Can't reply to anything

What forum section are you trying to reply in? Is it happening in all of them? Try going to the "Test Forum" and replying to any of the testing threads there and see what happens. Give us the specific error message exactly as it appears.

 

...and that's exactly the way we have organized that particular forum. As a registered member you are able to open your own new thread and respond to it. You will not be able to respond to threads started by other members though. The reason for this is a simple one: we want to avoid anyone to respond other then our classified helpers over there. One wrong reply could end up in a disaster for the system from the one who started the thread.

Hope this explains it all

regards.

paul

 

Right. And you may "post replies" - replies to your own threads, but not replies to other people's threads in that section. As Paul said, it is a protection specific to that forum section.

 

True, but the majority of threads in other forum sections contain mostly generalized advice: What firewall should I use? What does this log mean? Where can I do an online scan? SpywareBlaster won't run, please help. And so on. While there are the occasional direct fix responses in those other sections, in the HijackThis log review section 99%+ of the replies are direct and specific fix recommendations. The ratio of fix recommendations alone leaves great opportunity for problems given bad advice.

Upon performing our own review and verification, we mostly support and recognize the training programs and the skill rankings provided by these sites:

Boot camp at SWI

The TomCoyote Classroom

As to restricting who can help in that section, we are not alone in this. SpywareInfo, ComputerCOPS and Net-Integration have policies and specific rankings assigned to helpers at their sites, as well.

 

That's great! Just one thing to keep in mind, we don't use the trainee ranks here, so the people rated as Spyware Fighters have generally reached a higher ranking level above that in either of those programs, or at the other sites mentioned above (and/or a few others sites).

In any case, I assume you've also seen Pieter's policy thread here, which explains that people can contact him regarding this:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=32172

 

Well, all I can advise is that you know where you are at this moment within those programs, and how you are doing through your participation at the various forums that do this work, so you need to think about whether you've reached a level where you can address logs often unassisted. (Everyone, even the experts can need help with a specific log from time to time, but Spyware Fighters here can generally handle a lot of the logs without help.) In any case, you can always contact Pieter and ask his thoughts.