Many new members register for the forum, only to realize they are not allowed to submit posts. Here's the most likely explanation for the problem.

When you registered for membership on this forum, you were required to submit a valid e-mail address. At the completion of the registration process, you were informed that an e-mail was being sent to the e-mail address you registered and this e-mail would contain a link that you would have to click on, in order to complete the registration process.

The reason for this is to prevent people from registering with invalid e-mail addresses. We require that our members provide a valid e-mail address, so we will be able to contact them if the need arises.

What usually happens is a new member will register with an e-mail address from one of the 'free' e-mail service providers (Yahoo, HotMail, GMail, etc.) and many of these providers will filter our verification e-mail off into a Junk or Spam folder. And if you don't click on the link in that e-mail, your account is never fully registered.

You account exists in the database, but it is held in a usergroup that has no more permissions than an unregistered guest. You cannot post messages, participate in polls, use the Private Messaging system, etc.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of would-be spammers that try to register for the forum and never get past the e-mail verification, so we make a regular practice of deleting the users in that particular usergroup. And that could result in your account being deleted, before you ever managed to get it fully activated.

Most members cannot see it, but there is a forum section located in the Forum Announcements category, called Can You See Me? If you can see that forum section, then you need to complete the registration process by clicking on the link in that e-mail.

If you cannot locate the verification e-mail, then you will need to click on the Contact Us link, located at the bottom of every forum page and provide us with the username and e-mail address you registered. We will then be able to manually activate your account.