MozillaWiki:Account confirmation

For many years, MozillaWiki has been subject to regular attacks by vandals and spammers seeking to mis-use the facility provided for their own benefit. As part of the process of reducing the problem we have instituted a program of verifying users.

The confirmation process

As a simple way of checking whether a user is probably ok, and not a vandal or spammer, the user page of each user who appears to use this wiki in a sensible way will be saved, deleted, and re-created with the original content by a specific account created for the purpose. This gives a quick and easy check for validity when looking at newly-created pages. Note that a user page which has not been (re-)created by the WikiSupport account in this way is not necessarily one of an unacceptable user; it might just be that we hadn't checked them yet. Similarly, a good user may suddenly turn to the dark side (in which case, of course, they will then be blocked).

We apologise that this method of securing a record of each user's status requires the temporary deletion of your user page. Whilst the page will only be missing for a very few seconds, the edit history will be removed from public view. It does, however, remain available to wiki administrators and if you wish to have a record of past edits we'll be happy to make a copy available to you. Just use this page to request the history.

Note that it is not the text "Verified user" appearing in the edit history which matters, nor the presence of the ID box, but that the user WikiSupport created the user page.

As a visual marker on userpages that the user account has been confirmed a small 'ID Box' will be added, which includes a link to that verification edit. Users may delete the box should they wish to do so, but are recommended to leave it in view so that others may easily see their confirmed status.

You can also verify your status by looking at your preferences page, where the line 'Member of groups:' should include 'confirm'.

Types of User

The ID Box may either announce someone as "a user", "a member", or "an editor" of MozillaWiki. These are all equivalent in account confirmation terms, as are the different colours in use.

Inactive users

There are many users who have registered on MozillaWiki over the years who are not presently active in terms of editing pages. There are also some who have registered but not edited more than a 'hello' on their userpage. In each of these cases the userbox will reflect this information.