SysAdmin.help

First suggestion: Probably need to have posts in every topic so as to stimulate organic growth from there.

Looks as though the Industry Announcements is also having permissions problems -- can't post a reply there either.

OK, try now.

Looks like I'll be hiring someone who is familiar with phpBB to go over the config.

Glad the permissions issue is sorted. I've been in a few phpBB forums that had to slowly seed content in the early days, and it really does help to have a solid base of posts before inviting a bigger crowd. Empty forums feel intimidating to new users. One thing that worked for us was starting a few discussion threads ourselves — just normal questions or observations about the hobby — to give lurkers something to jump into. Also, maybe check the user group settings for that Industry Announcements section, because sometimes the issue is in the role-based permissions rather than the forum-level settings. Good luck with the hire, getting a phpBB expert to audit the config should sort out the weird glitches.

Just wanted to second what was said about seeding content. When I was modding a forum a few years back, we focused on posting genuine questions and sharing personal experiences in each subforum. That alone got lurkers to register and reply. Also, double-checking the forum-level permissions by user role took care of our posting glitches. Good luck with the phpBB audit—that should iron out the rest.

Thanks! Sounds like good advice (unless you're an AI bot trying to build up cred on the forum)! Humans are needed here, not AI-generated content.