h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi! Mina gave up and said i should ask you, so here goes:

As you can see from:
<./>NewUsers?TimeUnits=48&UnitType=month&Filter=haveintroduction&show=1&skip=24</.>

Mina's account is very old, yet she has only been using that account for a short(er) period (since she became an italic). This doesn't make much sense. We thought it might be something to do with the first 10000 u-numbers being reserved, but if that were the case, they would all be on the newusers list (which they aren't)... i'm all out of ideas, so it's over to you.

Tango

The accounts were generated when developing the site, and we don't update the creation date when we assign an old number to a new italic.

but wouldn't that mean there would be 10000 accounts on the newusers list?

Tango

No, because the unoccupied accounts are marked as inactive.

You can mark accounts as inactive? I didn't know that...

Tango

In the old days, all accounts were inactive by default, and you had to reply to an email in order to activate it. There are a lot of never-activated accounts, where people typed in the wrong email address, or never bothered replying.

So they only appear on newusers when they are activated? Ok, it's beginning to make sense now. So, when you activate an account it appears on newusers with the date it was first registered? That means ACEs could miss people if they take a long time to activate an account. (similar to people taking a long time to make an intro) Could the newusers page show an activated date as well if it is more than, say, 2 days later, and allow it to be sorted by that?

Tango

Not necessary because now, accounts are activated immediately - you don't need to follow the link from email. This activation was only when we didn't have a login system.

So why do we still get the email?

Tango

That would probably be for "hysterical" reasons.

I'm not so sure...

Tango

Last time I got one of these emails I got the impression that it was sent by the BBCi common user database rather than DNA, especially since when reusing the same login details on the dev and live sites I only received the email once not twice.

spelugx

My impression is that there are two separate processes which can be concealed in one registration process on h2g2.

The first stage is the association of a userID and password (with an email address) in the BBC database. This is the step which generates the email ack. I don't know whether it is possible now to go ahead and use that database entry without responding to the email because I did.

The next step is the association of that entry with a particular site. I started off on the BBCi message boards. There was a bit of a hiccup transferring to h2g2 but I don't think it should generate a separate email for that.

The two steps appear to be one step for whichever site you start your registration. Adding a site after that only needs the second step.