Having Trouble Logging In?, account approved but still can't log into the board Options

[PalePhoenix]

Admin validation of all new accounts is on. This means you must be approved by staff before you can post in most areas of the board. You can still post in the Guestbook while you are waiting to be approved. If your original password no longer works, request a new one through the board and change it to one of your liking. If you are still having difficulty logging in--repeated lockouts, can't get your password to work, etc.--then email the Adminstrator at XM.Admin-at-xmere.com and we will email you a new password personally.

A special note: These measures are in place due to spammers. If your account turns out to be one--by linking to offsite areas in your first post, including advertising in your profile, or otherwise posting nonsense not relevant to the thread it's in--then your account will be banned, blocked, or deleted, and you will not be able to participate at XM again. Likewise, the ability to send personal messages is only allowed after five posts have been made to the board. You will be considered suspect if these posts are minimalist and of the "Yeah, I agree totally" nature. Please speak more freely, and you will not be identified as a spammer. Abuse of the PM system is also subject to banning or deletion of your account.

We apologize for any inconvenience these measures may cause. They will remain in place until the board is upgraded and/or the spam joins discontinue.

[ganymede]

I'm not seeing any spammers. Is the problem really this bad?

[PalePhoenix]

I'm not seeing any spammers. Is the problem really this bad?

I just removed another 4 of them. We get between 30 and 40 a day. You never see them, unless you happen to be on as they may have joined in the past hour, because I have "Administrative Validation" turned on. It catches all new joins and lets you weed out the real ones from the fakes. The fakes always have the same sorts of nonsense names and non-matching emails. They also come from IPs in Russia, China, Nigeria, etc.

What happens is, a potential new member (or spammer) signs up, and instead of receiving the email validation for their account that I'd prefer to have turned on, admin validation queues all new joins for inspection and the Validating group has limited permissions. They are basically still guests and can't send you PM spam, post spammy messages, or put spam/malware websites into their profiles. A couple have gotten through, and been banned or had their passwords altered so they couldn't get back in unless they were real humans. I would not be kind to those "humans."