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Update 2021/08/02 (th) The Registration Process has changed since this topic was created.
Applicants for membership in NewMars forum can find procedure in Post #2 of the Recruiting topic.
An email portal is available, and it is checked each day.
New members who can help with ongoing projects are most in demand and would certainly be welcome.
(th)
Below is the original post at the time the topic was created:
SpaceNut ...
Would you be willing to check the status of registration for the gent who served in Antarctica?
I ask because my application took several months to resolve, including the attention of Mr. Burk and a member of the Mars Society IT staff.
The registration form was completed last night at the monthly meeting at a local maker space, between the hours of 7 PM EST and 8 PM EST.
I've been watching for new registrations to show up, and two new registrations are recorded for yesterday, but not the one I'm looking for.
Do you know how the registration process is handled for NewMars forum? Are you willing to share that information?
It is possible the registration process is secret, due to the volume of spam registrations.
My concern is that the application I am looking for may be caught up in the spam detection process.
Thanks!
(th)
Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-08-02 08:12:52)
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SpaceNut .... now that you are back, would you have a moment to check on the status of the application for registration submitted on February 13th, between 7 PM EST and 8 PM EST. I am concerned that the application may be caught in the NewMars forum spam filter. My application got caught in the spam filter, and it took the combined efforts of Mr. Burk and Mars Society IT staff to resolve the issue, and that took several months. An application for membership should ordinarily process (in my opinion) within seconds or at most a few minutes, and the applicant should receive a confirmation email. In most cases of forums I have joined, the confirmation email requires the application to respond to a link included in the email, to complete the registration.
If this has happened to me and to another person I know, I wonder if other applications have also been routed to the bit bucket.
(th)
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Notice has been sent of issue. Thanks as info would be very applicatable to how mars would feel in the somewhat isolation that antartica does seem.
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For SpaceNut ... Re #3 above, thanks for reporting the registration hang up.
While the resolution is pending, I'd like to offer a suggestion for a new category of User: Guest Speaker
The existing categories of members of this forum appear to be:
Administrators
Moderators
Members
Newly Registered
As nearly as I can tell, Newly Registered is an unused category, since it appears that everyone is included.
It may be that adding a new category of user is not possible. However, if it is possible, then (I am hoping) adding "Guest Speaker" as a category would elevate the position of the candidate to a position slightly above an ordinary member, and (of course) way below Administrator or Moderator. In fact, the new user category would have no powers beyond what an ordinary user has. The distinction is that the membership would be understood to be of short duration, although the "Guest Speaker" could be invited back if appropriate. My concept for this is that the Guest Speaker would open with a post of introduction, and open the floor to questions from the general membership. The questions would (should) be focused upon the topic for which the Guest Speaker was invited.
Beyond "Guest Speaker", I can imagine there might be a category for "Resident Expert", which would apply to several of the members here.
Finally, there might be a category for "Invited Expert" ... this category would be for someone who is willing to serve beyond the duration of a "Guest Speaker Engagement", and it too would be defined with a focus.
I am thinking here of fields such as medicine, law, agriculture and perhaps others, which are not currently (to my knowledge) represented by existing members.
We may already have resident experts in these fields, and I'm just not aware of it.
(th)
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I hear what you are saying by invitation invite and such for some as a vouching process for the content of another where the member is flagged before its content can go to post.
The forum did at one time have a simular process to vet new members but its time consuming to weed through all the spam in a volunteer of time practice. It would be different if it was a paying position.
The forum in its early days did have a guest account which as you indicated was for the quick post but it was open only in the "Meta New Mars" folder of the forum but when spamming and inappropriate behavior progressed it was removed.
We also had a mission specialist folder at one time before the crash but it was not restarted as well.
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For SpaceNut #5 above:
Thank you for considering the suggestion. I wrote the applicant to ask if he received an email from newmars.com. That is supposed to happen after the registration request form is submitted. However, I never received such an email, and (in fact) I have NEVER received an automatic email from newmars.com. Instead, Mr. Burk and the IT staff member had to perform some magic to unclog the application, and the IT staff member sent me an email manually, with a starting password.
