PK, I hate to see the site turn on a GURPS stalwart like you. I know that kind of glitch is maddening, and myself have said "well, that's it for this site" many a time when some site has screwed up an attempt at posting.

I tried to replicate the problem using a test account. Result: When logged in, things worked fine for me (as seems to have been the case for other registered users so far). But if I tried to post without being logged in first, typing my user name into the "Your name" field, then I got the same message you did about the user name being already registered.

Now, that's pretty standard website behavior so far. It'd be nice if, in the latter case, the site asked "Are you <user name>? Please type your password into this field to continue." But I don't recall seeing a site that operates that way. Rather, I think sites generally give the "name already registered" error, and give the poster a chance to type in a different name and continue (or the chance to head to the login page and start over).

In my test without logging in, the site returned the "name already registered" notice and did leave my test post content intact, so there was no harm done in my case.

I'm guessing one of the following three is what happened to you:

1) You weren't logged in, tried to post with your registered name, and got the above error message – with your post now gone. If so, perhaps it's some browser caching issue that explains why your post disappeared while my test post survived the same situation. I don't know – and not knowing for sure, can't rule out a glitch in the site. Wherever the problem lay, I must apologize, and will display some prominent instructions reminding registered users to be sure to log in before starting a post. (Probably a lot of web sites should carry such instructions!)

2) Another possibility: As above, but your post did remain intact when the page refreshed with the error message. However, you then went to the login page, and after logging in and restarting the comment process from scratch, your post was gone. In this case, it'd be unfortunate, though not surprising, that the post disappeared – but I'm guessing that you're an experienced computer user and 2) here is not your situation. Either way, as above, I need to place a reminder to users to log in before posting.

3) Maybe it's this: you were logged in from the start, yet you got the error message anyway. If that's the case, it's definitely a glitch over here and deserves a large apology.

I would like to squash any bugs, so if you can tell me what your scenario was, that'd be a big help. (On the off chance you'd like to tell me but can't post: tbone@gamesdiner.com .) Thanks, and again I apologize for the snafu. (For what it's worth, posting bugs pop up often enough on any site that I've gotten into the habit of copying the text of any long post before hitting "preview" or "post". People shouldn't have to do that, though, and I sure don't want them to have to do so on my site.)

Re the original topic and Powers, I'll post separately.