Topics: What happens when I submit a message to the board? Why didn't my new post show up on the list right away? What if there is no acknowledgement of my post? What if I get an error message? Why can't I start a new topic by changing the Subject line in a reply? Why was my message referred to a moderator? What if no one replies to my post? Can I use HTML tags, or put links and pictures in my post? What about bulletin board tags or smilies? Are there size limits on messages? How can I be sure I'm seeing the latest messages? Must I use my name in my message? Who can see the information I post? Does posting here increase my risk of junk email? How can I quote in my message when I post a followup? How can I report problems with the board? Use your browser's Back button to return to the page that sent you here, or else close this window or tab if applicable.

What happens when I submit a message to the board? When you write a new message with the Message Posting Tool, or when you write a response using the reply form in an existing message, you will find a Submit or Post button beneath the text area. Clicking that button sends your message directly to the Message Board. You will then receive a short Confirmation Page to acknowledge that your message has been posted. There is a button to view the finished post if you so desire, or you can return to the main Message Board. If you signed in as an Authenticated Author, the Confirmation Page is also where you will be able to upload and attach files to your post! Once you receive the Confirmation Page, your message is safely on the board; see below. Return to Topics list. Why didn't my new post show up on the list of messages right away? If you received the Confirmation Page mentioned above, don't worry--your post is on the Board, whether you see it immediately or not. Do not send your message again, or you will create duplicates! The board software physically cannot send you an acknowledgement until it has both written the new message file and updated the message list. This is a TOTALLY FAILSAFE process. If the software fails at either preceding task, for any reason whatsoever, it shuts down immediately and there can be no acknowledgement. Period. Bottom Line: If you receive confirmation, the message absolutely, utterly, 100% positively is on the Board. If the message doesn't seem to be listed the next time you look at the Message Board, it's most likely because your browser is displaying the page out of cache on your local drive and has not loaded a fresh copy over the Internet. Unfortunately, the newer the browser, the more likely it will fail to refresh dynamically updated pages. Nor does the old standby of pressing F5 always cause a Refresh these days! What can you do? (1) Ctrl+F5 forces a full Refresh on most machines, dumping the cached page and reloading it afresh. Try this first! (2) On some notebooks and tablets, you may have to press Fn+F5 together instead. (The F1 - F12 Function keys often double as hardware control buttons on smaller computers. The Fn key tells the machine to give F5 its normal meaning.) (3) In extreme cases, close all open instances of the browser, even ones unrelated to the Message Board, and then re-open. (If this happens mainly after prolonged periods of computer use, it could be a sign that you may need to restart Windows itself more regularly.) Return to Topics list. What if there's no acknowledgement of my post? That's not a good sign. Normally, you should receive acknowledgement within a few seconds after clicking Submit Message or Submit Follow Up, even on a dialup connection. If there's a problem, one of the following may happen instead: 1. You see a blank window. Nothing ever shows up in it. If 30 seconds elapses and the window remains blank (possibly with a Done indication in your browser's status bar), odds are the Message Board thinks you are an automated spammer and is refusing to talk to you. (a) The most common cause for this is having so-called privacy features turned on in certain browsers or third-party 'security' software, including VPNs and other proxy servers. Some of these are overly aggressive. They refuse to transmit specific information that is normally supposed to accompany any Web request. Failing to send this information does not improve your security in any way, but it does prevent us from confirming that you are not one of hundreds of attempts to spam the Board each day. That's a big security risk at our end, and it will prevent your post from being processed. (b) Another cause may be that you used a word in your post or subject line that happens to trigger our spam monitor. Some of these will throw error messages as described below, but some may not. Regrettably, that may leave you guessing at the reason; but if so, you can contact us with a copy of the text you were trying to post, and we may be able to improve the Board's behavior. 2. You get a warning message from your browser. (a) If the wording is something similar to "your current security settings do not allow you to send HTML forms," or if it makes reference to "non-encrypted form data," that may mean your security settings are adjusted too high for you to be able to send data to our server. We do not solicit any personal information as part of your message board posts. The solution is to place lwca.org in the Trusted Sites category of Internet Explorer; or else change your setting for "submit non-encrypted form data" from Disabled to Prompt, or the equivalent setting in other browsers. (b) If it's a "connection timed out" or "navigation cancelled" message, it could simply mean that some part of the Internet is down temporarily. However, pleae contact the Webmaster or the Board Moderator if you find the condition only affects lwca.org. 3. There's an actual error message from lwca.org. (a) If the error message is associated with the numbers 404 or 500, it means our server is experiencing problems, or else we have inadvertently misplaced a file during maintenance. Either way, please let the Webmaster or the Board Moderator know as soon as possible!. Please see the "How can I report problems with the board?" topic farther down on this page. (b) A message from the Message Board software itself may tell you that something in the content of your message triggered the spam detectors, or that it was over the established size limits (see the size limits question below). Return to Topics list. What if I get an error message? If it's a 404 File Not Found or a 500 Server Configuration Error, you have done nothing wrong. The trouble is at this end, but you can help us find and fix it sooner by reporting the problem as mentioned in the section above. However, if you get a 403 Forbidden message when you try to post, that