thanks very much, now l understand the permissions better then before.
and l have re-set as advised & it appears to work well like this.
meanwhile - l still have 2 post's by members under "topics" which is not one of my sub-forums.
so l like to move them to the sub-forum titled "Fishing reports" on my site.
previously l was able to move stray post's by opening them and clicking on "options"
and selecting "move post to..." etc. l still have this menu, but the next screen doesn't appear
as it did. eg a screen asking for the permalink of the sub-forum l want to move it to.
now l simply don't see that screen,
so l'm unable to paste the permalink to move the post & its replies too.
hope this better explains it.
cheers Don.