Best Way To Handle Registrations

rick5150 · Post by **rick5150** » Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:12 am

What is the best way to have the ability for either myself as the board admin, or one of my moderators approve new registrations? Can I set up a dedicated e-mail address for new registrations and just give moderator access to the e-mail?

**My CDB Contributions** · Post by **HiFiKabin** » Sat Aug 19, 2017 4:42 pm

If you have 'first post moderation' enabled than people can join, but their first post will need to be approved by moderators before it can be seen.

The post can either be approved (or not) and/or the poster banned. Then the admin(s) can delete the spammer at their leisure

Post by **stevemaury** » Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:07 pm

Registration approval emails are sent to the email in the profile of every user with the Admin permission "Can manage users".

However, your idea of creating an Admin account with that permission and using that account solely to approve new members and giving all those you with to approve access to that account's email is not a bad one.

2600 · Post by **2600** » Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:27 am

I just use what was mentioned. Every first post is held in moderation que. So that means the user remains in the newly registered group with limited user permissions. Then once the first post is approved they are automatically placed in the registered group by default where they are free to post at will. To help combat spam on top of that I use the sortables captcha in my sig and also a third-party security wrapper called CIDRAM found at GitHub. Throw in the free Pro version of Ninjafirewall and you have a pretty solid forum. I have only gotten one spam post in the 2 + years of having my site. That post never seen the light of day of course since I have to approve all first time posts. Since the spammer got past CIDRAM and the captcha it was no doubt human rather than a bot. So being the savoy guy I am I immediately reported his IP and E-mail to the stop forum spam database. http://www.stopforumspam.com/

CIDRAM uses the stop forum spam database as well. It quires the database on registrations and logins. If the IP is in the database, they have no access.

toronto2001 · Post by **toronto2001** » Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:47 pm

rick5150 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:12 am What is the best way to have the ability for either myself as the board admin, or one of my moderators approve new registrations? Can I set up a dedicated e-mail address for new registrations and just give moderator access to the e-mail?

My system works fine for me. All registrations have to be accepted by admin, they're held in 'inactive users' and the email associated with the system gets an email when someone new registers. I also use the captcha with a math question to keep out spam. My forum is small so maybe I'd get ten registrations on a busy day but I want to check certain parameters before I let people in. I also check every email that isn't gmail for spam history. Beyond that, if the email I send out saying 'welcome to the forum' bounces, the account is deactivated.
I use gmail for the forum email and have several canned responses. Doesn't take much time at all.
Hope this helps.

Post by **stevemaury** » Sun Aug 20, 2017 5:07 pm

Math questions do not work. Answers can be Googled.

rick5150 · Post by **rick5150** » Sat Aug 26, 2017 10:36 am

stevemaury wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:07 pm Registration approval emails are sent to the email in the profile of every user with the Admin permission "Can manage users".

However, your idea of creating an Admin account with that permission and using that account solely to approve new members and giving all those you with to approve access to that account's email is not a bad one.

I think I finally have this working. Also be sure to do the following:
<UCP><Board Preferences><Edit Notification Options> Check the "e-mail" box to enable User Registration Notification. Otherwise the Admin account that was created for registrations only will only get notifications once someone logs onto the account. In my case, this account will rarely be logged onto.

The reason I cannot use the standard registration that people have been mentioning (including CAPTCHA) is that the site has a Hall of Shame section and the sites that are in there are not happy about it. When they find that their site is there, they often have real people get through the standard security and even make a few posts before acting up and causing trouble. We really have to screen the new registrations and see if they are in the Stop Forum Spam or if they are on any blacklists. If we find that the user name, the IP address or e-mail address has been used elsewhere in a negative manner, then we will either contact the new registration via e-mail or outright deny registration depending on the offense. It can get tedious, which is why I need help with this.

2600 · Post by **2600** » Sun Aug 27, 2017 2:35 am

Why don't you read my Sig on the stop forum spam thing or use CIDRAM.

paulie · Post by **paulie** » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:37 am

toronto2001 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:47 pm My system works fine for me. All registrations have to be accepted by admin, they're held in 'inactive users' and the email associated with the system gets an email when someone new registers. I also use the captcha with a math question to keep out spam. My forum is small so maybe I'd get ten registrations on a busy day but I want to check certain parameters before I let people in. I also check every email that isn't gmail for spam history. Beyond that, if the email I send out saying 'welcome to the forum' bounces, the account is deactivated.
I use gmail for the forum email and have several canned responses. Doesn't take much time at all.
Hope this helps.

And that method works fine for me too! I use Q&A with a question that contains the answer!