that info made explicit and obvious for all newbies!

 

(BTW, sorry to be so long getting back to you... ...computer crashed last night , which threw me behind on a number of things. )

Edited October 30, 2010 by gdv