As best as I can figure out, when a person registers for an account, they are assigned a number -- I guess the next number in line. They then go to a pool to be approved. Bentley does the approving because he runs all the e-mail address to see what country the person is registering from. If we have someone from Russia or Vietnam or Nigeria, we don't approve because we can take a pretty good guess that is a spammer -- or worse. So that person's number may not make the rotation and, I think, is reassigned.
If he knows the handle from PH, he will usually just approve. But we don't recognize or remember all those handles, so those folks are conditionally approved and go into another pool where they are sent an e-mail and need to confirm their e-mail to make sure they aren't a robot (or whatever). So those numbers are sitting on another list -- there are 15 people currently on that list who have been approved but have not confirmed their e-mail.
So, it is not a straight chronological count as I understand it. Instead, it depends what your number is. At least, that is the way it seems to me.