Why isn't my question about visas allowed here? - Germany

This here visas and permits section of the forum is now operating on "moderator preview".

What that means is that all new topics must be approved by a moderator before they are published for the world to see.

So... if you post a new topic, and then can't see that topic in the listings, it's because the post hasn't been approved yet. Just wait. Within about 24 hours, or perhaps 48 hours at weekends, a moderator will get to your post and approve it if appropriate. Do not post the same message twice. It'll only be deleted.

Note that it is highly likely that your post will be deemed inappropriate and will not be approved.

The reason we're doing this is that there are been far, far, far too many people who come here and ask ridiculous questions that they should really be asking at the immigration office. If you're looking to get a visa or a permit then you're going to have to go to the immigration office anyway, so you might as well be asking them your questions not us. Besides, all the relevant generic information is on various dedicated visas and permits websites. Use Google to find them.

Update: Newcomers who specifically sign up to the forum in order to ask a visa question will always have that question denied. Only established forum members are allowed to start topics in the visas section. The rationale for this is that TT is not a freebie question-and-answer service for visas. Expecting valuable free advice out of the community without ever having previously contributed to the community is unfair and not the intended purpose of this site. The definition of "established member" is a loose one, but a member who joined more than three months ago and has more than ten posts to their name will be looked upon much more favourably than a member who joined one hour ago and has zero other posts.

Whether your post is authorised or not, either way you will not be informed. If TT were a commercial visa advisory service and you paid to use it, you could expect customer service. That is not the nature of this site, so you shouldn't expect any kind of service at all.

I posted a time-sensitive question regarding a visa/passport issue five days ago, waited as instructed, and it never appeared. I received no response from the admin whatsoever.

Good idea this Bob, can you do it to other forae too? Oktoberfest, buying property, and anything by DJCrazy being good first candidates...

Surely it would make more sense, especially for a "time-sensitive question", to contact the relevant consulate/embassy directly?

Kay: I did contact the U.S. embassy and did a fair amount of online research before submitting my question to the forum. I was looking for information about peoples' related experiences that might be of some help. You wouldn't know that because the question was never posted.

I found the tone of several previous threads on this site to be bizarrely hostile. I had a hunch some folks would be anxious to reprove me for doing something less than perfect, or in scaremongering about the prospects for resolving my situation (just read a few posts about lost keys, for instance!). I didn't get until now though that more than a few people on the Toytown forum are just hostile to constructive discourse.

Why ask a question to the forum that can ever be asked somewhere else, to someone else? I suggest that if you don't have time to deal with peoples' questions, please don't. Especially don't bother responding to a question about a question that you know nothing about to give a stale whiff of how aggrieved you are that you have to read it.

As for my time-sensitive question about a visa, I resolved it just fine--no thanks to Toytown>Discussion forum>Germany-wide>Visas/permits. If my experience can help someone else out, I'll share it somewhere else.

But you weren't looking for "constructive discourse"; you wanted free advice. Dishing out free advice has got a little tiring after seven years. This is, after all, a chat forum, not a citizens advice bureau. I wish this policy was extended to all the daft "where can I buy bread" threads as well.

This confirms the relevancy of this policy. I'm a little more sympathetic towards you in particular because you can actually write propa inglish, but the fact is that the vast majority of people seeking information can get more accurate information, more quickly, elsewhere. They just have to engage their brain and look for it, rather than expecting strangers to help them out.

Hi Small Town Boy,

Why not poll the free and willing advice of people who have had seven years experience? If you don't want to read it--if you don't want to respond to it--once again, just don't. Don't even respond to this one if you're all tuckered out. If you think your time and effort here are so worthy, you should try to peddle them someplace besides a free chat forum. Perhaps you could even explore an exciting career in public (back) office. I understand there are rich opportunities there to belittle strangers from a safe distance.

I really wonder what kind of stimulating chat topics have kept you trolling the "visa/passport" forum for (over?) a third of your life...Maybe it's precisely this kind of exchange here? I've certainly seen a zero-to-three ratio of nitpicking to "free advice" about my as-yet-unpublished question so far. I also find it very telling that you and others on this site are so hung up on proper English: one more thing to nitpick, criticize and shame your fellow man about, I guess. Were you ever a foreigner who didn't talk just right or have all the answers--or were you just born a jaded veteran ex-pat with keyboard calluses?

By the way, the fact that I resolved this problem without the free help of strangers, confirms absolutely nothing about the "policy" of not posting legitimate inquiries. I would never look for information here that I could get more reliably from an embassy or government website. As I said, I was seeking shared experiences that might help navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth a bit more effectively.

May we all engage our brains at least a bit toward helping strangers out.

Jesus, three posts and already the new girl is letting loose with the handbags and going for the personal digs.

There you go. Alles klar?

@ submineral

Plain and simple most question are already answered if you check them. If your questions are that rare then like EB said the immigration office will answer your question and be more exact or better yet check with an immigration lawyer. I am not trying to be rude just simply stating an easy simple honest answer.

For the record I am happy with the mods and the way things are run for the most part. In that I mean I also agree with STB with the more controlling of where can I find this threads.

I think I am beginning to understand your problem now. You are one of these people who focuses more on the issues surrounding a problem than the problem itself. In short, if we are to put a label on it, you're a bit of a drama queen. You had a question, it didn't appear on the forums for reasons given by Ed Bob and then rather than pushing your case through direct contact with the management team you are putting your energies into the "why are you mean?" question.

Of course you appear to have managed to find out the required information through other means and well done to you for that, but then you felt obliged to make the point that if you were to share that information you would do so elsewhere.

I can see you misunderstanding something on a menu, not getting the meal you thought you were getting and then rather than taking it up with the manager, standing outside the restaurant with a bull-horn and a placard whinging about how the world is unfair.

Im telling yeah things have not been the same since Gunthers closed....

Soooo, speaking of bad restaurants....

So then the way around this system is to just start a new thread in Miscellaneous - where it will appear immediately and then be moved to Visas/Permits by a moderator - who will presumably see the topic at that time and approve it on the spot.

Simple workaround...

Anyone that savvy probably asked the embassy all their questions in the first place.