I am thinking about turning email activation on my forum and personally I can't see a problem with it because people don't know that it is email activation until the last step. Because of this you are more likely to get more interested and honest people on your forum. And I really can't see why it is a problem for you because as I type there are 712 people on the forum!!! Only jokin! Have a great christmas!!!!!!

Email activation ... nice animal

I have it disabled in most cases. It makes people lose less time to join the communities. But then again, my forums are small, so I can handle the 2-3 spammers I get from time to time.

I have used email activation (and even admin activation), after having some issues with a person I banned. After he constantly created new accounts and was banned I just put admin validation. Whenever I "sensed" it was him, I'd refuse. He finally gave up so I quit using the validation once again ...

no

In a small forum I would have it disabled.

Once you build up a base of members that posts say 50-75 posts a day I would enable it to avoid spammer, troublemakers, ect.

Well we had email activation turned off went on well for quite a while then started getting spammers so turned it on, was ok for a couple of months then more spammers started joining so eventually we had to activate admin validation of new users which slows down the process but IMO its worth it.

After running the site without e-mail activation for few months, I am slowly pondering turning it back on.

Two main reasons:
- I would like clean e-mail addresses to keep in touch with registered members.
- It deters spammy posts.

Aside from what you just mentioned, as your site grows, you will really want to have a nice quote-unquote "clean" mailing list. A good, targeted opt-in mailing list is amazing to monetize.

That is the main reason I have the verify in place and on. Since starting my newsletter I want the list to be clean. So far so good!

Peace,

DJ Bill

I have joined many a forum, and the only annoying thing about them is the email confirmation. I too have tested whether of not disabling the email activation inreases conversion rate, and it did significantly. It's not like you can't still ask for a new members email address upon registration, you just won't be sure if it's legit.