Registering and confirming your email address

An account is made in two steps: you give your email address, and then you show it is yours by following a link sent to it. Your name and your password are asked for in the second step.

Registering

Press Register in the Account menu. The page asks for your Email address and nothing else. Tick I agree to the terms of use, which is about what you write on the site, and press Register. You can also press Register with Google, which needs no password: see Signing in.

Registering needs scripting switched on for this site, so that the site can tell a person from a program. If it is off, you are told so before you fill in anything. Scripting and cookies says more.

The next page says Check your email. It says the same whoever the address belongs to, so it never tells a stranger which addresses have accounts. If nothing arrives in a few minutes, look in your junk or spam folder.

Confirming

Follow the link in the email. It opens a form rather than confirming at once, because mail systems follow the links in an email to check them, and an address should be confirmed only by somebody who read the email.

The form asks for your Name, and a Password typed twice, the second as Confirm password. Passwords says what a password has to be. Press Confirm my email address.

Confirming does not sign you in, since the link is often opened on another device. You are told that your email address is confirmed and pointed to Sign in.

When the link has stopped working

A link works for 24 hours. After that it says it has expired, and Send me a new link sends another to the same address. You can ask for a new link at most three times an hour, and the same limit counts the emails that registering sends.

A link that does not work for any other reason, such as one that has been altered, says only that it no longer works. If you have already confirmed, it says so and points you to sign in.

If you are not the one who registered

Anybody can type any address into the register page. If an email arrives that you did not ask for, ignore it: no account is confirmed unless its link is followed and the form is filled in.

Next: Signing in.