Summary:
Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support!
In order to help reduce the amount of spammers and scammers visiting our community, we have implemented authentication policies for allowing new users posting access on the forums.
For full access, you need to do one of the following:
For full access, you need to do one of the following:
(a) receive a recommendation from an existing member who personally knows you
(b) donate $1 or more to WebMagic's Museum of the Game fund via PayPal to help verify your identity, and to help support the message forums and main site. Visit: https://www.arcade-museum.com/contribute
(c) donate $1 or more to the International Arcade Museum Library via PayPal to help verify your identity, and to help support special projects. Visit https://library.arcade-museum.com
(d) be a full-time employee of a major museum or game manufacturer, be logging in from a work email address, and be manually approved by an administrative team member.
The first three methods are fastest, easiest, and are recommended. Fourth third method may take a week or two.
Occasionally, additional steps (ie voice verification or other) may be required by forum management in order to gain and/or retain forum posting access.
Background:
Traffic to these forums continue to grow, both in activity and in total number of people actively using these forums.
This increase in popularity is bringing with it a great increase recently in trolls, spammers, shills, and anonymous thieves joining the site. Several of them created countless accounts from numerous email accounts and IP addresses for the purpose of trying to evade our rapid bans. One troll looking to spread evil, for example, sent out well over a hundred private messages from a few dozen accounts (usually a couple per account before we banned him). Although most of our users escaped this as we deleted the PM (and posts) very quickly (before most of these messages were seen). It's clear thousands of spam PM (and posts) would have been sent in the last 30 days if it wasn't for the attention of the mods and admins.
Implemented Solutions (How to Gain Posting Access):This increase in popularity is bringing with it a great increase recently in trolls, spammers, shills, and anonymous thieves joining the site. Several of them created countless accounts from numerous email accounts and IP addresses for the purpose of trying to evade our rapid bans. One troll looking to spread evil, for example, sent out well over a hundred private messages from a few dozen accounts (usually a couple per account before we banned him). Although most of our users escaped this as we deleted the PM (and posts) very quickly (before most of these messages were seen). It's clear thousands of spam PM (and posts) would have been sent in the last 30 days if it wasn't for the attention of the mods and admins.
We will generally approve posting permission for new members who either:
(a) have a recommendation from an existing forum member, moderator, or administrator. If you intend to ask a friend to recommend you, please ask them to look at our FAQ on recommending new forum users at: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=247149
or...
(b) make a donation of $1 or more to our WebMagic's Museum of the Game fund to help support the maintenance and expansion of the main site here and web forums, via the link on https://www.arcade-museum.com/contribute . The theory behind the donation is that it is a little harder and more expensive to create a dozen PayPal accounts than it is to create a dozen email accounts. Donors contributing $10 or more receive recognition each time they post a message, and larger donations receive additional benefits (http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=198309). Giving to this fund is the most direct way of supporting the main site and the forums. All donations go 100% (after PayPal fees) to supporting the forums, though are not tax-deductible.
* If you use the donation route, we recommend you already have created an account on the main site (www.arcade-museum.com) and are logged in. This will greatly speed up your validation process (minutes instead of days).
* Additionally, if you are using a PayPal account with an address different than the email address you signed up with here, please go to the settings page and add your PayPal email address as a 'Second Email Address' on your account (before making your donation for fastest access).
or...
(c) make a donation of $1 or more to our favorite 501c3 non-profit public charity: International Arcade Museum Library via the link on https://library.arcade-museum.com . The theory behind the donation is that it is a little harder and more expensive to create a dozen PayPal accounts than it is to create a dozen email accounts. Donors contributing $10 or more receive recognition each time they post a message, and larger donations receive additional benefits (http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=198309). Please note the Library has no involvement in the forums, and your donation is not in exchange for any services of any kind. Donations may be tax-deductible, and are often eligible for employer donor matching programs.
* If you use the donation route, we recommend you already have created an account on the main site (www.arcade-museum.com) and are logged in. This will greatly speed up your validation process (minutes instead of days).
* Additionally, if you are using a PayPal account with an address different than the email address you signed up with here, please go to the settings page and add your PayPal email address as a 'Second Email Address' on your account (before making your donation for fastest access).
