If I would to open up registration to everybody without requiring users to verify per email .... what's the worst that could happen?

Admins, post your thoughts.

more spam :D

Spam! At least not automated, but spam nevertheless.

Severe amounts of spam posting.

And bots like google.
I hate them XD
edit: sorry saw not it was for admins

I don/t verify my accounts via email, and i don/t have any issues..

Ok, watch all the spammers so this post now.. :|

I don/t verify my accounts via email, and i don/t have any issues..

Ok, watch all the spammers so this post now.. :|
I guess it depends on the forum content?

Without any sort of verification, I don't doubt there would be a flood of spam. At least with image verification, maybe 2-3 bots get by, and only then I think it because a human did it and it wasn't automated.

I get the odd "Strange" member, but overall i am ok.

No-doubt though, is i had very active forums, i would have to turn on verification via email..

More Spam I would never prefer removing email verification.

This is something I've been tossing between with for a while now. I've found that turning off the email verification will promote activity (as they are able to post as soon as they've registered), while turning it on will often result in users completing forgetting about the forum.

Email verification is a good thing, you will not have loads of 0 posters. If you really would like users to post as quickly as possible you can just enable guest accounts. I find myself not wanting to register at every forum just because I want to insert a post or 2. But I can say that your forum will be spammed by (bots) users wanting to sell something.

Without the email verification you are ASKING for spam. alot of people would register on your forum just to advertise their own or post rude remarks.

There is no problem, I mean the only thing that could be a problem is Someone forgetting there password. I don't have it enabled and I do perfectly well not much spam but on the other hand my forum is still small only been open for a week with 150 members.

There is no problem, I mean the only thing that could be a problem is Someone forgetting there password. I don't have it enabled and I do perfectly well not much spam but on the other hand my forum is still small only been open for a week with 150 members.

Have you advertise your web site with yahoo/google and so on? this is where I believe you get all your Spam from.... I advertised with like 30 search engines and the next thing I knew I was getting Spam up the wazoo...

Yeah I tend to turn mine off because, well, usually when I go to a forum and it requires e-mail verification I just wont even go check it so I turn my off for the people who are lazy like me :)

yeah man.. spammers...

Good side = more members, but they are unlikely to post..
bad side = if they take a name an actually posting member would have taken, it might turn them away from registering in the future...

We began using the verification for email and there were a good bit of members who couldn't get our emails for some reason. So we turned it off and we haven't experienced any negative affects now for over 2 years.

But I agree that spam might be a downside.

MeToo :)

Guys, if spam is the issue, than get moderators. That is what they are for. I have a hard time believing it would be a sudden and RAPID amount, unless you have the most popular forum on the net.

I say go for it, Floris. You may wanna try to put it off until you've found the new mods, though.

Here's a case study for everybody. After your great feedback I've considered it back and forth with myself for a new site I started last September 2007.

I've decided to make registration as easy as possible. Users are required to be registered to post, but just need to enter a name, pass and email. And they can start posting.

This went on for a few months without a problem, and we had a spammer a day (like on any site). Once we noticed it was becoming more of a task for the staff to deal with and all that, we turned on another option to make it harder, and later (Jan 08) I have put on the normal setup, including image verification and email verification.

We still get spam, but during the 4 months it was kind of open (even with the site being new and all) it went pretty ok. Not as bad as I expected.

I expected to wake up with 10,000 msgs being in PM or Posts, etc. That did not occur.

I am actually considering to open up registration once in a while and close it when it increases again. Like .. throttling it.

I personally recommend the attempt. IF it goes horribly wrong, the worst that could happen is a day of spring cleaning and going back to the old routine.