VWA HOME
Email the Forum Keeper
Here are some brief answers to questions you may have about the Ventana Wilderness Alliance Forum and how to use it. If we've left out anything please let us know.
Anything remotely related to or concerning the Ventana Wilderness Area or the Silver Peak Wilderness Area just to the south, including as well the northern portion of the Los Padres National Forest and the non-vehicular areas of the several State Parks in the area. Questions, answers and comments regarding trail conditions, management practices, flora, fauna, geology, weather and just about anything else are wholeheartedly welcome.
Just click on the subject line link and the message behind it will open. Messages are threaded by subject, with the most recent postings at the top of the list and the more seasoned ones toward the bottom. Follow-ups to the messages are arranged similarly, being indented a bit and immediatly below the original message to which they refer. Poke around and you'll find email links to message authors behind their names, as well as occasional links to author's home pages or other pages relevant to their posting.
Either click on "Post Message" in the menu bar near the top of the main Forum page or scroll down the page until the "Post a Message!" form appears, then just fill in the boxes with your name, email address, subject of your post (important!), and whatever it is you want to say. At the bottom of the form are a couple of optional boxes that you can use to include a link to your home page (or anywhere, actually) with your post. When all reads as you'd like it to, just click on the "Post Message" button at the bottom of the page and that's it.
If you find a message worthy of your reply just click on "Post Follow-up" in the menu bar at the top of the message page, or simple scroll down the page until the "Post A Follow-up" form appears. Fill in the "Name" and "Email" boxes, then tab into the "Comments" box. Now add your own comments, click the "Submit Follow-up" button, and that's it.
You sure can! Just fill in the optional boxes at the bottom of either the original message or follow-up message forms that are labeled "Optional Link URL" and "Link Title." Be sure to use a fully valid URL beginning with "http://" in the first one, and put something in the "Link Title" box or it won't take.
Sorry, but no. The script that runs the program gives us the option of allowing HTML tags to be placed in messages but we have chosen to disallow them. Allowing HTML tags would open up serious security holes and make it a lot easier for spammers and hackers to do their evil work.
Colons appear in the message dialog box when you follow up on a message to indicate that those lines are quoting the previous document. Please take the time, using your cursor's highlighting ability in conjunction with your delete key, to edit out any part of the quoted original message not relevant to your follow-up remarks.
Your post most likely did not show up because your browser did not reload the page, it simply pulled it out of cache. Please reload your browser and it should then appear.
If you get an error message reading "Your attempt to post a message to the Ventana Wilderness Alliance Forum Board has Failed!" when you try to post a message or reply, it's because you've been caught by a server rule that denies access to the Forum script to HTTP requests that do not include a referring URL from the ventanawild.org domain. This rule was added to prevent spammers from bombing the Forum with spam messages generated by automated scripts, but occasionally legitimate attempts to post to the Forum are blocked also. This can happen if you are behind a firewall that spoofs your referring URL or does not allow referrer logging; if you are using a "surf anonymously" program that hides or spoofs your referring URL; or if you are using a browser (such as Opera) that allows you to disable referrer logging, and you have referrer logging disabled. If you get a "Post Attempt Failed" message when trying to post a message, first disable your firewall or change the settings to allow correct referrer logging ( (sometimes listed as HTTP_REFERER in firewall Help files and documentation), disable any cloaking software, and make sure your browser settings are configured to allow referrer logging. If none of these steps solve the problem, please contact the Forum administrator and we'll look into it.
If you are using Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall, please see this Symantec Norton Firewall Support page for instructions on configuring Norton to pass referrer information.
If you get a Code 403 "Access Denied" message when you try to post a message or reply, or when you try to access a message from the Forum, it's because either you, someone using the IP address you currently have, or someone from your class C IP block has been identified as a board spammer (or flamer) and has been banned. Generally we ban IP blocks only in cases of spamming, but it's possible that innocent people in the same block could be banned in the process. If you get a Code 403 message and you feel that it's a mistake, please contact the Forum administrator.
The scripts are written in Perl and created by Matt Wright. They are free for the taking to anyone willing to risk their sanity in trying to get them to work. You can find them at: http://www.scriptarchive.com/.
Unfortunately, Matt's scripts have become a little dated and have security holes that can be easily exploited by hackers, spammers and script kiddies. Luckily, updated, secure versions of these scripts (endorsed by Matt Wright) are available from the NMS Project. There are a wide variety of other Forum scripts available, as well.