I appreciate that much (if not all) support of the forum is volunteer, so it is understandable if there is a delay in response to requests.
This topic would be a good place for others to report their experiences with the registration process, if there is interest. It is clear that the registration process is (or has been) working for some folks, because new registrations are shown as added to the User List. The most recent additions were two ID's on February 13th.
Unfortunately, there is no way for folks whose registration attempts failed to report the failure, other than a report option that I used to contact Mr. Burk.
I am wondering if the Reddit version of NewMars forum might work a bit better.
But then, once a person registers there, there might be little incentive to persist with an attempt to register for this forum.
(th)
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For SpaceNut ...
Have you heard back from Mars Society IT regarding the application for membership entered February 13th, between 7 PM and 8 PM EST?
It is a total of three days since the registration form was completed online, and since the process of registration should have taken no more than a few minutes, I am following up. The application has not yet replied to my inquiry about an automated email, but that is not surprising because he is travelling for his job.
What I can confirm is that the registration has NOT shown up on the User list for NewMars forum.
Since my application took several months to resolve, I am definitely interested in seeing that whatever the hangup is is resolved quickly.
Thanks!
(th)
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SpaceNut ...
This is tahanson43206, reporting success in creating a new membership as a test of the registration system. The automated email message with the trial password arrived after a delay, but it did arrive the same day.
With your permission, I would like to use this new ID to send email to new members who provide an email address for contact by other members. My purpose in doing this would be to inquire if they might be interested in helping with the Hacienda initiative.
A warning message appears when email is sent to members who have enabled the email feature, stating that the email address registered with newmars.com will be shown to the newmars forum member.
I will follow up with the Antarctica tour gent to see if a message from newmars.com might have shown up after a delay.
(th)
Recruiting High Value members for NewMars.com/forums, in association with the Mars Society
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I think that the MYSQL database error which happened are related to why the email did not get sent.
To respond to your follow up I did email others for this error and included the registration issue.
As for the advocacy effort on New Membership I do not see any issues but can not speak for Mars Society.
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SpaceNut ... Today marks a week since the Antarctica vet attempted to register in NewMars forum. Thanks for your efforts on behalf of the application. I have heard from Mr. Burk, but whatever the problem is it must be severe, because I have heard nothing more.
I note with amazement that mark0211 was able to secure a registered membership in order to publish his spam.
(th)
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Since the error occur near the time of the data base hickuping its probably stuck in a log file.
Spammer content removed and banned....
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For SpaceNut ...
You said in an earlier post that the Mars Society is an all-volunteer organization, or at least, that is the impression I got.
Attacks by spammers has been an ongoing drain on the energy and time of the support team, as reported in numerous posts over the years.
My applications for membership was entered 2018-04-27, and I received the green light to log in five months later, on 2018/09/29.
Meanwhile, numerous registrations have completed successfully.
I agree that the application we are discussing is probably stuck in a log file, but (I'm guessing here) perhaps the root problem is that there are not enough volunteers available in the Mars Society with the necessary IT credentials to address the problem.
I venture to guess that no one has any idea how many people who are NOT spammers are stuck in registration limbo.
From looking at posts in previous years, I understand that various attempts have been made to deal with the problem, but it obviously persists.
Thanks again for allowing me to keep you updated on the current registration failure.
(th)
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I have been a member on several space web sites over the years and around 2005 through 2008 there were many times when the volume of spam did cause the servers to crash on them and NewMars also did experience that.
We are quite lucky in that we have had diehard people that have wanted to keep this site going over the many years since it started back long before 2002 or so....
Taking a peek back in time Old NewMars home page
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SpaceNut,
Since the registration of the gent who served in Antarctica has been delayed, I decided to see if it might be possible to create a generic "guest speaker" account. It appears that NewMars Forum is happy with this idea, so I will now offer it to the person whose application is in limbo. My concept of how this would work is that the guest speaker would offer a short introduction, and then stand by to answer questions. After a mutually agreeable period of time, the guest speaker would return the account to me, and I would hold onto it for the next guest speaker the forum might wish to invite.
