Can't Post Answer to a Question - Any issues?

Ok it looks like I can post since I am doing it now.

But in another forum - I get a message that I can't post until I have logged in and registered and subscribed. I did that today (my membership is due or will be due soon.) I didn't think my membership was 'up' but maybe it was - it is sometime in August and so I went ahead and did it.

As soon as I paid via PayPal - the second that I paid - I got the message from PayPal and Daves and so I know that it went through. But I still can't post an answer to a question in Ask A Gardner
is this a special forum with a different subsription needed? I went back and signed in again, etc.

It's a special forum--they pick a question or two every week and answer it in an article on Saturday rather than being an open discussion like all the other forums. So nobody can post answers there.

ecrane is correct.

That forum is designed to allow members and subscribers to start a thread with a single question, but no followups. Our admins and editors then look over the submissions and choose a couple of them to to answer in a "gardening advice" column.

We ran the first "Ask-a-Gardener" article last Saturday: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2951/ as part of our new fun features weekend lineup. (We also run photo riddles, product spotlights; on Sundays we have the "Sunday Funnies" where our members can supply their own humorous caption...if you have any ideas for future columns or a picture that you'd like to share in the Sunday Funnies, please let us know :-)

When the group has picked out a few more questions they want to try to answer in the next Ask-a-Gardener column, we'll move the older questions to another forum for peer-to-peer assistance and advice.

Got it. I don't see any mention of this limitation/special feature on the page when I tried to reply - it would be helpful if the information was on that page somewhere. I've been 'around' for a few years and didn't know it, perhaps more like me 'out there.' It could be that the person who posted the question doesn't realize it either. Thanks!

There's an explanation at the top of the main page for that forum which explains what the forum is for. You won't see it on the pages for the individual threads, but it's there when you view the list of all the threads in the forum. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/questions/all/

Yes, I see that now. I suspect that like many others - I just sign on and go to my homepage and look at my favorite forums and any new threads posted. I went straight to the question - didn't browse the main page of the forum. Confess that even if I went straight to the forum... my eyes would go straight to the threads and not read the description of the forum.. like many other exposures -- after a while we get used to the format of each main page and the descriptions become invisible. I bet there are quite a few folks mistakenly posting to this forum that believe the thread will be treated as others are --and don't post unique, perplexing or puzzling problems.

I think the confusing part is that misleading line under each post "You cannot post until you register, login and subscribe." That should be changed to allow every one to realize there are no follow-ups to any posts.

...and if I could change that I would - that's been an issue we have encountered a few times over the years and there's not an easy answer to it. I'll see if I can change the heading to be clearer.

Sue - exactly the remedy needed. Terry it may help if you could make the change. Speaking personally it isn't a big deal for me --it was just a question I had about the problem I had. But I do believe if there is something important that needs to be conveyed --putting it in the heading in the description of the forum may seem to be the best place but I bet it just gets overlooked as part of the design of the page seen but yet not seen.