If you remember the email address that you used to register for your account, you can use the Lost Password link on the login screen. You will be prompted to enter your email address, and an email will be sent to that address with a new password. New passwords are automatically generated by the site, so you should receive a new password within a few minutes of making your request. If you do not, please contact the moderation team at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org, and we will manually reset your password for you. We will not share our members' email addresses with any outside groups or individuals or use them for purposes other than official site business.
It can also happen that the newly generated password will not work. If this happens, do contact our moderation team immediately.
If you do not remember the email address that you used to create your account, then you will need to contact the moderation team for assistance at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. If you don't hear from a moderator within 24 hours, please feel free to query. You should hear from us within 24 hours. If you do not, please query, as an email might have become lost in a spam filter somewhere.
Please do not create multiple accounts if you forget your login or password information or have trouble retrieving this information. Please contact the mods, and we will resolve the issue for you.
On rare occasions, our site's email address validator has rejected legitimate email addresses and will not allow an account to be set up with that email address. If you attempt to register, and the archive will not accept your email address, please contact us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. We will set up your account for you with your preferred email address. Please remember that we are an all-volunteer group, and it may take us up to a day to respond, although we generally have much quicker response times. If you don't hear from a moderator within 24 hours, please feel free to query.
As of 28 October 2013, the SWG Terms of Service require a working email address when registering for our archive or any other site services that we might offer.
Why do we require a working email address? Unfortunately, sites like ours are open to abuse by individuals that want to use them for spam and other purposes that range from annoying to dangerous. The SWG has been attacked by spammers in the past, and for the comfort and online safety of our members, we hope to minimize future instances of this.
Requiring working email addresses is one way that we can detect and eliminate spammers before they cause problems. For example, if we discover ten new registrations from invalid email addresses under usernames with no connection to Tolkien fandom and no account activity, we can lock and remove those accounts before they can be used to do damage.
Our moderators also need to contact members on rare occasions about site-related business. A working email address ensures that we can get in touch with you, if needed. We will never contact you unless absolutely necessary, and we will not share your registration information with anyone beyond the moderation team of our group without your permission.
What action will we take against accounts without working email addresses? First of all, we are not looking to lock or remove accounts. We do not intend to check new or old registered emails for validity. We will take action only when 1) an email address is revealed to be not working during the course of normal site business or 2) when an email address that doesn't work is registered as part of suspicious activity that appears unrelated to legitimate use of the site.
Normal site business that requires us to contact members tends to be to address minor issues, such as fixing HTML coding errors in a story or responding to a flag on a story for a new character. If we discover that your registered email account is not functioning correctly--such as if an email to you bounces--then we will lock your account, and you will need to contact us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org to have the account unlocked. A locked account does not mean that you're in trouble; it is simply a means for us to let you know that we need to get in touch with you. We understand that there are many reasons why an email account might bounce or might not work as expected.
In rare instances, we reserve the right to delete accounts entirely. If an account with a not-working email is registered as part of suspicious activity, there is no indication that the account is intended for legitimate purposes, and there is no activity on the account, then we may remove the account entirely. This is admittedly a judgment call on the part of the moderators. For example, if we receive five registrations in one hour from accounts composed of random strings of letters (e.g., ADGDNI) with not-working email accounts and no attempt to create an identity on our site (such as by entering biographical information or using other site features), then we may choose to remove these accounts from our system altogether. We will always give the benefit of the doubt to the user, however, and will lock rather than delete accounts whenever there appears to be even a shred of a possibility that the account is legitimate. For example, an account registered under the name GreyElf is likely legitimate, as is an account that links to a LiveJournal or other non-spam website. As noted above, there are valid reasons why an email to a member might bounce, why there might be a block of registrations in a short time, and why there might be multiple registrations from a single IP.
Under no circumstances will we delete an account that has present or past activity, including but not limited to entering non-spam data in the bio form, leaving reviews, posting stories or podfics, or creating a Favorites list, unless that member is in violation of site policies as outlined in our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service.
For all issues or questions concerning registration, passwords, and emails, we encourage our members to contact the moderators at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. We are happy to assist.
Last updated 28 October 2013.