Pros and cons of not confirming new users emails.

Question

I have noticed decreased engagement and new user registration  since we've added email validation to our signup process on www.yoanswers.co.zw. what are the pros and cons of not having users confirm their email IDs?


I asked this before, and some very wise techies here like somerset pointed out amongst other facts like anti spam and password recovery when users forget their credentials.

so am i right to assume that if a user registers n my site, then they dont confirm their email, and suppose they come back later on and they cant remember their password, does this mean they wont be able to receive the password reset link because they didn't confirm their email addresses?  take it this way, If a user is just trying out your web service and doesn't yet know if this is something they want to commit to, then having this email confirmation may be too much of a barrier to entry for them to continue?

so like may people are lazy to complete the two step sign up process , verification and so on, but if they get hoked to the site, if they see its valuabe isnt it more likely that they will want to confirm?

Answer 1

This is according to my on experience and feel. The major hassle in email verification is the mobile phone you are using.

Imagine most people use there mobiles for everyday internet. Depending on the screen size, it may or may not encourage one to use services like emails. Most pple in Zim have basic mobiles which dont encourage internet exploration.

l use to have a nokia n8, and l didnt used to do much. Some stuff, like email verification l had to wait until l get home to a PC. l used to spent a lot time more on my PC than phone when doing things which required internet
Bt it have changed now that l have a Note II, l spent more time on my phablet phone than my PC, l even bought a spare battery and charger.

l now do online banking, ebay, amazon, online shopping, reading etc all from my phablet and my PC can go for days without being switched on.

Just a side note: l been to that site of yours and l didnt see the need to be bothered with registering. The site have a bag of mixed ideas. One thing l detest is reading about bedroom sex stories in the same lines with tech questions.

Comments

Macdonald, i respect you very much, both as a tech guru and as my elder(am 23, am not sure how old you are, but i guess you are my elder, so ethics, dictate i respect you.)

Numerous times u have shared invaluable answers to me and the rest of the techzim community, however i have to say that much as i respect and love being guided by your counsel. i fear that on the subject of my site being a mixed bag you are wrong. Allow me to educate you as to why i think you are lost on this one.!!!

first of all, allow me to say very few people are as educated and as tech as you are, i would say 80%, and , and this is a very big AND, i am targeting those people. I need  that 80% on my site and thats how they like things. I am young and a novice, but i have considerable exerience in socia media marketing, i run a lot of facebook pages, with over 50 000 Zimbabweans and i can quite assure you that people love this mixed bag approach check my page www.facebook.com/kwayeedza or the most popular page on facebook called kuzeya, they all do bedroom stuff, and lemme reiterate that bedroom and sex sells, being a nerd/geek ou may not be interested in such things of the bedroom, but many people are, and i can easily substantiate this, first, sex and relationshippages arehot on facebook, secondly though my site is only two weeks old, sex and relationship questions have the highest views.

My site was inspired by techzim, then i headed over to question2answer and i was even more inspired. However its not all similar to techzim(apart from the design since we are using more or less the same theme)

yoanswers is a knowledge exchange on all aspects of life, relationships, sex, tech, food, shopping and so on.
so it would be either ignorance or sheer mischief to think they are the same think of yoanswers in yahoo answers perspective not techzim

having said that, i appreciate your constructive criticism.
Much as it hurts not having my favourite gurus, (you and somerset(somerset visited only once and did a hell lot of work answering about ten questions and never showed up again, guess he was disgusted by the bedroom stories too..)) i have been extremely luck in that a lot of my geek friends have joined and they share nearly the same wisdom that you guys dish out here, however your abscense can be felt and i sincerely hope that one day sufficient intrest shall arise in you to join it. If that doesnt happen well, its life and seems my friends are learning very fast and very soon we will have our own macdonalds and somerset on YoAnswers, infact, i think we already have, just that they dont use the same names...lol/....anways i am super-happy, that in the two weeks i have launched the site it already got 700 users, so in like 2 months its likely to be over 5000 and by year end i want it to be the biggest site in zim. yes i can and i will. I hope you share the same happiness with me and that you wish me all the best after all you are kinda my role model in tech.
we need you blessings...

once again sorry for the essay.

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lm very happy that you have an idea and you stick to it! Bt to me it looks like you are more concerned with quantity.

My bad, the site l visited a while back is totally different from what l saw today and l can confirm that you register it on 23 last month. But the content is still the same.

Bt thanks for improving the colour theme, that blue on older version made my phone screen look urgly.

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thanx macd, i really appreciate...so what do you think i should do.....what sort of advice would you give to a young man...to a brother who still has milk on the nose(literal transalation for mukaka pamhino...lol) i would appreciate advice which could help me make the best out of that site...do u think i shld like filter and not allow some questions?

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Most of the websites l have seen reflects the passion of the owner, it is what drive most to success. You need to identify the space you need to save and focus on achieving that goal.

As your website becomes more popular, you will eventually start filtering. And if there ar more people to filter or even block, you will realise that you might need to delegate admin duties to trusted pple who can help your site retain status goals.

You also need to know your limits and work to correct it even if it means taking more lessons to increase your knowledge.

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thanx macd, realy appreaciate it....