Yes, Author and Reviewer privileges are still added manually and, yes, you do need an LDraw.org account to be granted these. But, unless I am on vacation, rarely does it take more than 24 hours, bearing in mind that I may not be in the same time-zone as the requestor.
I have followed the leads of previous Library Admins in trying to see some "LDraw credentials" - such as authoring - before granting Review access, but I can see how that might preclude some from contributing as reviewers. It is increasing difficult to find "easy" parts for novices to author and gain experience.
I'd be happy to see some discussion on this point - in the meantime, I'll update the "Review Parts" paragraph on the Parts Tracker home page, to clarify how to request that.
There are currently 60 registered reviewers, but I've not done any analysis to see how many are active.
I have followed the leads of previous Library Admins in trying to see some "LDraw credentials" - such as authoring - before granting Review access, but I can see how that might preclude some from contributing as reviewers. It is increasing difficult to find "easy" parts for novices to author and gain experience.
I'd be happy to see some discussion on this point - in the meantime, I'll update the "Review Parts" paragraph on the Parts Tracker home page, to clarify how to request that.
There are currently 60 registered reviewers, but I've not done any analysis to see how many are active.
Chris (LDraw Parts Library Admin)