Changes to New User registrations

[dhempy]

It's come to our attention that our new user registration emails are not reaching the recipients, short-circuiting the entire new user registration process. We've probably been blacklisted by various anti-spam watchdogs. That, thanks indirectly to the constant abuse we get from spammer bots. (That's my story, anyway)

We're trying something new, that I expect to go horribly.

As of now, new users do not need to confirm their email. They are instantly approved members. They can read all forums and see all pictures. This will make the humans happier.

The first few posts from new users will be moderated. They will not be publicly visible until a moderator approves the post. This will make our human moderators less happy.

This might work out, it might not. It might expose us to more spam. We'll see.


IF YOU ARE IN NEW MEMBER LIMBO, you'll need to send me a message with your username to be manually activated. Or...just create a new account which will be immediately activated. (Go figger, right?)

[KB58]

I have my own forum for Midlana and use the exact same site software as LocostUSA, phpBB. I, too, have been hammered by bots, them driving up bandwidth to the point that I get fingers shook at me from my domain provider, with them always offering to "fix it" - at a cost of course. I ended up activating the CloudFlare app, which seems to work well enough that the provider quit complaining. That said, the Bing bot is very persistent, still hammering away at my site. Anyway, maybe I'll try changing registration to what you did... or maybe I'll wait and see how it works out here first