12 replies to this topic

[Marcus Phoenix]

My friend whos account will be Foam_Shooter has been waiting for his account to be validated for a while. Can you please validate his account?

[Shorty]

Give it a month or two.

[nerfsharpie6]

How long has he been waiting? If it truly has only been about a week, he could a little longer maybe even up to a month ! That doesn't compare to how some members waited for months on end to be validated. Unless the mods closed the validation window again then your friend is screwed or at the mods/admins mercy.

[Recruit]

Marc, your friend needs to be patetient. I had to wait a month or two if I remember correctly and that was nothing compared to the time some of the other guys had to wait. coughcough1month-2yrs!!coughcough

Ok

[Marcus Phoenix]

Sorry about that. This is the real Foam_Shooter and my friend just wanted to make sure I got my membership here at the haven. I am prepared to wait for a month or two and can't wait to post here. Thanks for the feedback.

[moofactory]

I just got my account validated today. In fact about 10 mins ago.
Im assuming its a manual process, I would expect any decent site to have an account validated that same day or within a few days. Why did it take 2 months for mine? Im with a few different community forums.. and this is the only site that ive had to be manually validated with. Its really not that hard to implement an automated system. Its probably the only thing thats a let down about this site. The other thing that annoyed me was the validation email had a subject line with no content. I would expect something along the lines of:

Thank you for signing up with xxxxxxxx.

Here is your user name and password information. Please keep this
information safe.

Username: xxxxxxxxxx
Password: xxxxxxxx


Thanks!
xxxxxxxx

Consequently I had to google search nerfhaven, then send myself a password reminder Due to 2 months have passing and no reminder of what my user/password was in the email validation.

Sorry but this is pretty standard stuff and as far as usability issues go.. its an issue that should be fixed. anything longer than 2 weeks should not be happening.

What happens when you get a person thats only recently started using the internet?
It should be about making the process as easy as possible for all kinds of users. This does not.

[The Infinite Shindig]

It's funny this was mentioned, because I was working on this earlier. There are several factors at play here. The first is that we have a busy admin team, which to the casual observer would suggest we should have automated sign ups. However, the more tenured member would say this is contrary to why the Haven was created.

The first simple answer is manual validation allows us to keep out spammers and suspended members from entering. Today I updated our spam filter email and IP settings. Over 50% of the registrations we get are spam. That's why you don't find much of it here. We go through periods of suspending a lot of members, since we like to uphold high standards. This means we must make an effort to keep these users out; manual validation helps this.

Finally, we aren't looking for the member that decided to sign up here for an afternoon to kill time. If you sign up here, you are interested in Nerf and not just talking about it. For example, the forum I post in the most is Nerf Wars. This means outside of moderation, the overwhelming majority of my time is spent figuring out Nerf Wars. If you're not doing something constructive, we don't want you as a member.

Could we be more proactive? Yes, and I am working to get through the 300+ people in the queue. At the same time, will the dedicated people we want still come even if they have to wait? The answer is most likely yes.

Note: When I say you, I am not directing the post at moofactory, but anyone who is interested in this site.

[jwasko]

It should be about making the process as easy as possible for all kinds of users. This does not.

The admins/moderators on this site are about anything but making things easy when it comes to becoming a member.

What they do want is an easy to read, informative forum.

Now, I don't know that much about running a forum, but at least one reason that validation is manual is so that the moderators can check for spambots. Maybe you can do this manually, maybe you can't. Another reason is that we Nerfers only want quality posters...people who aren't idiots, but instead follow the rules and contribute to our common hobby.

A person who wants to be a member of the Nerf Internet Community will not care about how long he has to wait to join the 'Haven. He will spend that time preparing until that glorious day when he is given the privilege to post here. On that day, he shall bow down and thank his deity that One Man Clan opened the razor wire-topped, electrified gates of NerfHaven and allowed people such as yourself, myself, and many others into it's gated community of foamy awesomeness.

Oh, and by the way, it's against the rules to post in a topic over a month old unless you have something vitally important to contribute. Just putting that out there...

At least you used proper spelling and grammar (another rule)...that's always a good thing.

Anyways, welcome to Nerfhaven! Enjoy your stay!

Edit: Shindig beat me to it, and was a little nicer about it...Oh well. Most of what I said was meant to be somewhat humorous, anyway.

Edited by jwasko, 08 December 2007 - 10:13 PM.

[aetherguy881]

I just contacted Groove when I wanted my account to be activated. I had been waiting over a week for it and by using my knowledge of forums, deducted that he was someone with power due to his username color in the users online list.

It works the same way when I recruit someone to Theopia, since it's a manual activation (damn you spam bots! pbpBB3 will stop you!) I just IM the admin so he activates their acct in a timely fashion, aka, right then and there.

Basically, have him contact someone who can activate the account and ask nicely. It never hurts to be polite.

Edited by aetherguy881, 08 December 2007 - 10:48 PM.

[moofactory]

I felt it would have been less abrupt placing it in an existing related post rather than a new post.
And I felt it important to address.

As for the topic, thanks for the heads up. It makes more sense now.

[The Infinite Shindig]

As far as posting in an old thread goes, moofactory had something of substance in his post. It wasn't along the lines of "St3am roxorz teh big 111!111" I know sometimes we're not always as present people, but no back seat moderating because it tends to piss us off.

[Prometheus]

If I could add one thing, I prefer the manual validation of accounts - it lets the good in and keeps the shit out. if anyone thinks that quality isn't as important as fast convenient and efficient service - well, there's a place just for you - NHQ.