What is the point of Email Verification anyway?

[Velocd]

I got to thinking, as I'm sitting here waiting for a music video download to complete, what is the real purpose of email verification? Its something I know alot of people dislike when joining forums because they have to wait for the email to be recieved before posting, and sometimes they even forget or ignore it. I mean, if you disabled it, not much would be different. So you restrict users from registering twice with the same account, what stops them from creating a new email and registering on that one? Nothing, ofcourse. Anyway, there is an IP checker out at these forums that'll help you regulate duplicate IPs and second accounts, so that pretty much renders this email verification useless. Unless there is another importance of it that I'm just plain missing. (oh, there is the mere fact of contacting the user and not being able to if they have a fake email, but why would someone register with a fake email..? its not too common)

[FWC]

Most trolls eventually get tired of making new email accounts. If you don't use email verification there is nothing to make them work to troll.

[SaintDog]

People register all the time with fake e-mails and then again, most people that just plan on trolling you board will sign up with a hotmail account they will use once to activate the account then never post or use that e-mail account again.

It happens a lot, is there anything you can do about it, not really unless you moderate every new user to your board. I think Eva does this, he moderates every member to make sure they are not using a hotmail account or a yahoo account. I personally think that is a great idea seeing how 90% of those that sign up with a hotmail/yahoo/other FREE e-mail account are 12 year olds that come to you board to:

1. Waste space
2. Waste time
3. Spam
4. something that pertains to the above not listed

It is very annoying and gets there very fast, although if you have 20 new sign ups a day (or more), moderating new members can be a pain.

SaintDog

[Velocd]

Well I'm not getting 20 new members a day, but I am getting members that fit in perfectly with your list there (heh, it sux's )

Moderate every member huh? Man..that is a huge task, mostly if you have a large forum. too bad there is no easier way doing it...*ponders*

[alexp]

you could build a list of unnaceptable email addresses and bar them at the registration stage - hotmail, msn, yahoo etc would be obvious candidates. That would be quite an easy hack..

[maoz440]

Yes that would be quite a nice hack - I have 40-50 new members a day that i have to physically validate and its gets old. I'd like to allow everyone to validate automatically unless they have a Yahoo or Hotmail account.

[Logician]

If you don't verify email address, someone can register with an email account which does not belong to him, then subscribe some high traffic threads and use your board to spam someone else account. Needless to say it's you who will deal with complaints. The account owner can complaint to your hosting company too and it's a high possibility that they will regard this as SPAM and either close your account or give you a serious warning.

Not a suggested practise to disable verification..

[dotagious]

Admincp > Options > Banning Options > Email addresses to ban

[filburt1]

I think he means: if the user registers with a free account, require validation. Otherwise, immediately accept.

Personally I think it's bad idea because they can just enter sdjklfjdlskcjdkl@dsfjkldsjfklds.com as their e-mail and they'd be instantly accepted.

[Erwin]

Today at 08:38 AM Logician said this in Post #7
If you don't verify email address, someone can register with an email account which does not belong to him, then subscribe some high traffic threads and use your board to spam someone else account. Needless to say it's you who will deal with complaints. The account owner can complaint to your hosting company too and it's a high possibility that they will regard this as SPAM and either close your account or give you a serious warning.

Not a suggested practise to disable verification..

Exactly. I wouldn't want an idiot to register my email address to a thousand forums, enable email notification for all of them, and give me unwanted emails daily.