Appraisers' Free Forum

[font=Comic Sans MS] We have set up an Appraising Professionals ONLY catagory. If you are Certified, Licensed or a verifiable trainee you may be admitted. Industry professionals, such as loan oficers, Realtor etc, will not be allowed access. We are doing this so ee will be able to discuss specifics without worrying about who is watching or who is tattling on us. Needless to say, while we cannot guarantee that others wont read it we will ban anyone who shares their access to those forums or who pubically distributes information from those forums.

To be admitted, you must either be registered on the ASC roster, your state's roster, or be sponsored and verified by someone on one of those rosters. To be admitted, please PM your real name, City, State, email address, phone number and the same data for your sponsor if needed to one of the admins or one of the moderators. Currently the Admins are Jim Plante, Annemieke Roell, Goodpasture, and Otis Key and DB are moderators. Any of them can admit you, however, it should be recognized that all of us are working appraisers. We are not professional forum managers. It may take a day or two for us to get there. PM us all if you want, and the first one to get there will getter done......we weill be verifying licenses and references, and that does take a bit of time.
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Greg, I think that is an outstanding idea. Thanks to whoever suggested it!

[font=Verdana]It should also be noted that the reason for the tight security in this forum isn't necessarily to keep the general public from peeking at us. We will be discussing specific appraisal information about specific properties on actual appraisal assignments, and we are constrained by USPAP not to disclose that kind of information. We can, however, act as consultants and mentors to appraisers who need help solving a nasty problem--and for that, we need the security. [/font]

[font=Comic Sans MS]Fantastic idea![/font]

What if I am too lazy to apply?

Sorry Tim,
I was going to go ahead and admit you, but Otis won't let me. He says you've gotta apply like everyone else.

I'm lazy too. Can I just email a copy of my license, resume, E&O, Fee Schedule, W-9 and a check made out to cash for the low low price of $19.95 + S&H?

We'll take the check, but you can leave out all that other stuff :)

Like Tim, I'm prolly too lazy.

Jim Plante wrote:[font=Verdana]It should also be noted that the reason for the tight security in this forum isn't necessarily to keep the general public from peeking at us. We will be discussing specific appraisal information about specific properties on actual appraisal assignments, and we are constrained by USPAP not to disclose that kind of information. We can, however, act as consultants and mentors to appraisers who need help solving a nasty problem--and for that, we need the security. [/font]

Question. Does that mean that the general public can not see stuff in this area? If so, just how secure is it? Just curious.

Steve, it's just as secure as anything else on the internet. Guests and registered users cannot even see these forums, let along access them through normal means.

But any board can be hacked, as can that PC sitting on your desk. All we can do is keep honest people or uneducated crooks out. PHPBB v. 2.x is fairly secure, and that's what we're using. When version 3 is available, we'll switch over to that; freeforums.org will require everybody to switch to it eventually, and it has a higher degree of security than we now enjoy.

Steve Owen wrote:Question. Does that mean that the general public can not see stuff in this area? If so, just how secure is it? Just curious.

What we have set up is a usergroup. A mod or admin are the ony ones that can add you to a usergroup. Once a user group is set up and people are added, the user group has to be given permission to see the forums.

In this case there is only one forum visible to the public, and that one will be moved, in the not too distant future, to a public venue and at that point NO casual visitor or even a registered member can see any of the forums. Is like the members only group on the NAIFA. It CAN be hacked, but it requires a deliberate assault and, most likely, access to the file structure of the forum. What is more likley is that people who are admitted in there will cut and paste excerpts from there.....as you well know, some people are simply scum and don't deserve to associate with decent people.....but that is the way this stuff works. If they are licensed or certified or sponsored as trainees, they are allowed in.