Where do I disable the need for email activation keys?

[supportaccountiguess]

As the Admin of the forum I've created, I obviously have the power to decide who can register and use my forum, but I'm not sure of the following:

1)  Where to DISABLE the need for new members to receive an activation key via email

2)  Where to manually approve/activate new members who don't need to prove who they are to me via activation emails

Please let me know how/where to take care of these issues as they are mandatory for my type of forum.  Thanks!

[Kami]

You cannot disable the account activation. This is a requirement set by ProBoards, to ensure each user on their system manually verifies their email as valid, as that is required to communicate if necessary with the PB administration.

Please understand it is not about the user proving who they are to you, but to ProBoards. For liability reasons, you cannot vouch for another user.

[supportaccountiguess]

Yikes!!  That's an incredibly flawed way of handling registrations.  I understand the "liability" issue you're describing but there are numerous ways to effectively handle that issue (the simplest being, just don't let the script email those users) rather than forcing such an archaic method of registration on every single user despite the Admin's wishes and abilities.  Thank goodness I found this out before I spent any more time setting up a forum on proboards.  What's even more disappointing is that I know for a fact this insanely huge problem was nonexistent in the past, when a friend of mine ran a proboards forum.  This means you guys actually went out of your way to break the simplicity and remove Admin options when it comes to registrations.  It's like you want to tell us we can drive your car but we're not allowed to unlock the doors for our friends to take a ride with us -- instead, those friends must EACH have their own key to the car too.

Please make sure the person responsible for this knows how ridiculous and archaic his/her decision truly is here in 2018.

Thank you for the quick reply and saving me what could have been hours or even weeks of wasted time, had I somehow not thought to ask about this right away.

[Kami]

I have been a ProBoards user since 2005 (13 years if you dont feel like doing the math) and in this time to the best of my recollection there has never been an option to disable account activation. If such an option ever existed, I surmise it was over a decade ago.

You cite a friend running a PB forum in the past being able to do this, so I am wondering if there has been some confusion with terminology? While the activation code that is automatically sent to each user to verify that the email address they used is valid cannot be disabled, there are options to enable/disable invite keys as well as enable/disable restricted registration. Could either of those be the option you are referring to, or is it the account activation for sure?

As far as letting "the person responsible" know, a) this software is written by a team of people not an individual, and b) I am sure a member of the PB support staff will be able to note your dissatisfaction and pass it along the appropriate channels during business hours (9am - 5pm pacific).

Hope you have a good day (:

[Retread]

Jul 28, 2018 22:29:45 GMT -8 supportaccountiguess said:

As the Admin of the forum I've created, I obviously have the power to decide who can register and use my forum, but I'm not sure of the following:

1)  Where to DISABLE the need for new members to receive an activation key via email

2)  Where to manually approve/activate new members who don't need to prove who they are to me via activation emails

Please let me know how/where to take care of these issues as they are mandatory for my type of forum.  Thanks!

Jul 29, 2018 0:32:35 GMT -8 supportaccountiguess said:

Yikes!!  That's an incredibly flawed way of handling registrations.  I understand the "liability" issue you're describing but there are numerous ways to effectively handle that issue (the simplest being, just don't let the script email those users) rather than forcing such an archaic method of registration on every single user despite the Admin's wishes and abilities.  Thank goodness I found this out before I spent any more time setting up a forum on proboards.  What's even more disappointing is that I know for a fact this insanely huge problem was nonexistent in the past, when a friend of mine ran a proboards forum.  This means you guys actually went out of your way to break the simplicity and remove Admin options when it comes to registrations.  It's like you want to tell us we can drive your car but we're not allowed to unlock the doors for our friends to take a ride with us -- instead, those friends must EACH have their own key to the car too.

Please make sure the person responsible for this knows how ridiculous and archaic his/her decision truly is here in 2018.

Thank you for the quick reply and saving me what could have been hours or even weeks of wasted time, had I somehow not thought to ask about this right away.

Hello supportaccountiguess

What you might not be aware of is the fact that due to security issues, forum owners and even ProBoards employees are not (nor should they be) permitted to reset passwords or change the email address to which a forum account is associated.

The activation key email process insures that the member has correctly typed in the email address to which he/she has access, else they would not be able to use the key to complete the process. Email based password reset is a reliable and useful method of recovery, in the event of a forgotten password.  But to insure it will work when needed, the activation key is a necessary (and extremely minor) inconvenience.

The ProBoards Admins review all threads on the Support Board so when they return to the office on Monday your posts will receive whatever attention they merit.

Thank you, and have a pleasant Sunday.

[Brian]

Hi,

Account activation ensures that the user registering the account has access to the email address they're registering with. This involves going into your email inbox to find the activation email and clicking a single link to activate the account which is ultimately a trivial task. It only ever has to be done a single time for any email address you use on ProBoards. Any subsequent forum accounts you create under an activate email address on any ProBoards forum do not require an activation key.

A multitude of sites online with widespread popularity still utilize this feature. We will continue doing the same for at least the remainder of the lifespan of this iteration of the forum software.

Jul 29, 2018 0:32:35 GMT -8 supportaccountiguess said:

...there are numerous ways to effectively handle that issue (the simplest being, just don't let the script email those users)

I'm not sure what this solution is meant to involve. There's no way to identify that a random visitor to a site is attempting to register with an email address that belongs to someone else.