New members requiring approval?

[Indirik]

So, today I noticed this: "There are 78 members awaiting approval."

This is the first I noticed that we had to approve new members.  I tried to clear out some of the duplicate/spammy applications, but I got this error: "You don't have the permissions to go about removing people's accounts!"

[Draco Tanos]

Yeah, only full Admins can, apparently. 

Tom installed a spam stopper.  It checks names, IPs, and e-mails with a database.  The red ones are confirmed on the database to be spammer accounts/IPs/e-mails.  The yellow are suspected.  Whites have had no reports against them.

As you can see, there are a LOT of spambots in the queue.  This will help keep the forums a bit cleaner, fortunately.

Doesn't look like it ran for the accounts waiting for activation, but there are a lot of spam accounts in there too.  Can tell just by how they appear (the name and e-mail usually).

[Tom]

Accounts that are not suspicious should go through without any trouble, shouldn't they?

[Draco Tanos]

Believe so, but that hasn't really been an issue we've been able to check so far.

I have noticed in the Awaiting Activation tab, while skimming, that there are a handful of legit accounts but that's more them not responding to the e-mail to activate, I believe.

[Tom]

Ok, someone please make sure - register a new account with a secondary e-mail of yours and check if it activates without manual approval.

And the sheer number makes me wonder how many spammers we have with active accounts and how to get rid of them.

[Penchant]

Ok, someone please make sure - register a new account with a secondary e-mail of yours and check if it activates without manual approval.

And the sheer number makes me wonder how many spammers we have with active accounts and how to get rid of them.

To the how many part, bare minimum-I would say 500 accounts.

[Tom]

I've cleaned out massive amounts of spam accounts, and checked and it seems that non-suspicious accounts can register without trouble.

[Draco Tanos]

That is excellent news.  It should certainly help hinder spam bots and keep te forums a bit neater.

[egamma]

Huh, I can see one spammer awaiting approval, but I can't reject them.

[Indirik]

Only Tom can reject them. He's the only one with authority to take direct action against forum accounts.

[Wolfang]

I have a friend living in Russia atm who says he can't activate his BM account, and neither was he able to log in/make an account on this forum to ask why he couldn't log in on BM.

[Anaris]

I have a friend living in Russia atm who says he can't activate his BM account, and neither was he able to log in/make an account on this forum to ask why he couldn't log in on BM.

If you can PM me his email address, I can make sure he gets approved.

We don't have a lot of accounts from Russia, and there are a lot of spambots from there, so we're more likely to be excessively suspicious ;)

[Wolfang]

I will ask him if I can give it.

[Anaris]

I will ask him if I can give it.

Well, let me put it this way: He's already submitted it as part of his account application, so if BM's admins want it, we've got it.

I just need to know which one he is.

[Wolfang]

I sent you a PM : )