Perhaps it's time to let up on the joining approval process and let it run free. Besides making it easier for people to join one has to wonder what the point is? How do accounts get checked out? Someone could easily work their way into fooling the process.
I don't think we're all that restrictive . . . we try to keep out the spambots, of course, but aside from that we basically just keep a look out for duals of banned members. And Packard. He's a sneaky one.
So then why the need for permission to be allowed to join? Spambots, what little we get are easily handled. Banned members, what little we have are easily caught, and disposed of. Or are you saying the list of banned members is so much that the needing permission to join is mandatory? Who would have thought that 5-10 members were such a danger.
I ate fried Spam the morning of the Shiloh meetup. I was standing around the campfire eating beef jerky and the Cap'n was frying some Spam and had some extra.
Seems like going snipe hunting with a bazooka, to me. Plus, how can you tell it's a banned member? How many people (read: trolls) interested in getting back in WOULD'NT know how to use a proxy?
Why punish people who aren't them? It would be one thing if you guys are on the ball doing approvals daily or as soon as they pop up but how many times does someone have to come in here and ask for help for someone on the outside to join?
And usually when they do it turns out that the person never registered to begin with or there was some sort of glitch.
We get more than you think. It's actually quite annoying. DIE SPAMMERS DIE! There isn't more than 1 hour-3 day wait to get in here. Sometimes people claim to have joined and we never recieved any information and those people should just try again.
Exactly. Off the top of my head, the people who have been banned in the two years I've been here are: -Neutered Zone Reject (I think his account was closed voluntarily the last time around) -Parallaxis (Doesn't post too much at TK anymore) -Spock's Tricorder ( Pretty harmless little fucker) -Polarslam (Tried to get in a few times, but booted once his identity was found out anyway) -CM and GE (Aren't trying too hard to get back in this place) Is it worth it to punish innocent people on the account of six banned folks that, with few exceptions, don't want to come back here anyway? It just seems like a waste of energy to me.
The point with the spambots is, when one gets in, the owner will tell its buddies. It's like having a new email address. First, there is no spam. Then you get one. A year later, you have to change accounts again because you're flooded. And you never actually did anything but delete them. Given the panic among American posters when it comes to the slightest hint of boob, one might think that you're grateful not to get thread after thread peddling Viagra with risqué pictures. The process could be streamlined, tho. Once a day isn't asking too much when there are three admins around, with two of them posting daily.
I've stayed out of the process for awhile now because....someone...was having an issue and I am sick of the same tired accusations all the damn time. So, if it takes longer you can partially thank yourself.
I wasn't doing anything untoward and I wouldn't. If I have to prove it, so be it. The only time I go in there is when someone contacts me privately to let a friend join or there is an inordinate amount of people waiting in queue. I listen to everyone, whether they believe it or not. I feel it is part of my job to do so, my personal feelings for who it is, is irrelevant.
As someone who just went through the process...for crying out loud, yes, stop the restrictive joining! Or at least lighten up on it! It took me six days to go from (re)registering to posting. Two of those were because my hyperactive spam filter ate the confirmation e-mail, but the other four were 100% Wordforge. There are three different security measures in place before joining: 1. Admin approval of all new members. 2. Confirmation e-mail with a link that must be clicked. 3. All new members who've completed the first two criteria have to wait to be approved a second time before finally being able to post. C'mon, that's a little nuts. One, maybe two of those, okay. Three's crazy, especially when step 1 and step 3 are basically the same. Elwood told me the current rules are in place because of a phishing problem some time back. If all we're looking for is to make sure whoever's registering is a real person, though, shouldn't step 2 be enough? Because only a real person can click that link in the e-mail. If it's also to watch IP addresses for duals of banned members, then you just need step 1. If you want both, okay, do 1 & 2. Still no need for all three. Six days was pretty ah, whatever... to me because I have history here even if I haven't visited in a few years. Okay, I've been gone so long my freakin' account got deleted. Still, I had a reason to wait out the process. How many truly new members just give up, I wonder?
I agree that it took far too long. We're working on a way to get it down to less than 24 hours. However, I said the phishing problem was why the e-mail from WF ended up in your spam box. It happens all the time. But, an admin doesn't have to approve your account twice. Nick or O2C can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the process is that you register, you get the confirmation e-mail, and then you go into the users awaiting moderation list.
I fear that newbs will find the board, become interested, and say "screw it" when it takes too long to register. I know, I've seen me do it.
