i had written a big ranting post about email sign up, how it annoys me/wastes time/stops me posting on a lot of sites. but.. i figure i'd just be wasting everyones time reading it.. and not achieve anything but making u think i was a nut.. so i'll keep it short.

since we now have image verification, to get rid of bots;

What is the point of email verification????

please ditch it unless you can find a good answer to the above.

To ensure that only people you want are entitled to join the forums. I run a forum that has limited membership and that cannot be read by non-members. Having an email exchange with folks who try to register is the only logical way to validate the credentials of new applicants. Being able to use a standard phpBB engine & functionality is really handy.

"To ensure that only people you want are entitled to join the forums."
well you can't really do that here...

"i run a forum that has limited membership and that cannot be read by non-members. Having an email exchange with folks who try to register is the only logical way to validate the credentials of new applicants."
well, it works if u have a whilelist of known email addresses, but this is not the case for SPCR.. anyone can sign up for infinite email accounts.. so what purpose does it serve here?

Hello,

I want to assure you that all the steps that one must go through to sign up on these forums, have been worked out over time, and all are required for smooth running forums.

If you want the sign up procedure to go back to simpler ways -- fine, if you can convince all Spammers everywhere that it is not in their best interest to use bots (actually I think it isn't!), then things can be easier and more convenient.

email was added when we didn't have image verification. so it definately served its purpose when it was put in.

email, compared to just image verification, would marginally inconvenience a spammer. the img verification will stop bots, so it will have to be a person. i'd guess that even the average person probably has 5 email addresses? by the time u get anywhere near sign ups then u'd have IP blocking, and if they are going to the trouble of masking their IP then surely the email step isn't going to stop them? (or, they would just go somewhere easier)
u could say if it stops me bothering signing up to some sites, maybe the same will be true of spammers.. but its not like you'd advertise it so i would doubt that