Email verification or go right in? What do you do?

[BowlingBoards]

I am curious if you think it is best to make a member verify via email before they can post and such, or let them start right away without email verification?

For spam, I would think going right in is bad, or does it even make a difference? I keep getting people who say they did not get the email.

Just curious

Chris

[birdie]

I let them post straight away; BUT, have a whole range of other strategies in place to deal with the spam issue.

[Alfa1]

Not having email verification will get you a load of members with fake email. Your site sends out a mass of email to these fake email addresses. The major email providers will see this as spam and ban your site, as a spammer. This means that a large share of your legitimate members will not receive email anymore.

Email verification before registration is the only sensible solution IMHO. See vbulletin.org for a solution.