Help:Confirming accounts

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ Help:Main page ▶ Help:Notes for admins ▶ Confirming accounts

All wiki admins have the ability to see who has requested a wiki account, and to accept/create that account. This page explains how wiki admins can confirm new accounts that users request. Previously the wiki, like most wikis, was constantly hit by spam. This required daily monitoring and cleaning of said spam, and typically there's only one person ever checking at a given time. To combat this while still making getting an account mostly painless we have a wiki extension called ConfirmAccount.

Since enabling this extension we have had nearly no spam on the wiki.

Full technical documentation

See mw:Extension:ConfirmAccount for all the nitty gritty details about how this extension works. Most admins won't need to know this level of detail. Most information should be covered on this page you are currently reading.

What not to do

Just to make it clear, this process is only meant to filter out bots and people who have incorrectly requested an account. It is not to judge the quality of contributions for a user or to even judge if they have a good reason to want to edit. If their only reason is "I want to fix a single typo and never edit again", that is fine.

How to confirm a requested account

Go to Special:ConfirmAccounts/authors to see all account requests. In addition to e-mail confirmation and recaptcha, they are asked to say "why you want to edit the wiki". The answer can be almost anything as long as it sounds like a real human, isn't totally generic, and actually sounds like a reason to edit the wiki.

Eventually I'll have some step-by-step screenshots of all this, but the interface is fairly self explanatory. You'll see a list of open requests, then you click on one and you can then accept or reject the request. You can even include a message for both confirmation or rejection, if needed.

Confirm e-mail

Users must also confirm their e-mail address in order to edit. It is possible to confirm an account before the user clicks on the confirmation link they receive. Because of this, sometimes the users get confused because they get an e-mail that says "your account was created" and they can log-in, but they can't edit pages without confirming their e-mail address.

Examples of what to approve or not

When people request an account they are asked to say "why" they want to edit the wiki. This is really just a check to see if: 1) they are a human and not a spambot, and 2) if they are actually asking to edit the wiki, as some users mistake wiki registration for various other things.

Sometimes it's even a mix of "bot/automated" and confused person. Spambots these days often work by getting a real human to answer questions for them, either by having someone who is actually paid to get past anti-spam tools, or by hijacking someone's computer and injecting questions for them to solve in other websites.

People don't even need a good reason to edit the wiki, as long as it sounds like a valid one.

If you're not sure, feel free to err on the side of accepting people.


The following are real examples of what people put under "why you want to edit the wiki":

Examples of accepted reasons

If you are not sure about what to accept, look for reasons that seem specific to the Kodi program as those are typically very safe to accept. Sometimes you can also match a name to the Kodi forum or other areas of the community, which can help when a request doesn't seem clear or not.


Note: Be cautious of generic "I want to help" type statements. Many spam bots have human handlers that fill out the registration questions, but they typically don't know what Kodi is, thus they only give vague or generic "helping" answers. It's still good to err on the side of accepting the request, but it would be a good idea to keep an eye out for spam for a while after such a request is accepted.


  • I'd like to add intel driver specific details to "how to configure resolution via xorg.conf".
  • 1. to remove typos from the openelec wiki page 2. to correct broken links (intra-openelec or external)
  • I want to add my tool to generate edid binaries easily to the page related to edids
  • There's some errors in some pages that I would like to help fix. For example, the power management/hibernation page.
  • I saw a grammatical error. Also, I have been using XBMC for months and I have a lot of experience.
  • there is no entry for freebsd. I use freebsd and kodi.
  • I wanted to add a note to the section about Unetbootin for Mac on how to identify which is your USB drive if you see multiple disks in the drop-down.
  • I'd like add a a comment how to get IR volume control working with xubuntu, just deactivate xfce4-volumed
  • Ned told me to make an account. Also, Ned is very handsome.

Examples of rejected reasons

A full list of what has been recently rejected can be seen here: Rejected requests


Note: Be cautious of any account request where the "reason" is written like a biography, or includes work history such as "web designer". The original account request extension labels this area as "Biography:", but the Kodi wiki labels it as "Say why you want to edit the Kodi wiki". Bots (and human bot handlers) sometimes assume it is still a biography field.


The only time a spam account got through this request system has involved spammers/bots making that mistake.


  • I want to integrate with my soundcloud account via cloud player app on Google/ chromecast
  • i like xbmc chanel..good software
  • hi brother. soy español , gracias por admitirme.
  • Want to become a memnber
  • I would like to create account please
  • hello i am trying to set up my xbmc box
  • i m human and i m alive
  • I NEED TO HAVE ATV IN MY PHONE
  • Lisen am human i hope lol
  • i dont want to edit nothing i just want to be able to log in to my xbmc so i can possibly get faster downloads?
  • Can't read the damn thing
  • so I can check ot new thing
  • to learn somthing of wiki
  • I want to help
  • Because I want to use it
  • to have the best tv
  • I am student so I want study material read and ask question through this site.
  • I have knowledge of C++, Java,pyton and database oracle and sql server and having more than 10+ years of experience.Please help me to get my account
  • I have been studying web development since 2009 and I develop in both C# and PHP, though I primarily use C#. I am experienced in both front and back-end development, and I am proficient in HTML/HTML5, CSS/CSS3, LESS, SASS, XML, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, and SQL/MySQL/PostgreSQL, to name a few. I am also proficient in many non-web-based languages, including but not limited to Java, Scheme/Racket, C, ACL2 (LISP), and MIPS Assembly. I have also worked on some smaller Python projects, and have used the language to create one-time use tools for data processing and similar purposes.
  • Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a free and open-source media player software application developed by the XBMC Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium.[3] Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music, podcasts, and videos from the internet, as well as all common digital media files from local and network storage media. Note: This spammer simply copy/pasted information from the Kodi page.
  • why you want to edit the wiki

Looking up old requests

  • Special:UserCredentials can be used to see the e-mail address and answer for "why you want to edit the wiki" of approved accounts.
  • Special:ConfirmAccounts has links for things like recently rejected and expired requests. Rejected and expired requests eventually get purged from the database after a period of time (a month or so? Not sure exactly, but it's at least a month).
    • Recently rejected requests are where an admin has reviewed an account request and declined it. If you decline a request by mistake then you can go to Recently rejected and still have the option to approve the request.
    • Expired requests are requests that didn't get any admin attention and are purged from the active list of requests. The documentation for Confirm Accounts doesn't mention what the default is, but requests shouldn't expire for at least two weeks.
  • If you've accidentally approved an account then you can use Special:Block to block the account from editing. It doesn't happen often, so I haven't bothered to install the extension to delete users. An active account with a block can also prevent abusive users from spamming ConfirmAccount with new requests, since it will autoblock the recent IP addresses.

Other ways to make an account

Both admins and non-admin users can also make additional accounts, either for themselves (like when running a wiki bot) or on the behalf of other users. A user simply goes to Special:UserLogin and clicks on "Create an account" while logged in. This allows existing users to vouch for other users without having to wait on an admin. Anyone who does this for another person should be sure to ask that the new user change their password ASAP.