TLDR: Their spam filtering is blocking everything I do, even asking for help, for no apparent reasons.
I don’t know if I am experiencing some twilight-zone-level circumstances or what, but I just cannot get anywhere trying to register an account on WordPress.org. Going through the registration form just leads to a screen saying my account needs approval which never seems to come. Days passed after my first attempt, so I reached out to the only contact point shown ([email protected]). I got a canned response about how they’re inundated with spam and moderating account creation, and a whole bunch of explanation about whether or not I actually need to use WordPress. I have been developing websites with WordPress for many years now and am well aware I don’t need an account to use the software. However, I do need an account to participate in the WordPress.org support forums where I can communicate with plugin developers (specifically one which currently has a couple apparently unreported bugs). The canned email response indicated I should reply to that message with an explanation about why I think I need an account. Specifically:
>What you plan to use the account for
>What question (if any) you intend to post on the forums/trac/github
>What plugin/theme (if any) you intend to create
I wrote up the same explanation as above in this post plus mention of my desire to release some plugins I have written over the years and tried to send the email, only to have their email server bounce me a message saying it wasn’t delivered due to high likelihood of spam. I tried to compose a new message to the same contact point, since at least that worked once, but got another server rejection message (spam). The email account I was trying to register with and composing the messages from is a company email, and the company doesn’t engage in any bulk/subscription mailing whatsoever. The mail server domain is 100% used for very basic business use (purchasing from vendors, responding to customer inquiries, internal communication, etc.) so I cannot possibly imagine how it would be blacklisted for spam. I cannot even understand how anything about the content of the messages I composed would be triggering to spam filters. Nonetheless, I tried all the process described thus far again from my personal email on a totally different domain (and even without the VPN connection I typically use running to avoid any IP flagging issues) and the result is all the same.
So, what to do? I have even tried to compose another email, again from yet another domain and while on yet another IP, asking about the previous two registration attempts. I received a message saying those accounts can only be discussed via messages from those accounts. To which I tried to reply, “How can I do so when your filters keep rejecting anything I try to send?”. I didn’t receive any server rejection message thus far, but it’s already been more than a day and I am afraid as soon as I try to send another message to inquire it’s gonna get shot dead immediately like all those before.
I’m so frustrated. I can understand taking measures to reduce spam, but this almost feels like an extreme level of gatekeeping under the guise of spam prevention. I was even a bit taken aback at the requirement to report “What plugin/theme (if any) you intend to create” when simply needing to enroll to contribute in the forums. Why is account registration the place to also moderate plugin submissions? How are users who need support for WordPress core or third-party plugin developers supposed to register? If they cannot, what’s the use of forums which only have the devs themselves as users? I’m lucky in all these years I never needed to access the forums in anything more than a reading capacity, but now that I have a rather urgent need to do so it seems impossible. And this, as someone who could definitely make positive contributions to threads from users who do need help given my many years of experience working with WP core and countless 3p plugins.
I so very much hope someone from [Wordpress.org](http://Wordpress.org) might actually take notice of this and lend a hand, but if not thanks for reading my grievances to provide at least a little release therapy as I wrote this off my chest.
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Something about your email address is triggering their spam filtering system. I’d try getting a “normal” Gmail or Outlook email address and using that.
Well, it’s either related to your email address like u/bluesix pointed out, or you kept playing a lot with IPs and VPNs for one and the same account(s) which then flagged those IPs. It’s also possible they do have the VPN IPs all flagged already.
Ask someone else to create an account for you and then use it with caution aka to participate on the forum following their guidelines, because they do know when you switch between multiple accounts and / or IPs (serves to prevent spam of all kind on the forums).
Good luck