Improvements for Registering in the Forum

[kahakura]

The registration process for the Magic Lantern forum presents several challenges: I'm posting this as constructive observation with an invitation for improvements.

(1)Twitter Handle Rejection: The main issue is the rejection of the Twitter handle @redacted. Only redacted (without the @) is accepted, which may confuse users who are accustomed to including the @ symbol in their handles.

(2)Cut and Paste Requirement: Users must cut and paste a sentence during registration, and before posting on the website, potentially requiring them to navigate back a screen to copy it. In creating a post, one has to log out to go into the register page to find the string "I am no spammer, as I know this is the work of absolutely disgusting individuals and my parents, kids and everyone I know would disrespect me, if I were a such a person". This isn't helpful for user experience.

(3)Confusing Security Questions: One security question, "Vendors for which Magic Lantern Firmware exists:", incorrectly uses "exists" instead of "exist". Additionally, not everyone may recognize that this question pertains to redacted, as the term "vendor" isn't universally understood in all regions.

(4)Twitter Handle Issue: Another significant issue is the security question asking for the Twitter account handle without the apostrophe. While @redacted is a common answer, the registration process only accepts redacted, omitting the @ symbol. This discrepancy may have discouraged many potential registrants over time.

(5)Cookie Settings Block: Access is blocked due to cookie settings, with an error message instructing users to check their settings. Many users may struggle with adjusting these settings, even after attempting to clear cookies and enable third-party cookies.

In summary, these issues collectively hinder user registration and forum accessibility. To improve this process, I recommend the forum accepts @redacted as a valid Twitter handle and implements clearer instructions or support for managing cookie settings. Addressing these concerns would enhance usability and encourage more users to successfully register and engage with this forum around this amazing, helpful, brilliant product - i.e. Magic Lantern.  

[kitor]

This is unfortunately lack of resources and helplessness fighting with bots. Reality is that 95% of registered accounts were spam bots anyway and this project lacks manpower to work with it. We literally deleted a few dozens accounts daily, and tbh there's not a single moderator available that is willing to spend so much time on useless work.

We are aware of most of those issues, but have no solution available to any of them. If you know any good anti-bot measure for SMF forums, that runs on SMF 2.1.x - we will be happy to test it out, removing most of existing measures in place.

Anyway, I corrected the twitter handle question to accept "@" answer, and rephrased another question into "For which camera manufacturers Magic Lantern is available?"

Re: general challenges - those questions are designed to require reading 2 lines of text and visiting home page to find answers for other questions.
This variant was somehow successful against spammers, which is contrary to other security questions we used earlier.

I also took the liberty of editing your post to hide the answers.