== The Problem(s)
Most organizers of editathons or other in-person events don’t require users to create a wiki account in advance, fearing it will discourage signups. In addition, it's common for users who haven't signed up at all to just show up. This means that newbies often need to register on the day of. But for security reasons, the wikis allow only 6 accounts to be created from one IP during a given timeframe. This creates problems:
- **Account creation wastes time during the event:** Organizers can apply for a the Event Organizer right, which lets them create more than the allowed number of accounts from one IP. But the person with the Event Organizer right has to personally register the participants one by one, which can cause significant delays at the start of events.
- **Restricted choice of event leaders**: The Event Organizer right can’t be delegated, so the person with that authority needs to be on hand at events personally to register users.
- **There is a process for requesting an exemption to the cieling, but:** it is a) not well known, b) relies on volunteers to make the patch correctly and in time, c) requires that the organizer know at the time of the request the IP address of the room where the event will be, which can be hard to get.
- **Participants still get blocked at events**—even when organizers play by all the rules. This is a huge disruption for people who've booked a room, advertised on social media and are often partnering with prestigious GLAMS or other institutions..
These problems are described on the project page in [[ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Tools_for_program_and_event_organizers#Step_2:_Participant_sign-up | Step 2 ]], [[ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Tools_for_program_and_event_organizers#Step_3:_Wiki_account_creation | Step 3 ]], and [[ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Tools_for_program_and_event_organizers#Step_4:_Participants_check-in_(day_of) | Step 4 ]].
==What the users say
Very instructive project talk page discussions on:
Account Creation
User Signup
==Your mission
A variety of ideas have been proposed to help organizers out; see below. However each seems to involve challenges or unknowns, and no consensus has emerged through our casual discussions on the best approach. Your goal is to investigate these problems and the solutions discussed, bring back what you find and, we hope, make some recommendations—especially as to feasibility and level of effort.
The discussions below are a recap of an email chain among CommTech team members. In addition, I've added a few solutions suggested by community members on the [[ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Tech/Tools_for_program_and_event_organizers | project talk page ]].