StephenKing.com Message Board FAQ

If you can't post any new topics, polls or replies here are some possible causes...

1. You are not logged in. Only logged in members may post.
2. You have not verified your account. You should have received an email at signup to verify your email address. Until you verify your address, you cannot post.
3. You're trying to post between 4pm Friday and 4pm Sunday (Eastern US Time aka EST aka GMT -5). The board is closed for the weekend and does not accept new messages during these times. (see Why is the board closed at times?)
4. You've trying to post on a national (US) holiday (e.g. Columbus Day) or a Maine holiday, and we're observing the holiday.
5. The board may be closed at other times, too. Check the Announcements for any current or upcoming closures.
6. This is a moderated board and posts are previewed before being posted. This board is actively moderated Monday through Friday, 9am to 4pm, and it could take up to 4 days to post your post.
7. If we've found the content to be questionable we may delete the post entirely. If your post hasn't appeared after one week, you can safely assume it has been deleted. We will probably not notify you if your post has been deleted.
8. The thread you're trying to post in may have been closed, or you're trying to post into the News forum. The News forum can only be posted in by moderators.

Some Additional Things To Be Aware Of

• You cannot use the Social Groups feature of the board until you have posted to the public forums at least 10 times.
• You cannot create a new Social Group until you have posted to the public forums at least 50 times.
• You cannot use the Private Message system to send messages to anyone other than administrators until you have posted to the public forums at least 5 times.
• You cannot use the Visitor Message feature until you have posted to the public forums at least 10 times.
• You cannot post links or images until you have posted to the public forums at least 5 times.
• You cannot create Albums or leave comments on other users' albums until you have posted to the public forums at least 10 times. Additionally, all comments and images uploaded to albums are moderated.
• You cannot use the Email Member function until you have posted to the public forums at least 20 times.

The message board is closed on weekends and holidays because we have a limited staff, and every message is read before it's posted.

To put it simply, when we get back in the office we're overwhelmed otherwise.

The Stephen King Message Board is provided to fans (and critics) who wish to exchange news and information regarding Stephen King and his works. Opinions and advice expressed on the board are NOT necessarily the opinion of Stephen King nor his employees.

The Stephen King message board is provided to the public by the owner, and as such, the owner of the site may arbitrarily change the rules of use at any time. The owner may also arbitrarily decide to remove any messages that he does not wish associated with his personal site.

The Stephen King message board is actively moderated. All messages posted to the board are reviewed before posting, and thereby could be subject to some delay. Additionally, users can report posts they find offensive. If users click the "report this post" option, the reported post will be examined and may be ignored, deleted or edited. Misuse of the post reporting system may result in an infraction on your account.

You may not "flame" other users of the board or use any language that may be construed as inflammatory. "Flaming" and/or "trolling" will not be tolerated. [a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion… See the entry at Wikipedia for more information.]

Please restrict your messages in the forums to their respective areas, e.g. keep all comments and questions about Desperation in the Desperation forum.

There is a Search feature as well as a FAQ — please use them before posting a question. More often than not, your question has already been answered.

No advertising of businesses or offering items for sale.

We do not post writing samples for review or critique.

All site content, including that on the Stephen King message board, is copyrighted by StephenKing.com. Data posted to this message board becomes the property of StephenKing.com. You may not use content or data from the Stephen King Message Board for any research, informational, or educational reasons without express permission from StephenKing.com and/or the original author of an article. If you wish to collect data for any projects or publications, you must receive written permission. Please contact the webmaster for permission, which is usually granted. Data remains the property of StephenKing.com even if you are allowed to use it.

We do not sell or distribute user information from either the message board or the newsletter to any third parties except when required to do so by law.

Posting links within your profile is prohibited. If we find a link within your profile, you will be given an infraction.

User accounts will be banned from the board if they accrue too many infractions. Once a user is banned, they are banned for life.

If you have concerns or suggestions about the Stephen King message board or the general StephenKing.com site, please feel free to contact the webmaster or use the PM option on the message board. We can't promise that we will agree or act on your suggestions, but we will listen!

Your account is not activated until you receive the confirmation email and follow the instruction contained within it. The email can take up to 48 hours to arrive dependent upon your mail provider and the load upon our server. Additionally, some spam filters will give a false positive to the confirmation letter, and move it to your junk/spam/trash folder. Please check to see if the letter has arrived in one of these alternate locations.

If this list doesn't solve the problem, please drop let us know using the contact form.

1. If you have any web security software (such as Norton or McAfee), make sure it is not blocking StephenKing.com
2. Make sure cookies are allowed from StephenKing.com and JavaScript is enabled in your browser - please note: The AOL browser has some issues with this software regardless of these settings.
3. Try emptying your cache and deleting your cookies
4. Try a different browser, such as Opera or Firefox - they're both free and work very well

If you've been harassed by anyone on the board via the Private Messenger, forward the PM to Jordan.

If you've been harassed by anyone within the forums, use the "Report This Post" link.

As stated in the rules, this will not be tolerated and will be dealt with promptly.

It is quite possible that you're posting "after hours."

We only moderate the board Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm EST.

Other possible reasons...

• Your message has been answered elsewhere on the site
• We have to research an answer
• Your message violates an aspect of our Terms of Use

We keep the message board fully moderated for a few reasons... namely, we want to make sure people behave; we want to make sure there are no spam or commercial messages; and we want to (legally) cover our butts.

No one from StephenKing.com will EVER ASK YOU FOR YOUR PASSWORD!

Do not send anyone your password! EVER!

If you have sent someone your password, please immediately change it and notify Jordan via the Private Messenger. Alternatively, you can use the contact the webmaster form.

Members' profile information can be viewed by other members. Any information you do not want to be seen by other members should not be in your profile.

Additionally, posts can be read by anyone on the internet. If you include your email address as either your username or within your signature, you will get a lot of spam. There is nothing we can do about this, so we suggest you do not include your email address in either of these locations.

We do not require you to put your full name in your profile or anything in your location within your profile. Adding this information is up to you.

We require your birthday at signup to be COPPA complaint. Feel free to change your birthday information at any point after signing up.

We do not distribute any of your information to third parties, unless required to do so by law.