(a) have a recommendation from an existing forum member, moderator, or administrator. If you intend to ask a friend to recommend you, please ask them to look at our FAQ on recommending new forum users at: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=247149
or...
(b) make a donation of $1 or more to our WebMagic's Museum of the Game fund to help support the maintenance and expansion of the main site here and web forums, via the link on https://www.arcade-museum.com/contribute . The theory behind the donation is that it is a little harder and more expensive to create a dozen PayPal accounts than it is to create a dozen email accounts. Donors contributing $10 or more receive recognition each time they post a message, and larger donations receive additional benefits (http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=198309). Giving to this fund is the most direct way of supporting the main site and the forums. All donations go 100% (after PayPal fees) to supporting the forums, though are not tax-deductible.
* If you use the donation route, we recommend you already have created an account on the main site (www.arcade-museum.com) and are logged in. This will greatly speed up your validation process (minutes instead of days).
* Additionally, if you are using a PayPal account with an address different than the email address you signed up with here, please go to the settings page and add your PayPal email address as a 'Second Email Address' on your account (before making your donation for fastest access).
or...
(c) make a donation of $1 or more to our favorite 501c3 non-profit public charity: International Arcade Museum Library via the link on https://library.arcade-museum.com . The theory behind the donation is that it is a little harder and more expensive to create a dozen PayPal accounts than it is to create a dozen email accounts. Donors contributing $10 or more receive recognition each time they post a message, and larger donations receive additional benefits (http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=198309). Please note the Library has no involvement in the forums, and your donation is not in exchange for any services of any kind. Donations may be tax-deductible, and are often eligible for employer donor matching programs.
* If you use the donation route, we recommend you already have created an account on the main site (www.arcade-museum.com) and are logged in. This will greatly speed up your validation process (minutes instead of days).
* Additionally, if you are using a PayPal account with an address different than the email address you signed up with here, please go to the settings page and add your PayPal email address as a 'Second Email Address' on your account (before making your donation for fastest access).
or..
(d) is associated with a public, accredited museum; an organization we have a relationship with already; an organization with significant standing in the community such as an employee of a major videogame manufacturer using a work email address; or as otherwise determined by a moderator or admin. If you are a normal user/collector please refer to the first two methods, which are also the fastest and simplest way to gain posting access.
About Donations:(d) is associated with a public, accredited museum; an organization we have a relationship with already; an organization with significant standing in the community such as an employee of a major videogame manufacturer using a work email address; or as otherwise determined by a moderator or admin. If you are a normal user/collector please refer to the first two methods, which are also the fastest and simplest way to gain posting access.
Please consider donating more than $1. Both the Museum and Library are good causes, and increasing your donation makes a big difference.
If you donate $1, PayPal fees consume about half of the contribution. This includes a flat fee and a variable amount. Donations quickly get significantly more efficient as individual contributions climb to $5, $10, $20, and more.
Note: You can click on the PayPal link and then pay with a credit card--you don't need to use a PayPal account.
Note: A donation does not 'buy' access, and a user that gets approved this way can still be banned at will be mods and admins as need be. [A previously banned user is free to make a donation to the charity, but would still be a banned user as far as the forums is concerned.] The charity isn't even associated with the operations of these forums.
Troubleshooting:Note: You can click on the PayPal link and then pay with a credit card--you don't need to use a PayPal account.
Note: A donation does not 'buy' access, and a user that gets approved this way can still be banned at will be mods and admins as need be. [A previously banned user is free to make a donation to the charity, but would still be a banned user as far as the forums is concerned.] The charity isn't even associated with the operations of these forums.
We regularly receive email from people stating that they created an account, made a donation, and days later still don't have access. In 99% of these cases, a system account was created with an email address that was different that the email address the PayPal payment was sent from, and the user failed to add the PayPal email address to their account (in the secondary email address field). If this happens to you, please add your secondary email address and wait 12 hours before contacting support.
PLEASE NOTE: You can donate to our charity of choice via PayPal, but please don't use PayPal Giving Fund to do so. Why? See: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/th...nate-to-the-library-here.522015/#post-4670786
Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support!
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