Registration Issues

Post any website technical issues, suggestions, or requests here
Post Reply
dd2u
Victor I
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:09 pm
Location: Europe

Registration Issues

Post by dd2u »

Is there some problem with the registration of new members here? I have enthused about this board to several people. While they are not the most technical of folks I did expect at least one of them to manage to post here! Some of them claim to have tried, but nothing has appeared. Is this user error or board error?

Having checked myself this morning I see that you can no longer post as a guest. This seems quite sensible but it means that if there is some kind of registration problem it will leave prospective new posters in limbo.

User avatar
Steve
Victor VI
Posts: 3124
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 4:40 pm
Location: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Evesham

Re: Do we really need a "forum in the forum"?

Post by Steve »

Apparently there is some kind of problem as a few people have mentioned trying to set up accounts but not being able to do so. Contrary to some stupid remarks being made elsewhere the TMF is not being run by Stalin or the CLPGS!

HisMastersVoice
Auxetophone
Posts: 2587
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:01 am

Re: Registration Issues

Post by HisMastersVoice »

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Due to our sudden increase in spam accounts, we decided to turn off guest posting, and make registration a manual process, so the members didn't have to be bothered with seeing spam posts until a moderator was able to delete the posts and the user. Here is an excerpt from the admin log, showing you just how many spam accounts are created every few hours:
admin_log.PNG
Since there are so many, we often look through and pick out any accounts that aren't obviously fake, or aren't a jumble of text. If someone registers a username that isn't a discernible word, name, or otherwise identifiable as a real account, it has a high probability of being deleted. Every account I activate, I run the registering email and IP address through a spam database. As you can imagine, this is all a very time consuming process.

I will try to come up with a way for new members to contact someone in the event their membership is not approved. Any real person is welcome to register here, there is no intentional reason why anyone would be denied.

gramophone78
Victor VI
Posts: 3946
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:42 am
Location: Western Canada

Re: Registration Issues

Post by gramophone78 »

I for one thank the admin. for the time to stop what seems to be a mountain of spam that tries to inundate our forum. Perhaps those that tell others might suggest choosing a "name" that relates to our hobby or their real name. Just a thought..... ;).

dd2u
Victor I
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:09 pm
Location: Europe

Re: Registration Issues

Post by dd2u »

Thank you for the clarification and for the difficult job you are doing. It is amazing that the capcha does not stop all this spam. Unless I am confusing this with somewhere else, my recollection is that I found it hard to see the letters myself!


I have a simple technical question: when threads are moved, does the forum software allowed a "moved" direction to remain in the original place? Without it, it is sometimes hard to see where certain discussions have gone! I had always assumed that some forum software did this automatically as I see this in many other places.

User avatar
Valecnik
Victor VI
Posts: 3828
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:28 pm
Personal Text: Edison Records - Close your eyes and see if the artist does not actually seem to be before you.
Location: Česká Republika
Contact:

Re: Registration Issues

Post by Valecnik »

HisMastersVoice wrote: I will try to come up with a way for new members to contact someone in the event their membership is not approved. Any real person is welcome to register here, there is no intentional reason why anyone would be denied.

That is an incredible amount of spam. If there is a way for current members to facitate a new member's joining as you suggest, I sure we'd all help.

HisMastersVoice
Auxetophone
Posts: 2587
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:01 am

Re: Registration Issues

Post by HisMastersVoice »

I'm pleased to report that the registration issues should be solved. I have added an additional verification process to determine if a user is legitimate. New users are no longer under admin approval, they will be able to activate their account via the registration email upon correctly answering the security question. I will closely monitor new registrations for the time being to ensure the system is working properly. Thank you all for your input.

User avatar
Kryptosmaster
Victor O
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:38 pm
Personal Text: Too lazy to find a small avatar pic so picked this one from the site. LOL
Location: Mesa, AZ

Re: Registration Issues

Post by Kryptosmaster »

New guy here. Just wanted to mention this before I start posting in the rest of the forum.
I had a hell of a time joining this place. I almost gave up.
For one thing I never got the confirmation email to complete my registration. Attempted numerous "resend email" requests.
Tried to find a contact email for administrators.... No such animal exists.
Attempted to re-do my registration but of course it told me my name and email were already taken and to contact an admin if I had any problems. Unfortunately in order to contact an admin you have to be REGISTERED!
Insert Catch-22 here....

Frustrated, I tried to do a whole new registry with a diff name and email address. Voila! Unfortunately at that same moment I got TWO emails from BOTH attempts. So now I have TWO accounts!
I'm thinking maybe the security question could be part of the issue. When I attempted to enter a date (4 digits) it gave me an error message. When I tried to use the last 2 digits it said they were too high of a number.

BTW... This was over t he course of a day or two, not one registry attempt right after the other. I had tried all sorts of @talkingmachine.com names but always got returned mail.


Suggestion: Create a "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the main page for issues like this.
I wonder how many people were not as persistent as myself and just gave up?
Richard.....

HisMastersVoice
Auxetophone
Posts: 2587
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:01 am

Re: Registration Issues

Post by HisMastersVoice »

Thanks for pointing the issue out, it looks like the answer did not match the question, I fixed that and tested, everything seems to be working.

The emails are indeed an issue, sometimes they take a while to go through. It's one of the things I have no immediate control over, unfortunately.

Post Reply