Split wp_signups into wp_user_signups and wp_blog_signups

[johnjamesjacoby]

Right now, wp_signups (and the entire related API) does double-duty. It's 1 database table that's used for both users & blogs, but there are a few issues with this approach:

• Open sign-ups may or may not include ability to create sites
• There is no UI for managing sign-ups in WordPress core
• Sign-ups are different between singlesite & multi-site
• Plugins like BuddyPress do their best to include and/or work-around WordPress's core functionality, but end up writing a ton of additional code to manage this
• Other membership plugins are forced to roll their own approach every single time
• It's possible for multisite sign-up race conditions to exist, with users & sites created or activated from underneath each other (documented in wpmu_activate_signup())

I'm adding the multisite focus to this issue, because all of the current code is only relevant to multisite, but I'd like to see single-site inherit whatever future approach we can come up with.

The core sign-ups code, stinks. Yet open registration is part of what makes WordPress & community/membership sites great. I think it would be great to take what we've learned from BuddyPress, WordPress.org, WordPress.com, and the bevy of Membership plugins, and make a great sign-up component/API for WordPress core.

[johnjamesjacoby]

An alternative would be to ditch wp_signups all together, and add status and creator columns to wp_blogs.

Then, when a user is activated, the process would be:

• Check wp_users::user_activation_key
• Switch their user_status from pending to active
• Check for wp_blogs::status in pending with a matching creator_id to the wp_users::user_id
• Switch wp_blogs::status from pending to active

This has the net positives of:

• Eliminating an unloved API
• Removing a weird database table
• Unifying sign-ups across single & multi site installation types
• Giving plugins a reliable API & schema to use going forward

...at the cost of...

• Needing to refactor the existing WPMU specific code
• Deprecating a truckload of code
• Updating various interfaces to include "Pending" users, and the associated links to handle manual activation, etc...
• Developer awareness that wp_signups is going away
• Probably a several step, several release cycle development plan

See also #34316.

[Mista-Flo]

+1 on this needed refactoring, it will be far easier to deal with signups with this approach.

[eArtboard]

+1 on this sign-ups on multisite should match the UI of single site.

[madriverweb]

What is the status of this? I'm writing because I'm trying to learn something/anything about why the wp_signups table exists. I have a multi-site, and I have a few legitimate users in this table who are noted as active. But 95% of the users are spam and I don't know how they are being added to this table. Can you please tell me what URL they are going to to add themselves?