Well, there are normally 4 ways to activate a user's account when they register.
1. No Activation: User does not require any form of activation, and may log in immediately. 2. E-Mail Activation: User must activate their account through an E-Mail sent to their account. 3. Admin Activation: User must wait to be approved and have their accounts activated by an administrator. 4. Must Be Invited: A rare case, most often used on private boards. Users may only register through an invitation, and usually must have their accounts set up by an Admin.
Well. I use 1. and 2. most often. #1 is useful when doing post exchanged with those on Forum Promotion, as most people hate having to go activate their accounts. I often use #1 during the early stages of my forum when I need to fill it up with some posts. After I get everything situated and start really advertising, I switch to #2, to decrease the number of spam bots that can get through. #3 is an incredible turn-off to me when I visit other forums, but there are some cases in which your forum gets pounded by Spam Bots and is sometimes necessary. I consider #4 completely evil, unless it's merely a test board.
What is the method that you prefer? And your thoughts on the others?
2. I've generally enough members to survive on email activation. Besides, the spambots really were getting to be b*tches. At least they're generally too stupid to use a real email address with which they can validate their account.
Besides, someone really jerky can use your email to log into your site and your email will be tagged if anything goes wrong.
I use one and two for the same reasons you do. I also use number 1 when I request packages, as most forums, it is against the requesting package rules for your forum to have admin activation on or even email activation. I've had complaints about this before from Package Staff on various forums, so I now leave both things turned off, just in case.
I use email activation once my forum gets active. If I have a new forum there is no need for all that hassle because of the low post moderation needed.
I use two and always have done, always will. It serves it's purpose well and normally isn't a hassle. At the end of the day, if a member can't be bothered to open an e-mail, click the link and post away, I wouldn't really want them in my community.
No activation - seems fine at the moment, will review it if things change, I hate waiting for activation emails that sometimes take forever or never come.
During the early months of my forum, I didn't need some sort of account activation for each new member I gained. However since April, I started to enable email confirmation. Although most members validated their accounts by themselves, sometimes I have to activate accounts manually if they haven't gotten the email when I check the "Authorisation List" regularly. The good thing is, I send them an email telling them that I have activated the account for them 🙂
I think e-mail activation is the best method. To me, it shows the registered user isn't just some annoying bot or just registered for shitz n gigglez. Most users that care to activate their account, most likely will care about the forum. I mean, if the user is in a situation where they do not have an e-mail, or doesn't know to how to operate an email account, then they wouldn't most likely be able to maintain a forum account.
I have no real official form of validation, but I have a system that 100% blocks all bots, and is of no hassle to an actual person.
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In my registration form, I have a randomly generated math problem, using only #'s 1-9, and only using either addition or subtraction. If a bot were to get past that, the other 'trap' is a password-protected introductions forum. I have things set up so that when a user first registers, they can only view the introductions forum, which has a password (which the pw is clearly labeled in the board description.) After getting through that, they only have the option of making a new topic introducing themselves, which gives them 1 post, they rank up, and the new rank lets them view the rest of the forums, and reply to topics.
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That being said, I choose to use no form of user-activation because it's an un-needed hassle for new users. Forcing new users to run around in a circle before posting on your forum is definitely a deterrent for them continuing to remain active after registering.
