Recently a colleague (Ok a forum regular. Oh, Ok it was Manuka) asked if I could help get someone onto the forum as he had not been able to. This is rather embarrassing to admit but I've not managed to have any luck either. And I thought being a moderator gave one Super Powers to fly etc *grin*.
In researching this I've found pages and pages of new members who have never posted. I very much hope they have not given up and gone away. Obviously there is a need to get the balance between spam bots and allowing real members on, but anyway, this is my experience:
1) New user tries to log in. Email rejected (possibly because it is Gmail)
2) I log out of my user and log in as a new user using his (supplied) username and password.
3) My application is rejected because 'that email is already in use'.
4) Reapplied using my backup hotmail email account. Forum asks for some characters to be typed etc. Advises that an email has been sent that can activate the account.
5) Checked email account - email not there. Tested sending from other accounts and email is definitely working.
6) Tried to log in as new member. Forum does allow login for that member but does not allow posting (as the account is not activated).
7) Logged out and logged in as myself. Scrolled through pages of users, most of whom have never posted anything. Unable to find this new user, so unable to edit their details.
8) Tried logging out from my account and logging in as the new user and editing the details. It allows changing the password (and does send that message to the email), but the account is still not activated.
9) Tried deleting the user from my account but unable to find the user.
So the new user is kind of stuck in a forum limbo/purgatory. Unable to post because the account cannot be activated. But unable to be found and edited because they are not yet official.
And this user wants to have a particular username and password so creating another new account is not really a solution.
Any help would be most appreciated solving this particular problem, but in a general sense, is there a block on certain emails? And if people are giving up and never posting, would we ever know?
And in a "Grumpy Old Man" tone, "How come the spammers can get through this process when normal human beings cannot?!"
Help would be very much appreciated. I want to get this new user on because he has a cool picaxe project to share.
In researching this I've found pages and pages of new members who have never posted. I very much hope they have not given up and gone away. Obviously there is a need to get the balance between spam bots and allowing real members on, but anyway, this is my experience:
1) New user tries to log in. Email rejected (possibly because it is Gmail)
2) I log out of my user and log in as a new user using his (supplied) username and password.
3) My application is rejected because 'that email is already in use'.
4) Reapplied using my backup hotmail email account. Forum asks for some characters to be typed etc. Advises that an email has been sent that can activate the account.
5) Checked email account - email not there. Tested sending from other accounts and email is definitely working.
6) Tried to log in as new member. Forum does allow login for that member but does not allow posting (as the account is not activated).
7) Logged out and logged in as myself. Scrolled through pages of users, most of whom have never posted anything. Unable to find this new user, so unable to edit their details.
8) Tried logging out from my account and logging in as the new user and editing the details. It allows changing the password (and does send that message to the email), but the account is still not activated.
9) Tried deleting the user from my account but unable to find the user.
So the new user is kind of stuck in a forum limbo/purgatory. Unable to post because the account cannot be activated. But unable to be found and edited because they are not yet official.
And this user wants to have a particular username and password so creating another new account is not really a solution.
Any help would be most appreciated solving this particular problem, but in a general sense, is there a block on certain emails? And if people are giving up and never posting, would we ever know?
And in a "Grumpy Old Man" tone, "How come the spammers can get through this process when normal human beings cannot?!"
Help would be very much appreciated. I want to get this new user on because he has a cool picaxe project to share.