means there's a problem with your message itself. If that happens, please DO NOT attempt to send it again! Most likely, the spam detector has caught something about the message that it thinks might be spam. If you attempt to re-send repeatedly, it becomes more convinced of that diagnosis. If you are a legitimate user trying to send a legitimate message who receives a 403 error, please don't be alarmed, become frustrated, or waste time attempting to repost again and again. Instead, you can help by copying and pasting your message into an email to the trouble reporting address farther down on the page. That will help us teach the spam filter how to better discriminate between good posts and bad. (Of course, if you are an actual spammer, you can best help the world by finding a tall bridge and practicing that radical new TikTok fad, cordless bungee jumping.) Why can't I start a new topic by changing the Subject line in an existing post? The board used to allow branching to sub-threads by altering Subject lines when replying, but it causes serious problems with semi-automatic maintenance of the Board when it is used to create new topics. It can also result in messages appearing in the wrong category. As a result, we've had to totally block that practice recently. Changing the Subject line in a reply will now block your post and kick out an error message without further explanation. We hope to soon modify the code to recognize legitimate subthread branching, because that is convenient when someone wants to update a thread; but it has not yet proven practical. We will announce when or if it can be implemented again. Meanwhile and forever henceforth, if you want to start a totally new topic, you should use the Write New Message link near the top of the Message Board front page. What if no one replies to my post? It is a fact of life that sometimes nobody in a group will have an answer to a particular question; at least not right away. But before concluding that no one does, first please check again for followups to your earlier post. It's surprising how many times we've had people repeat their questions when there already were answers posted in their original thread. Before jumping to conclusions, find your earlier post and click your browser's Refresh button to ensure you're looking at the latest information, including any threaded replies, and not just a copy stored in cache on your computer. (See the "How can I be sure I'm seeing the latest messages?" topic below.) If, indeed, no one has answered you...or if the answers didn't really address your question...please do not simply post a duplicate of your earlier post! As with most forums, we strongly discourage the practice of "bumping" to keep your topic visible. Redundant posts not only burden the board staff with more cleanup, they eventually become a bother to other readers, who will begin to ignore messages bearing your name. Instead, if no one has responded after a reasonable time (which can mean a few days, or up to two or three weeks for more esoteric inquiries, since not everyone visits the board daily), then find your earlier message and post your own followup in the same thread. In your followup, re-state the inquiry in different words, in case readers misunderstood what you were getting at. Also, it's wise to acknowledge any replies you may have gotten the first time around, so readers will understand you actually did look at and consider those responses. Knowing that you bothered to read what was already said on the subject, whether it truly answered your question ot not, can make a huge difference in whether people will reply in future. Return to Topics list. Can I use HTML tags, or put links & pictures in my post? We implemented an "Authenticated Authors" plan in March 2016 that automatically converts URLs to live links in registered users' posts, and enables use of HTML and BBCode for standard IMG tags, and a bit of basic text formatting. File attachments are available now as well, for users who choose to sign up. Check out our About Authenticated Authors page for details (opens in a new window). If you want to use the new features, you will need to sign up; but all previous features of the board still work the same and do not require registration. In addition, there are HTML features everyone can use: (1) HTML entities like &#0216; for Ø or &mu; for μ, etc.; (2) preformatted text within <PRE> and </PRE> tags to make nice monospaced lists; and, (3) BBCode quoting via simple unnamed [QUOTE]quoted text here[/QUOTE] tags...no signup required. Open the Authors Reference page for more details. Return to Topics list. What about BBS-style tags and smilies? Several BBCode tags that correspond to basic HTML text formatting are now available to Authenticated Authors (see the answer immediately above). Graphical emoticons are not currently supported in the Message Board, but could be added if there is interest. Return to Topics list. Are there size limits on messages? Yes. Most people never get close to those limits, but we did establish some. Why? Because the board can bog down if individual posts reach a certain size. Also, one of the more bizarre things message board spammers do is to post enormous, rambling diatribes or catalog excerpts that no one will ever remotely be interested in. Thus, overly long posts cause the board to slow down, and can be an indication of a spam attempt. What are the size limits? That's hard to say precisely, as we may adjust them from time to time. In general, a limit in the 5000 character range seems to be working for now. The best guide for size of posts is: keep other readers in mind. They won't complain about a little wordiness as long as you're saying something of interest. But don't force them to wait for a huge message to load before they discover it isn't something they personally care about. (If you have a long article to share, please let us know ahead of time so we can put it in the library. Then you can post a URL to it in your message.) Return to Topics list. How can I be sure I'm seeing the latest messages? Depending on your Internet settings, you may need to click Refresh or use Ctrl+F5 when you first open your browser to the Message Board. Otherwise, your computer may only pull the page from cache on your hard drive. The better choice, if it is available to you, is to set your browser to check for an updated page from the Web every time. Another feature that's built into the Message Board is an automatic update about every 20 minutes. You can leave the page open and it will refresh itself. However, this only works if you have "Allow META REFRESH" enabled in your Internet Options: Security settings in Internet Explorer, or equivalent settings in other browsers. Return