Nice, simple and focused

We are looking for a way to minimise the amount of emails which we send out to dead addresses (often Gmail) via fake bbPress signups to our forum. The first step is user approval.

Konstantin’s plugin is simple and focused, with straightforward settings in a settings panel. There’s no top level left column item (frankly any plugin which wants to put its settings in the main left window should require approval from the plugin moderation team, if in the plugin directory, the left top-level menu is now hopelessly cluttered on most WordPress sites). The main interface are simple text additions to the existing user table Approve | Unapprove.

Frankly user approval should be built into WordPress. But until it is, thank heavens for simple solutions. No adware, no pro version, no bloatware frills, native interface.

I like the idea of a previous reviewer to allow unapproved users to be kept in the database to prevent additional signups with the same address. We’d also like an improved workflow where no email goes out to users until admin approval, at which point the signup email would arrive.

What would happen to a new user is that s/he would be auto-logged in at the time of signup with very limited privileges until approved or unapproved but no email would be sent without approval. This would allow simple comments to be left on a weblog post or bbPress without sending out emails to dead addresses (and damaging sender reputation).

We can add these features fairly easily ourselves, but it would be great to see them in the core functionality of WP Approve User.

Thank you Konstantin for your hard work on WP Approve User and for making it free.