I read some comments by people in a different thread with unmoderated status for their posts, but no details are given. Does one apply for unmoderated status or what?

>Does one apply for unmoderated status or what?

AFAIK - No.

What I would suggest is to keep posting. Ensure that you post to the correct forum. Once the moderators see that you are a responsible member of the community, you will get granted unmoderated status (or at least generally unmoderated).

Hmm, my profile shows 842 posts vs. another person with 249 who now has unmoderated posts. And I've never seen anything indicating that I'm not being responsible. Forgive me, but the process seems a bit arbitrary.

Some people have made thousands of posts but never become unmoderated because they can't seem to post in the correct forum. 

muybn:

Forgive me, but the process seems a bit arbitrary.

Yes it is a bit arbitrary but for the most part it works. 

Well, now you're making me wonder if I post to the wrong forums or don't post responsibly... I realize that handling 1000's of cases, as you folks have to do, would be a huge job; but at the same time it seems there should be a standard or measureable threshhold of some sort.

In the meantime, a rather important matter that I submitted for moderation a couple of days ago lies invisible to the viewing public; so I will drop this subject and free up your time for dozens of other cases that probably come in each minute.

At any rate, I second, third and fourth the feature of a "waiting for moderation" category in one's own "My Posts" section. This would be a very convenient tool, I'm sure, for many people, and would remove from me the disquieting notion and doubts related to not being responsible, posting to the wrong forum, etc.

Please check your forum Inbox.  I sent you a PM yesterday (Private Message).

To help with some of the marginal cases (does it belong on this forum or not), I have prepared at http://forums.asp.net/t/1337412.aspx an "FAQ on the correct forum to post at".

Some threads are easy to fit into a particular part of the forum, however there is the odd one that is genuinely hard to get right first time. As in any forum, looking at existing threads will help you with "house style" and confirm which part of the forum you should post to.

muybn:

In the meantime, a rather important matter that I submitted for moderation a couple of days ago lies invisible to the viewing public;

This is surprising as I understand from various moderators that the typical delay is 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on time of day and the section of the forum.

muybn:

In the meantime, a rather important matter that I submitted for moderation a couple of days ago lies invisible to the viewing public

There has been no posts that would take a couple of days to process.  The bulk of posts are approved in about 30 minutes or less and it does sometimes take a little bit longer. You should have received an email indicating why that recent post was not approved.  Windows development questions should be submitted to the MSDN forums.  All questions submitted to the ASP.NET forum should be about ASP.NET web sites / web applications.

If the matter is important and you're unsure where to post it, you may try "Free for all" forum. There seems to be less moderation there.

Naom:

and you're unsure where to post it

There's really no reason to be unsure.  TATWORTH provided a link to an FAQ thread that points out quite a number of forums that can be used to ask questions on topics other than ASP.NET.  In this way people can more quickly find the appropriate community site to post to and the ASP.NET forums can be used for its intended purpose - discussions on ASP.NET topics.

Using too much forums may be complicated thing too. I agree with you in general, but on the other hand, people may prefer to stay within one forum rather than creating accounts on different forums and then monitor them.

Say, I'm already quite active in 3 forums and going somewhere else may be a cumbersome option.

Thanks for your help and suggestions, everyone... Now, how to find that lost post. Actually, from the feedback above, since the subject wasn't directly related to Web development, I guess I need to post it to the MSDN forums. It's possible that I did receive a message as to why what I wrote wasn't posted. Normally I just delete all the e-mails I receive from here and go to the site and read the posts directly (since the messages are normally repeats of the contents of the posts).

muybn:

Now, how to find that lost post

I've contacted you by email with the contents of that post.