Sign-up by mail and e-mail

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Sign-up by mail and e-mail

Area:
account creation, accessibility

Summary:
Make a secure option for an administrator to create an account on someone else's behalf, at special need.

Description:
Occasionally there is someone who cannot, for good and sufficient reasons, navigate Dreamwidth's account creation process (especially the CAPTCHA part), but has established through other means (e-mail, physical mail) that they are not a spammerbot, and they are in possession of an invite code and capable of sending and receiving e-mail.

Administrators should be able to create an account (given the invite code, the desired account name, e-mail address, and date of birth), on the behalf of these people. In order that this process be secure, this system should assign an arbitrary machine-generated password to the account if it's necessary to have a password initially, and automatically send a password reset link to the email address, and require a change of password immediately. Having successfully signed in, they would then complete the rest of the account creation process and use their account in a normal fashion. (Accounts created in this way should also have a record indicating this was the case, in case there is ever any situation where needing to know this is necessary.)

This would need extensive testing to make sure that this is actually accessible and workable.

If the service is abused, it could be discontinued, or a one-time convenience fee be levied in exchange for the time and trouble, or require this to be for paid account setup.

(Zarhooie says she volunteers to do the paperwork if it happens, even though it was 4am when she said it.)

Poll #2255 Sign-up by mail and e-mail

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
23 (62.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (8.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (2.7%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (27.0%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[melannen]

This is how the free account creation process worked at JF for along time (might still) because they don't have invite codes automated. I don't know how it is accessibility-wise, & it is of course a time-sink, but there don't seem to be any major workability/security problems.

[aveleh]

Alternatively, a way for trusted folks to generate a single-use invite code / link that lets that user create their own account without the captcha.

That helps it stay manual on the admin-side for confirming non-spam while still giving folks who need this accessibility option the control over when/where/how they enter their own information. (Also means that if they they forget something, the existing process will stop them, instead of someone having to email them again.)

[pauamma]

I'm pretty sure there was a LJ support request by (or on behalf of) a deafblind would-be user about ways to create an account when neither image CAPTCHAs nor audio CAPTCHAs are usable. So it can happen.