Unconfirmed Users - Confirm or Delete?

[rogerd]

These days, just about all software users an email confirmation step to prevent bogus registrations. But, with aggressive spam filtering at every level, not all of these get through. Some that do get to the user's inbox may still end up being ignored. This results in a buildup of users who are awaiting email verification.

One school of thought is to go ahead and verify them, otherwise they'll never figure out how to post. Another is to delete these users after some period of time to force them to re-register if they want to stay active. Most forum admins seem to do nothing at all, and let these build up over time.

Opinions?

[FourDegreez]

I delete them. If you confirm them days later, they likely have forgotten about you or wouldn't think to try to log in since they never saw the email.

I've automated the process so that they get a second email 14 days after the first if they have not logged in. The second email says they have another two weeks to log in or their account will be deleted.

[rogerd]

One thing I'm just starting to try now is a special welcome message - it detects members who are registered but not activated, and lets them know they need to activate in order to post. A link to sent a new confirmation email is included.

[Asia_Expat]

Delete them. If they can't be arsed to validate, they're not worth having as members.

[Oldiesmann]

Check your email to see if any activation messages bounced, and send out a reminder if possible (some forum systems have this option built-in, others don't). Other than that, just delete them if it's been a long time.

[onlineleben]

If possible, send a reminder, but nothing after that.
I do that once a month and have a successrate between 10 and 20 percent.
I tell them that I will delete their data 7 days after that reminder.