to Topics list. Must I use my name in my message? Yes. It's a required field, along with the Subject line and the body of the message itself. We don't necessarily require you to use your entire name, but doing so obviously helps avoid confusion when we have more than one user with the same first name--which we definitely do have these days! We've got multiple Lees, Daves, Bills, Johns and Eds now...plus a plurality of Pauls. Clarifying which one you are is helpful to all. Also, it's really more polite to identify yourself by name rather than by some artificial handle. We're all friends here, so there's no 'survival value' in anonymity. Return to Topics list. Who can see the information I post? For all practical purposes...everyone in the known universe. This is what our Privacy Policy refers to as a "public information area" on our site. We do have restrictions on what can be posted (see the Posting Guidelines), but the board is open to all visitors. This includes not only regular readers of the Message Board page, but other folks who drop in at random, plus machines on a mission--Internet computers running various types of software known as "robots" and "webcrawlers," among other colorful names. Some of these machines are doing legitimate work, like Web search engines. We allow them to index most of our site, although they are not permitted to archive individual message board posts. This prohibition is handled by a special file on our server that all well-mannered Internet machines are supposed to respect. Unfortunately, the not so well mannered machines are also out there, harvesting e-mail addresses for junk mail purposes (see the spam risk question), and mining any other personal information they can find. And yes, Big Brother is watching you too. There is no practical way to keep ill-mannered spies out. All this is true anywhere on the Web. However, you don't have to join the paranoia of our times! The board is here for your information and enjoyment. Simply think of it as if it were a bulletin board in your place of work, and exercise the same sort of prudence you would in posting there. Return to Topics list. Does posting here increase my risk of junk e-mail? It can, but it doesn't have to. Having your e-mail address visible in any kind of document, anywhere on the Web, increases the risk that some kind of spam robot software may harvest it and put you on junk mail lists that will be bought by spammers... the lowest, most devolved lifeform found on this planet; and sadly, the most prolific of all vermin. The most secure option is to simply not use your e-mail address anywhere in your posts! Although the Name, Subject, and Message fields are required, the E-mail field is optional. If you're willing to take all replies to your message right here on the board, that's the easiest and most effective solution... although sometimes there is no convenient substitute for e-mail. The most important thing you can do to keep your e-mail from being spammed is to never put it in the body of your message. Writing "e-mail me at joebloe@isp.com" in the text of your message is the surest way in the world to get spammed. It's somewhat safer if you fill in the E-mail box under the Name box before typing your post. When you use that box, a partially encoded, non-clickable version of your address appears beside your name in the finished post. It can be copied and pasted from the reader's browser to an e-mail program, but most of your address does not actually reside as plain text on our server or in the transmitted file, so it's not as easy for spammers to identify and harvest it automatically. The Sad Truth: While nobody can guarantee that the encoding method we use is secure for all time, realistically speaking, the odds are much greater that your address has already been stolen from the address book of someone you've sent mail to in the past, courtesy of a trojan or worm they accidentally allowed onto their computer. Return to Topics list. How can I quote in my message when I post a followup? Although we do not have automatic quoting of previous messages enabled in this board, you are encouraged to selectively quote relevant passages from the message to which you are responding. The best way to do this is simply by copy-and-paste. If running Windows, highlight the desired text using your mouse, then use Ctrl+C to copy it, click inside the message composition area, and use Ctrl+V to paste. Finally, put ordinary English quotation marks around the quote, as in: "quoted text" BBCode unnamed quotes (the [QUOTE]text here[/QUOTE] paired tags) are now supported, and Authenticated Authors can also use BBCode named quotes cautiously. Historically, colons were sometimes used in message boards to set apart a quotation (::quoted text::). Other folks use up carats (^quoted text^) or right carats only (>>>quotedtext). Those are OK, but you don't really need any special characters. The board is perfectly happy with regular quotation marks. Caution: If you attempt to use the old Internet e-mail style of quotation ( <<quoted text>> ) it won't work! The board will see << >> as an attempt to insert an unknown type of HTML code and will reject anything inside. Return to Topics list. Why was my message referred to a moderator? This seldom happens, but don't be overly concerned if you receive such a response. One of three things may have triggered it: Your message came to close to exceeding the oversize threshold (see the question about size limits) and will be reviewed by the webmaster or another moderator to confirm that it is not "spam" before it is posted. (Any message that is clearly oversize is automatically dropped without being sent to a moderator.) Your message contained a word or phrase typical of spam, but which might also be found in legitimate messages. Therefore, it will be reviewed before posting to the board. As a result of any such occurence, there will be a delay in posting your message. You don't need to send it again, unless it fails to appear within 48 hours. That could be a sign that it got lost in the ever-increasing e-mail congestion on the Internet. Return to Topics list. How can I report problems with the board? If there is an issue with some function of the board not working properly, or to report an inappropriate post, or if you have a question that isn't covered here, write to mb@lwca.org It is very valuable to us and to your fellow longwave enthusiasts to have you report problems with the board. We thank you in advance for your help in keeping this a useful, friendly, and reliable tool for the longwave community. Return to Topics list. Use your browser's Back button to return to the page that sent you here, or simply close this page if it opened in a new window or tab.