Why The HELL Can’t I Register to Comment?
This is a Very Important Public Announcement
If you have tried to register and have received an email along the lines of “your account needs to be confirmed by an administrator” please let us know. Send us an email at, well, misha AT nicedoggie DOT net and let us know. Be sure to include the email addy you registered under so we can find you.
Our Imperial Mail Officer has been swamped, recently, so give him a break.
We’ll fix it.
Oh, and in your righteously indignant email, please include something indicating that you’re not a pedophile Russian spambot.
thanks.
Oops… DOT net, not com.



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Hej skipper – det er lige præcist det, Nelly har oplevet, så hun kan altså slet ikke komme nogen vegne hen – so please – på hendes vegne, kan du foretage dig noget i den forbindelse?
Vi snakkes ved torsdag.
Krammere og knusere
din mor
And FIRST
The Central Scrutinizer has been so efficient, fresh chew-toys are kind’a scarce anymore.
Did you hear about he Marine that got his sword back 32 years later? A friend saw his buddy’s Main Blade on an auction show,, it’ll be on tv tonite.
Sire:
What I’m finding is that we’re getting an inordinate amount of bogus registrations from the following types:
1. Emails looking something like “BogusBozo6393(at)BogusDomain.xxx”, and
2. GMail.
As a result, no email addresses with numbers in them, nor those coming from GMail, are even (normally) getting a second look, but just going in my “Suspect” folder.
Then there are the usual suspects from the foreign-country-spam domains, i.e. .fr, .ru, .pl, .gr, etc.
Let me know how you want me to handle those.
I could send you another plugin that will delete registrations that haven’t been used for a set period of time. It might be a good thing anyways, because it will keep the membership list current.
Most spammer registrations never actually use them. They sit there clogging up the membership list. The system is already set up so that a spammer can’t drop a gem for the first time without you approving it. Most of them you never see because the spam filter catches them. So letting the spammer register isn’t all that big of a deal as long as you purge the inactive ones every ten, twenty, or thirty days or so.
Look at it this way, if someone hasn’t commented here in say thirty days, let the system delete the membership. If they come back four months later, they can always re-register.
This should make it easier for you to manage.
I went a different direction myself. I am using the same type of system that WordPress.com uses. If someone wants to comment on my site, they can sign in using their wordpress.com account, facebook account, or google account. I can still monitor their comments, and have a much better way to pound them should they get out of line.
That explains why my request for registration went to the trash bin.
I use Gmail…
All is ok now..
See I can comment.
Bowing as I exit.
Is the cryptic e-mail address in the original post a deliberate misdirection to weed out riff-raff?
sleeper says:
Nope. That’s what we call a “senior moment.”
It is, of course, dot net and not com.
Time for my Geritol, I think.
Emperor Misha I recently posted..The Zombie Apocalypse…
Allow me to clarify. I don’t mind GMail so much, if you send one of us email letting us know. (Usually, that’s me.)
(nods) That’d help. As it is, there are around 3000 in that particular hopper right now. I was planning on dumping them all this weekend during the upgrade.
Hey Darth, don’t delete me. I lurk a lot, read, but don’t post much!
Not to worry, Bones. The routine I’ll be running only purges those who haven’t posted or commented. You’re good.
Darth Venomous says:
Okay, I will upload a revised package containing the new plugin to that download link I sent you before tomorrow afternoon.
Not to worry, Bones. The routine I’ll be running only purges those who haven’t posted or commented. You’re good.
Well, the plugin I have in mind will also purge people who haven’t posted in a set period of time also. I suppose I could tweak that a little if you really want to keep the drive-by commenters who will probably never return. I always assumed that if someone wanted to comment again, all they would have to do is re-register if their account expired.
The problem people have now is that the system in place prevents registration until they are approved. The new system would allow instant registration and hold the first comment made for approval (which would make it easier for you to determine the quality of that new person) The idea is to keep the membership list clean, tidy and active, while reducing your actual work load in maintaining it.
Darth Venomous says:
UPDATE TO MY LAST COMMENT
Okay, check your email. I had some time so I updated the file to include a re-write of the purge plugin, and took out the stuff for pre-approval for registrations. Both you and Misha should have the email by now.
If you downloaded the previous package from the download link, toss it out.
<<<another frequent(daily) lurker
Point well taken, but there are some people who haven’t participated in a while whom I’d like to see kept in the mix. (LC Beth, ISW, call your office.)
That might actually work better. It wouldn’t necessarily prevent the garden-variety Chuckles Johnsons from getting in, but there are advantages to that, too; the pups will have more chew toys. And we can still slam the door on the ChillyWillys of the world.
Works for me. Sire?
Darth Venomous says:
Well, with the new upgrade package I put up for download (which includes the final version of WP 3.4 not-yet-for-prime-time) I included a plugin that will allow you to set your filter criteria well enough that you can exempt certain people from the axe if you want.
The plugin will allow you to filter by one or more of the following combinations:
1. User is registered, but has no approved comments.
2. User doesn’t have any posts
3. User has comments in spam folder
4. User was created more than ____ days ago. (The default is ten days)
If you are going to get rid of people who have never commented, you would select #1
If you wanted to purge users who haven’t made a comment in at least ____ of days you would select #1 and #4. This allows you to clear out users who haven’t been around in a long time, or those who once made a drive-by comment months ago and have never returned (and are probably not likely to)
#3 is pretty obvious, and you can use it in conjunction with #1 and / or #4 if you want.
#2 is not likely to be used, but I put it in there anyways.
Once you’ve picked the criteria, you would click the filter button and it would then list all of the results of that query. You will then have an opportunity to review the list and exempt any that you want before hitting the nuke button. Once you’ve hit the nuke button it will ask you one more time if you are SURE. If yes, then it will those users from the list. What ever comments they made in the past would still be in place unless you remove them.
I would wait until Saturday before downloading the upgrade you are going to use though. I may make some more changes between now and then. After all, if you are going to wait for a few days to upgrade, why not tinker some more with the nuts and bolts? I will just make the FINAL FINAL FINAL version at 0600 Pacific on Saturday.
(yeah, I know, “Damn Liberals can never finish anything…”)
Take your time on that. Saturday is “Re-Image The Sibling Unit’s Computer Day” in the Realm™, and that’ll take a bit. I envision doing the whole thing Saturday night/Sunday early AM, whilst the pups are
out getting hammeredenjoying the weekendout getting hammered & enjoying the weekend.Hey, did I say anything? I’m only about six months late on doing this, y’know…
Darth Venomous says:
Works for me too. And with the additional features listed by Deej to further refine the process if one so desires, it works exceedingly well

Emperor Misha I recently posted..Fauxcahontas Suddenly Remembers Lying to Harvard About her Heritage
Darth Venomous says:
Hey, I’m good at putting words in people’s mouths.