Email and Captcha Member Validation

vital to maintaining forum integrity or a hinderance to member signups

[chadmg]

I'm a huge proponent of database integrity. When I program I do all that I can to ensure that the correct data is being entered. However, there is a fine line between user-friendly and data-friendly. Email information is critical to the flow of my forum. It is the most efficient way to contact my members, whether it's for a forgotten username or password, or to verify that these are actually real people with only one account to each address. It's not a foolproof method to stop mailicious accounts, but it helps.

But having that email verification might be that step that stops a guest from making the conversion into a member. I hesitate to test whether removing the email verification improves member conversion because I don't want to have the bad data that will result.

So I'm wondering how you guys feel about email validation. Have you tried it with and without? How do you feel about captcha image verification? Is that just one more hoop people have to jump through? Of course there is a huge difference when a forum has already reached critical mass and these extra hoops won't have much of a negative impact. But what about when you were just starting out and looking forward to each additional member?

[rogerd]

Chadmg, in the startup phase, I'm pretty loose - I allow guest posting, i.e., no validation needed at all. When you are starting up, you aren't too likely to attract bot spammers, or even many human spammers.

Once you start to get busy, though, you'll have to add email verification to prevent spammers or troublemakers from dumping on your forum.

Email verification shouldn't be a big barrier from a user standpoint, although non-delivery is an increasingly important problem.

I don't see image verification as being any barrier at all. It keeps out the bots, but humans won't hesitate to type in a few characters.