unconfirmed users

**Lpspider** · 04-10-2008, 07:51 PM

Is it normal for 1/7th of an active forum's users to not have confirmed emails? This is the case for one of my forums. Did they not activate it, or is it likely they never even received the email confirmation? Moreover, these members span from registering one week ago to over a year - would it be okay to send them all an email asking them to confirm their accounts?

**vangogh** · 04-10-2008, 08:37 PM

I can't say from experience, but that does seem like a lot. Do the emails that haven't confirmed seem legit? Could they be people who were using fake email just to see your sign up process?

Some unconfirmed signups is to be expected. The percentage probably depends on how many members you do have. I can see the unconfirmed % being high if your forum doesn't have a lot of members yet, but if you have gained a significant membership then 1/7th sounds high to me.

**BamaStangGuy** · 04-10-2008, 08:46 PM

I don't like confirming members because my email server was less than great. Plus it's another step in the process of getting them posting. Lots of things go into someone not activating. If it takes too long to get the email they will just forget about it or if it gets caught in spam then they'll never see it.

**Lpspider** · 04-11-2008, 12:56 AM

vangogh - we're talking a few thousand here, about 3,600. So like 500/600 of them are not confirmed.

Bama - so you don't confirm at all?

**BamaStangGuy** · 04-11-2008, 01:08 AM

No. As soon as they are done registering they can post. I'm not worried about spam because 3.7 has Human Verification built into it.

My goal for this summer though is to add on to vBulletin in a way that will let me double opt in members to a newsletter. Existing members will have to edit their options the first time they login after I make the change and fill out a few profile fields, including whether to optin for the newsletter. This way I can make sure that members are well aware of what they are getting. The other profile fields will be specific to my sites topic.

**usearchme** · 04-11-2008, 03:47 PM

Hi there

I always confirm users email address, before i let them post, i think its pretty normal for a lot of people not to confirm, as most people who register with my forums dont post.

So 1 7th sounds about right to me if im honest, I think some of the problems with these confirmation emails is that some of them get lost in spam folders, so u might want to put this as a note on ur forums, telling htem to check their spam folders if u havent done so already !

Woc

**neener** · 04-13-2008, 01:07 AM

On my old forum, i had about 1/8 who were unconfirmed, so i guess yours is about the same. :] I think it's just that these people never bothered to confirm themselves, because i have that problem myself.

It could be your spam folder, but that wasn't the case with my old forum.

**vangogh** · 04-13-2008, 03:45 PM

Sounds like your percentage of unconfirmed users is fairly standard given what everyone else is saying. Maybe you could rewrite the confirmation email that gets sent out and test to see if you can improve on how many people do confirm.

**Moelman** · 04-13-2008, 06:54 PM

I don't use email confirmation, like Brent said its just another step users have to take before they can post and I'd rather not have any reason to send a user away once they get to my site. I'd rather deal with a bit of extra spam but the new verification system in vb will stop most of that.

**vangogh** · 04-14-2008, 06:16 PM

There is a negative to not using email confirmation. Anyone could sign up anyone on your forums and you might be inadvertently sending them spam every now and then.

Even if it means an extra step and losing some people I think the double opt in is worth it.

**Feydakin** · 04-14-2008, 10:54 PM

I avg about the same unconfirmed.. But the amount of spam the registration stops is significant to me.. At least in the jewelry market the spam is staggering..

I go through about once a month and purge them.. I should probably figure out a way to repush them, but when I look there are so many .ru emails that I can't see the point in bothering.. I should just block .ru from the server entirely and be done with them..

**Cryxellis** · 04-22-2008, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lpspider

Is it normal for 1/7th of an active forum's users to not have confirmed emails? This is the case for one of my forums. Did they not activate it, or is it likely they never even received the email confirmation? Moreover, these members span from registering one week ago to over a year - would it be okay to send them all an email asking them to confirm their accounts?

I never experience such situation before. All of the forums I have sign up give me a confirmation mail. This is to avoid spammers.