I have noticed that some forums require an email confirmation upon registration. The site sends the newbie an email with a link that needed to be clicked. That confirms the membership. For forum owners who require the email confirmation, what is the rationale behind it?
Why the need for email confirmation in forum registration
- Thread starter Corzhens
- Start date
Spam prevention is probably the largest reason.
Most spambots don't have functioning email addresses (they just make up gibberish like [email protected]) so if they have to confirm their email before they can post this stops them from being able to post their spam (because they can't confirm their account to let them post). Meanwhile legitimate members, who do have working email, are unaffected. Plus if something happens, like some downtime is coming, the staff can email in advance to let them know what's going on.
Other times admins set it so that passwords are randomly generated and emailed to users. This serves a similar purpose in stopping spambots. In this case bots can't even sign in to modify fields like website or signature without having an email address confirmed. Since in the other method, email to allow posting, if they can still log in they might be able to put their spam in the signature and website fields.
Most spambots don't have functioning email addresses (they just make up gibberish like [email protected]) so if they have to confirm their email before they can post this stops them from being able to post their spam (because they can't confirm their account to let them post). Meanwhile legitimate members, who do have working email, are unaffected. Plus if something happens, like some downtime is coming, the staff can email in advance to let them know what's going on.
Other times admins set it so that passwords are randomly generated and emailed to users. This serves a similar purpose in stopping spambots. In this case bots can't even sign in to modify fields like website or signature without having an email address confirmed. Since in the other method, email to allow posting, if they can still log in they might be able to put their spam in the signature and website fields.
Sometimes it's part preventative measure too. Instead of just waiting to get spammed like crazy enabling verification means you aren't going to wake up one day with 300 new bot members and a couple thousand new posts for genital enhancement or whatever. (And yeah, I'm being a bit dramatic here, it probably wouldn't be that much overnight... it'd likely be a slow build up of a few spam posts here and there. But rest assured if unchecked it would easily hit hundreds of spam attempts per day.)
Bluezone777
Dinner Team Leader
it used to be a good way to prevent spam at one point but I found most of the spammers who spam those silly adverts everywhere tend to validate their e-mails so it's not really that effective anymore. I normally disable it because I don't see the point in hassling legit members with validating their e-mail while spammers are just going to get right through it anyway.
The point is, though, that it doesn't stop spam. Either captchas or asking them to spell things or answer questions does. However, it seems like the default captcha isn't that good.
Marie 1988 Forum
Resident
Would you rather have spammy posts or a clean forum? Personally I'd rather have email confirmation myself. Yes, it is a pain but at the end of the day safety is way more important than number figures. I even try to avoid promotion sites that don't allow confirmation of any kind when requesting packages and other services. All it demonstrates is a lack of concern for members safetu
But it doesn't stop spam. It's pretty much meaningless.
Marie 1988 Forum
Resident
It is if you have features like the Stop Forum Spam plug-in. I understand that might not be much help either but it helps keep would-be spammers at bay, making less work for the team
Our forums do get a huge amount of incoming spam, so verified email addresses help to prevent this, on top of other measures to prevent spam, like the good old "I am not a Robot". So, there is a huge point in us having it 😛
Here's the thing... it does stop some spam. But it won't stop all spam though. One method won't stop all spam because there are numerous different methods spammers use. (It's not always the same bot that drops spam... there are a fair variety of different ones with different capabilities. Some very much can answer basic security questions, others can verify the email address. Other spammers are human and do it all manually. ) So don't rely on this as your only method and then complain when it doesn't catch everything (it can't).
The only way to effectively stop most spam (and even then this won't stop all spam) is use a multi-layered approach. Verified email address, security questions (that aren't the basic/default 1+1 sort since bots can easily get through them), stopforumspam lookups, ip blocking bad regions, etc...
Even after this however there will still be some spam that gets through. But it will be considerably less than what gets blocked.
The only way to effectively stop most spam (and even then this won't stop all spam) is use a multi-layered approach. Verified email address, security questions (that aren't the basic/default 1+1 sort since bots can easily get through them), stopforumspam lookups, ip blocking bad regions, etc...
Even after this however there will still be some spam that gets through. But it will be considerably less than what gets blocked.
If the forum wants to be able to submit any spammers to StopForumSpam, they must be using e-mail verification,...
It does seem to stop a lot of them, I get a lot of registrations that never bother to verify and activate the account, when
I check , all of them are listed as spambots. But even with that, many do actually activate the account, from the e-mail
they used, and then come back and dump the spam .
It does seem to stop a lot of them, I get a lot of registrations that never bother to verify and activate the account, when
I check , all of them are listed as spambots. But even with that, many do actually activate the account, from the e-mail
they used, and then come back and dump the spam .
Which is why a lot of forums users have a secondary email account solely for signing up to forums and things of that nature. I don’t read my emails on that account, I just go in once a month and delete everything.
Shannon Apple
Resident
The email is necessary for spam prevention. I have actually blacklisted some throwaway email addresses in order to keep certain waves of bots off the site. I wouldn't ever consider removing the email verification for that reason.
If someone really wants to be a member of the site, then they won't mind taking the 2 minutes to verify their email.
It has never happened on Sakuga City, but on our previous forum, a hacker used a vBulletin exploit to get into the database. We force reset everyone's password on their next login which meant that they had to use their email to verify the change. If something like that happened on your site, you'd want to be able to do that. You never know when something crap is going to happen.
Another scenerio: What if they go away for a while and they forget their password? Are you going to take their word for it that they own the account that has been inactive for two years? An email address is the easiest way of verifying ownership.
If someone really wants to be a member of the site, then they won't mind taking the 2 minutes to verify their email.
It has never happened on Sakuga City, but on our previous forum, a hacker used a vBulletin exploit to get into the database. We force reset everyone's password on their next login which meant that they had to use their email to verify the change. If something like that happened on your site, you'd want to be able to do that. You never know when something crap is going to happen.
Another scenerio: What if they go away for a while and they forget their password? Are you going to take their word for it that they own the account that has been inactive for two years? An email address is the easiest way of verifying ownership.
I have joined several sites lately that require email confirmation. There are 2 sites with pending email confirmation I have yet to receive. After requesting for the email a couple of times and not receiving anything then I guess it's not worth my time.
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