(th)
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Lets work with these user names NewMarsMember & InvitedGuestSpeaker1 with you keeping a list of the actual peoples names and when there time is up you email me and will change the login password sending what the new one back to you so that you can enlist the next speaker. Hopefully once they experience NewMars they will want to stick around and create a real account.
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For SpaceNut #15 ...
I am delighted to receive your encouragement to try the new special purpose Member ID's the NewMars Registration software allowed me to create.
I understand (from your message) that you would be interested in taking control of those ID's if they prove useful, and I like that idea, because it moves them closer to the official center of the forum.
Today I notified the Antarctica vet of this option, but I have not heard back. I understood from our meeting last week that he has a heavy travel schedule right now, and it is entirely possible he has not checked his personal email account for a while.
I'll let you know immediately if he expresses interest in trying the new Guest Speaker ID.
(th)
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Not control really but a coordinated effort between us, only closing them to hacking if the password was to get out when idle and not to have multiple uses making use of the username during the same time frame together so as to not know whom is on writing.
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For SpaceNut ... Today marks the third Wednesday since a person with experience in Antarctica attempted to register with the NewMars forum.
Meanwhile, a number of User ID's have been accepted for membership in the forum.
(th)
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I did send out an email to Jim but have not heard anything more. Its on the server data base side where I can not see.
Have you had any luck on the invitation for guests yet, also why not make the friend the first to make use of it if possible.
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For SpaceNut ...
Thanks for keeping an eye of this request for membership in the forum. I hope to see the gent next week at the monthly meeting, and find out if the email from NewMars might have gone into his SPAM bucket. That is definitely a possibility. Originally I had thought his request might have gone into the NewMars spam filter, since the NewMars spam filter has been enhanced in recent months.
Meanwhile, I am continuing to send invitations to new registered members. You can see the tally using:
S e a r c h T e r m(colon) and (colon)o u t r e a c h with author: newmarsmember
(th)
I did send out an email to Jim but have not heard anything more. Its on the server data base side where I can not see.
Have you had any luck on the invitation for guests yet, also why not make the friend the first to make use of it if possible.
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For SpaceNut ...
The Antarctic vet confirmed that the password message from NewMars.com registration had gone into his spam filter. Hopefully he will be able to activate the registration soon. His work as an IT consultant has consumed all his time, so he just looked for the message today, while preparing for the monthly meeting.
I'll be watching for the ID to show up in the Registered users list.
(th)
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Sounds good as that would be nice to see and hear at last.
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SpaceNut .... The Antarctic vet is duly registered in the forum.
In the hope of setting the stage for a productive correspondence, I'd like to inquire if:
a) A topic might be created just for this discussion ?
b) We (you and I and others who might care to help) could find links to topics that would provide background reading ahead of his appearance
Because the "Invited Guest Speaker" is extremely busy with work and work related travel, we may see participation in bursts.
Thanks for your encouragement of this initiative!
(th)
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For SpaceNut ... the InvitedGuestSpeaker1 ID has been returned to Pending status.
It is available for anyone the Forum might wish to "meet".
(th)
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For SpaceNut ...
Out of curiosity, I checked the User list to see how many ID's show as registered but not having posted any messages ...
There are 236 pages of 50 ID's each, plus 25 on page 237
That totals up to 11,825 ID's.
The total number of pages of ID's is 274, of which 274 is not yet full.
The (approximate) percentage is 86%
This is (obviously) a rhetorical question: Why would nearly 12,000 people register on the site and post nothing?
Has anyone checked to be sure that all those registrations completed to the point that the applicants could post?
I've noticed that ID's show up as "registered" before the registration trial password has been successfully processed.
Is there any way to run a scan of the User list to see how many Id's may have started the registration process but not finished it.
It took me exactly five months to secure login capability, and that was AFTER I had made repeated appeals for assistance by the IT staff.
My persistance may be the exception and not the rule.
Is there any way to find out how many applicants sent a request for assistance which was not fulfilled due to excessive demands on the time of the (I understand) all volunteer IT staff?
(th)
Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-04-14 11:35:29)
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