yes, for new account registration, they track:
IP, email and phone number, and all must be unique (due to bots signing up for new accounts)
- IP, use a VPN
- email - create a new account if necessary, and change it later (not sure this feature exists yet, but you can forward email to main
- phone - use a phone texting site (that hosts numbers and allows you to receive a text message on the web page), and when they text you for confirmation number, it will show up on a shared page, others will only see your confirmation number, nothing else about you..
It should be obvious when you fail to register because of one of the above issues, but it's not.. you just never get approved.
I know it's the highest priority to fix this problem, the new signup process is probably being tested now.. by a new means that will self pay for new accounts (honorary SP that pays back the delegated SP over time), instead of using delegated SP from one of the steemit accounts.
So yes, Steemit is hobbled by this until it can fix it, and they are more than well aware..
I see, ok - As a system engineer I find it bizarre that such a simple thing as inserting some notification text to explain the situation has not been done for such an important issue. It could be resolved easily in under 30 minutes and yet this has been a problem for at least months. When I see such situations, especially in a site like this where there is millions of dollar flowing through it - I get suspicious and if not suspicious then at least concerned by the apparent intentions of the site operators.