[SUGGESTION] Account recovery process improvement

[cahlmags]

I'm currently going through the account recovery process myself, so this suggestion comes straight from personal experience:  

If you lose access to your account, you're supposed to send an email to the recovery address. (recovery thread)
That's fine. But here's the thing — after you send that email, you just… wait. No response, no confirmation, nothing. Just silence.

After 3 or 4 days of hearing nothing, you start wondering: Did the email even arrive? Is anyone looking into it? Should I try to contact a mod or admin directly?

My suggestion is simple: Just send an automated confirmation email once the recovery request comes in. Something like:
"Hey, we've received your account recovery request. Our team will look into it. Please be patient as processing times may vary depending on the complexity of your case." - Or something similar maybe.
That's it. Nothing fancy. Just a standard acknowledgment so people know their request didn't disappear into the void.  

It would also be really helpful if there was some rough indication of expected timeframes — even something like "most cases are resolved within X days, though more complex ones may take longer." Obviously, if it's a straightforward case (like a signed wallet message as proof of ownership), things might move faster. But even just a hint would help a lot. Right now the lack of any feedback just leads to people spamming mods and admins with "any update on my case?" messages — which probably creates more work for the staff too.

Just a thought.  

[The Cryptovator]

After 3 or 4 days of hearing nothing, you start wondering: Did the email even arrive? Is anyone looking into it? Should I try to contact a mod or admin directly?

My suggestion is simple: Just send an automated confirmation email once the recovery request comes in. Something like:
~snip~

I am a little bit curious to know if you have tried the actual recovery service to recover another account or just tried the recovery service out of curiosity. I haven't tried and don't know either if the forum sent any automated email response or not. But if not, then the forum system should have this acknowledgement respond that we have received your request and it's under process.

This won't be much extra work for the forum admins. Because even we have been receiving email notifications once someone has sent us a PM. So it's just a matter of 'a line of codes'. So the applicant will know the email received, and forum admins will process the next step. Also, there should be a timeframe for the recovery process; it would be like even 90 days or more based on the circumstances. Otherwise, the applicant should create a new request by sending another email. In addition, the applicant would also add previous request references, so if the admin wants the new request, it would be accelerated.

It's not only a idea, but necessary.

[Upgrade00]

Users who need to recover their account will usually be on edge so u totally agree that this will help put those users at ease and will help keep the mail counter a little bit cleaner.
If an automated message is sent I do not think there has to be an ETA. Users will be impatient either ways andputti g any timeframe will just mean you'll get inundated with messages when that time passes.

[Btcdeybodi]

This is a nice suggestion because i have seen many users who complains about not getting a response from the recovery team after they sent them request to recover an account. By sending them an automated message will mean that their request has been received while they are evaluating the recovery process. However, recovery processes need not to be rushed because an impostor can send a request for account recovery so if the recovery process is done hastily, it might cause some damages to the real owner.

[AVE5]

All you've illustrated seems nice and welcoming for ease of being expectant for too long on getting response for accounts recovery on requests.
On this process, you should be getting autoresponder that will determine your hope if your request will be approved or not instead of being ignored without  feedback.
I'm considering a system that either keep you hopeful on the recovery request to keep you posted shortly that the email you applied isn't valid in the website following the account recovery while to talk to the admin directly may still keep its standard timeframe because normally, it'll be uncertained if the admin will HIT you at expected time when Theymos seems to have a lot attending to maintain and keep forum clean.
I think this ideal makes some senses.

[PX-Z]

A user-friendly auto generated email response is somewhat good, i guess that won't be much problem technically, iirc forum have auto generated email already, when forgot password were made? I guess. But yeah such thing can ease the user especially those hacked accounts.

[Lida93]

After 3 or 4 days of hearing nothing, you start wondering: Did the email even arrive? Is anyone looking into it? Should I try to contact a mod or admin directly?

My suggestion is simple: Just send an automated confirmation email once the recovery request comes in. Something like:
~snip~

I am a little bit curious to know if you have tried the actual recovery service to recover another account or just tried the recovery service out of curiosity. I haven't tried and don't know either if the forum sent any automated email response or not. But if not, then the forum system should have this acknowledgement respond that we have received your request and it's under process.

...

Well, that's how everyone modern service response system works right?! So it's very important the forum implement such auto response messages that would help calm a user's mind about the position of his message regarding his account recovery. Most definitely, just sending a message with receiving a response doesn't really make for a bridge in communication gap between the user and the forum admins/mods about his case.
Hopefully this would be taking into consideration if, it's not already how it works with account recovery process.

[UchihaSarada]

I am a little bit curious to know if you have tried the actual recovery service to recover another account or just tried the recovery service out of curiosity. I haven't tried and don't know either if the forum sent any automated email response or not. But if not, then the forum system should have this acknowledgement respond that we have received your request and it's under process.

I guess it is impossible to test it because each user will be given a different email address to send appeal email to. So it's unlikely a same email for everyone to use for account ban appeals, that makes testing the reply mechanism of recovery email address is impossible.

Even it is a fixed email address, it can be changed by forum admins.

If you get a message similar to "your account is locked"

You should be given an email address in the error message. Send an email there and you will be given further instructions.

If you are banned

Your ban message may have an email address which you can email. If not, then appeals are unlikely to be accepted.

If you have a locked account, send a new email to the @bitcointalk.org email address given in your "account locked" error message. (The email address changed a few weeks ago.) If you were previously sending messages to me or Cyrus, send a new email to the address here. We might try to go through the backlog of old-process recoveries in the future, but for now you should send new messages.