# Why do new users need to click an extra button to Activate their account?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-do-new-users-need-to-click-an-extra-button-to-activate-their-account/33175
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 13, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-do-new-users-need-to-click-an-extra-button-to-activate-their-account/33175 "2015-09-13T00:40:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![mcwumbly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mcwumbly/32/103861_2.png) [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-do-new-users-need-to-click-an-extra-button-to-activate-their-account/33175/1 "2015-09-13T00:40:21Z")

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Testing out discourse with a new community and got this feedback from one member.

> Is there any way to eliminate the need for having to activating your account via email in order to use the site? i.e. create your and account and immediately be able to interact with the site. Or, allow the loading of the URL in the email to act as the activation rather than requiring an additional click on a dummy page?

I feel like there must be a topic on here somewhere with similar discussion, but haven’t found anything yet. Regardless, what do people think about this? Particularly the last idea:

> allow the loading of the URL in the email to act as the activation rather than requiring an additional click on a dummy page?

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-do-new-users-need-to-click-an-extra-button-to-activate-their-account/33175/2 "2015-09-13T01:28:04Z")

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It is an anti spam / auto account creation protection.

If you can activate by just retrieving the link, auto creation of accounts becomes trivial at the command line. Send 500 email activations, loop through them with curl, bam, you have 500 new accounts to spam with.

(Reminder, most spammers are 100% human these days so captcha does nothing. Say hello to our leetle friend bamwar for example, huge problems with these insanely persistent humans on many Discourse sites)

Also the premise of the question is a bit weird, clicking one button in the browser is “too long”?

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### Author: ![watchmanmonitor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/watchmanmonitor/32/430970_2.png) [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-do-new-users-need-to-click-an-extra-button-to-activate-their-account/33175/3 "2015-09-13T01:42:55Z")

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> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> allow the loading of the URL in the email to act as the activation rather than requiring an additional click on a dummy page?

You mean, this little beauty?

> [@Copy Invite Link link](https://meta.discourse.org/t/copy-invite-link-link/32648):
>
> We [just improved](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/4ad07b8c09068dad64ae0221b8e888e047b17bc6) the Invite feature, now you can copy invite link and send a personalized invitation email to your users! To generate copyable invite link go to your invites page, click on “Send an Invite” button, enter the email of the user you want to invite, now click on “Copy Invite Link” button: That’s it, now you will see copyable invite link: Copy and paste away! link scissors pencil email

it’s a true gem! 💎

Now we just [to be able to edit their name from admin,](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wish-i-could-edit-a-users-full-name-from-admin/26506) and setting up a new user account will be pretty darn efficient

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### Author: ![JammyDodger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jammydodger/32/254611_2.png) [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2024, 12:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-do-new-users-need-to-click-an-extra-button-to-activate-their-account/33175/4 "2024-06-08T12:46:02Z")

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