Members have contacted me in recent months about two problems logging into the JRA website.

1) STRONG PASSWORD REQUIREMENTS

Unfortunately, JRA has no control of the password requirements for our membership system/website which is hosted by the vendor Wildapricot.com. Numerous WildApricot customer organizations like ours have begged for simpler password requirements, especially for organizations with members who are older or less tech savvy. For example, see this thread: 

But WildApricot is unbending about the following minimum password requirements:

*12 characters or more

*both upper and lower case letters (Note: WildApricot passwords are case-sensitive.)

*at least one number

*at least one of the following special characters: #?!@$%^&*-

*no spaces

If I could customize it, I might require 10 characters, upper/lower case, and a number (so fewer characters and no special characters). That would be strong enough. But I have no ability to influence WildApricot.

This means you MUST set a strong password, which you can do on the login page by clicking "reset password".  Or the system might require it of you one day.  

2) LOGIN PROBLEMS, ESPECIALLY CAPTCHAS

Captchas are the annoying things that you have to click on to verify you are not a robot (such as "click on all the traffic lights"). These drive me crazy.

Again, JRA has no control of this. WildApricot has imposed this on all its organization customers.

Two tips:

a) Doing the captchas slowly sometimes helps, especially when you click on the final submit button.  

b) If you use a VPN, you may wish to disable it. That helped some members. If you don't know what a VPN is, you're not using one. 

JRA IS CAPTIVE CUSTOMER OF WILDAPRICOT

Our website/membership system is hosted on a system called WildApricot, which in the past was more customer-oriented. Unfortunately, JRA is now a captive customer at the mercy of WildApricot's prices and policies. It's conceivable that JRA could move to alternative membership software over time. That could only come after JRA redoes its website on Wordpress, which is in the plans for 2024. If the new website goes well, then JRA might consider moving our membership functions off of WildApricot. That would have to be a separate, major decision in the future which may or may not make sense given all factors involved. It would also require recreating the member forums, which are popular and crucial.

The good news is that JRA has a dynamic new Committee led by Chair Kevin Cardiff. The Committee is absolutely committed to improving JRA's online presence and member tools. We're taking it a step at a time. Meanwhile, the Committee deeply appreciates your patience with the limitations of our current system. No matter what technology we use, the key is JRA's great membership.  

Feel free to comment below or email me directly at webmaster@junkrigassociation.org. I probably won't respond before Monday Jan 29.  

Rafael, Webmaster (volunteer)