Suggestion: Make it just a little more difficult to create a new account.

[sandy-is-fine]

One can create 30 accounts here in probably 5 minutes or less.  There isn't even an email confirmation needed to create an account so one can just put in a random anything.  At least confirm someone's registration email actually exists. I think that will help avoid a lot of junk users.  Def not foolproof but way better than not even confirming an email one uses even if it's a "throwaway" email.

[Little Mouse]

I do not know what is the purpose of allowing any email which may not exist in registration process but it may be one of the reason of allowing anonymous details.
But if the registration process get difficult, I think we would loss potential user too. There is nothing wrong with having a lot of junk account, they are treated as per. But for getting rid of them, why would we make the process harder for the potential users?

[Upgrade00]

I do not know what is the purpose of allowing any email which may not exist in registration process but it may be one of the reason of allowing anonymous details.

Using an email address which you think does not exist to register your account is risky, it's usually better to create a random email address for your account if you want it to stay anonymous.

One can create 30 accounts here in probably 5 minutes or less.

Creating 30 accounts is not against the forum rules per se. The forum is designed to be as free as possible and welcoming to new members. Such junk accounts would likely get nuked eventually.

[Steamtyme]

But if the registration process get difficult, I think we would loss potential user too.

If performing the simple task of verifying your registration email is to difficult for someone they are going to have a real hard time getting involved in crypto or anything in life for that matter. Sandy's point is valid, considering the only people this would really affect are people creating multiple low level accounts for spamming, or posting malware links.
You can see it from time to time when a massive number of old threads you've commented in get bumped by some random post with a business link is spouting the same garbage, or multiple accounts at the same time.

[suchmoon]

If performing the simple task of verifying your registration email is to difficult for someone they are going to have a real hard time getting involved in crypto or anything in life for that matter. Sandy's point is valid, considering the only people this would really affect are people creating multiple low level accounts for spamming, or posting malware links.

But would e-mail verification really stop them? Even if the forum started requiring a unique e-mail address for each account - creating an e-mail address requires less effort than passing the captcha. Just add "+" to gmail.

Probably not worth it considering potential downsides. For example legitimate users getting their verification e-mails lost in spam filters. Or subverting the confirmations to email-bomb someone.

[YOSHIE]

email: not, prevent one person from creating an account at once in one day 30-40 accounts directly in this forum, gmail: provided on google for free.
Nobody knows how much Gmail you have right now, for sure.

If, the Forum creates rules and limits new accounts to one person for example: one person can use 1-3 accounts, which are officially owned by each member in this forum, by complying with all applicable rules, does not violate the existing rules in accordance with the wishes of the forum, maybe, this method can be done through a valid data process (KYC), but not sure, kyc can be applied by the admin in this forum.

Logically, kyc can limit anything, for anyone who wants to register anywhere, forum, bank, crypto market, crypto exchange etc.

Besides Kyc, Gmail: can not be limited for someone to do 'action' even though it must be confirmed and verified.

[TheBeardedBaby]

It's simple, there is no email confirmation just to keep a higher level of anonymity. No strings attached.
This was the real Satoshi vision (not referring to the scammy shitcoin here) - freedom and anonymity!
And theymos is following this vision greatly, except for the ClouldFlare drawback but there he has no other option to protect the forum from DDoS attacks.

[hilariousetc]

I think it is far too easy for bots and spammers to create accounts here en masse, but bots and spammers could just as easily create email accounts en masse too, so it probably won't really do much apart from give them another hoop to jump through. It may deter some but not the worse offenders.

It's simple, there is no email confirmation just to keep a higher level of anonymity. No strings attached.
This was the real Satoshi vision (not referring to the scammy shitcoin here) - freedom and anonymity!
And theymos is following this vision greatly, except for the ClouldFlare drawback but there he has no other option to protect the forum from DDoS attacks.

Is that the actual reasoning behind why we don't have it though? I don't think I've seen theymos (or satoshi) mention that.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Is that the actual reasoning behind why we don't have it though? I don't think I've seen theymos (or satoshi) mention that.

I don't see that mentioned either but that's the impression I get after reading some of the comments:
Reading that > https://bitcointalk.org/first_topics/4.pdf
gives me an impression that the email confirmation is only useful to prevent from spam but satoshi had a better option so the email verification was unnecessary.

Here it confirms it too>

Email verification is useless. Anyone with access to a domain name can receive an unlimited number of verifications until that service is blocked, and then they can move on to another domain name.

IP blocking works alright if you spend a lot of time building proxy blocklists, but SMF doesn't have the tools to do it properly.

So all is about freedom and anonymity, isn't it?

I've read before some other comments as well, i'll dig more when I have time.

Looking for this post?

Yes, IIRC there were a few places where anonymity was disscused. This was one of them.

[LoyceV]

I've read before some other comments as well, i'll dig more when I have time.

Looking for this post?

The things on the forum which encourage spam are allowed mainly because it's part of the forum's mission to be as free as possible. Eg. banning bounties would undoubtedly reduce spam, but that'd be destroying an entire economy/population/culture which has been able to develop due to the forum's freedom. I am willing to take this sort of action, but only as an absolute last resort. It's always preferable to handle these problems by reshaping the environment to make them non-problems, rather than removing some freedom.

It's wonderful when someone is able to constructively do something on the forum instead of continuing with whatever they were expected to do under the status quo. Enabling that sort of thing is exactly why Bitcoin and this forum were created. Though bitcointalk.org is not a worldwide welfare organization, and people are not entitled to make money.

Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community. Newbie jail will never return: I consider the newbie-jail period to have been extremely damaging to the forum. When barriers to participation are too high, then the best people often just won't go to the trouble of joining, and the people who are willing to jump through the hoops are often people who aren't good for the community: people with nothing better to do, scammers, get-rick-quickers, etc. Having a permanent newbie jail policy would improve things a lot in the short-term, but would end up being a fatal poison to the community.

The low signal-to-noise is a real issue which seriously annoys me and is often on my mind. But as you mention, fixing it non-destructively is difficult.

[shield132]

There is no way to prevent spammers from registering, believe me, it will only make situation uncomfortable for those who really need to become a member of bitcointalk. There are a lot of email services that allow you to easily create a lot of email accounts. Well, even nothing to talk about that, if someone wants, he/she can buy very cheap domain and cheap hosting for 1-2$ month and get unlimited email accounts on particular domain.

Have you an example of any famous forum where they made registration hard and prevented spammers?

The one thing that you suggested is included here, so I guess Theymos would have a look on it: https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Spam_-_my_forum_is_flooded_with_spam,_what_can_I_do

The restrictions that may work at some point are: 1 account per IP, using list proxy/vpn adresses. But again, that's uncomfortable and against privacy.

So, everything will be left the way it was before.

[Casdinyard]

One can create 30 accounts here in probably 5 minutes or less.  There isn't even an email confirmation needed to create an account so one can just put in a random anything.  At least confirm someone's registration email actually exists. I think that will help avoid a lot of junk users.  Def not foolproof but way better than not even confirming an email one uses even if it's a "throwaway" email.

As most have agreed, email verification isn't that a difficulty but rather a bit of a hard work for theymos and the forum's administration. Even if they make new accounts, what could they do to it? If there are a lot of spammers why not instead report them rather than making a suggestion that would do good only for nothing. If you really wanted to make a one account - one person policy, KYC is the best way to do it. Also, IP addresses can be detected hence once a user made accounts for that 5 mins, I don't think his accounts would even last a second after the management notices such suspicious activities.

But then avoiding junk users isn't the forum's responsibility alone, but rather our (users) choice as well if we would give an attention to those junk users or just rather let them play their own games.

[sandy-is-fine]

If performing the simple task of verifying your registration email is to difficult for someone they are going to have a real hard time getting involved in crypto or anything in life for that matter. Sandy's point is valid, considering the only people this would really affect are people creating multiple low level accounts for spamming, or posting malware links.

But would e-mail verification really stop them? Even if the forum started requiring a unique e-mail address for each account - creating an e-mail address requires less effort than passing the captcha. Just add "+" to gmail.

Probably not worth it considering potential downsides. For example legitimate users getting their verification e-mails lost in spam filters. Or subverting the confirmations to email-bomb someone.

 Definitely would not STOP them but would slow them down. Even easy to generate random emails like protonmail would at least make them have to go through a few "inconvenient" time wasting steps to verify.  If 100% anonymity is what the goal is why even bother requiring registration of a username?  Just come on in, make a post and add a name as you go. Virtually 99% of websites require some sort of confirmation on signup even the ones whose sole purpose is nefarious.  Sure, it's easy to fake it but it makes one more inconvenient step.

[iamsheikhadil]

Nah, verifying email simply means it's gonna be attached to your identity and hence would kill the privacy you might want to have! Hence in my opinion, its a big no to this suggestion!

[actmyname]

Any solution which impacts everyone in order to stop a few people probably needs some more work. Need to stop trying to implement regulations and rules, assuming that the target cannot adapt to them. It's not something that only happens once and is then something mass account creators can't learn to circumvent.

Surface-level patches don't fix the root problem.

[PrimeNumber7]

One can create 30 accounts here in probably 5 minutes or less. 

The captcha will probably prevent this many accounts from being created that quickly, especially if you include the time required to login for the first tine.

A solution to many junk/spam accounts might be to require a captcha for some of the first x posts at random unless the account is whitelisted.

I am also not sure what type of accounts you are concerned about. If someone is creating boatloads of accounts to farm/spam low quality posts with, they would still need to wait 6 minutes between posts initially.

[notblox1]

Making new account harder to create will only scare genuine new people, and it will not stop scammers and spammers.
Even now lot of people report that they can't create account until they pay evil fee, as they probable use shared IP address.
But adding some sign up quiz random questions can maybe slow spammers down

[sandy-is-fine]

The captcha will probably prevent this many accounts from being created that quickly, especially if you include the time required to login for the first tine.

A solution to many junk/spam accounts might be to require a captcha for some of the first x posts at random unless the account is whitelisted.

I am also not sure what type of accounts you are concerned about. If someone is creating boatloads of accounts to farm/spam low quality posts with, they would still need to wait 6 minutes between posts initially.

I created 2 accounts in less than 20 seconds and was never asked for a captcha.  I was asked AFTER they were created when I logged back in from another device

Making new account harder to create will only scare genuine new people, and it will not stop scammers and spammers.
Even now lot of people report that they can't create account until they pay evil fee, as they probable use shared IP address.
But adding some sign up quiz random questions can maybe slow spammers down

THAT would be just as good a feature.

Any solution which impacts everyone in order to stop a few people probably needs some more work. Need to stop trying to implement regulations and rules, assuming that the target cannot adapt to them. It's not something that only happens once and is then something mass account creators can't learn to circumvent.

Surface-level patches don't fix the root problem.

Well, it wouldn't affect EVERYONE just those creating a lot of accounts at once. For the "real" new user it would take an extra 30 seconds to go to their email and click on a link. 99.9% of all websites do it so it probably isn't too much inconvenience for those people since they would only do it once. Of course it could be circumvented but that would take even more work. I'm pretty sure software like this would have a simple switch to turn the feature off or on already built in so it would require zero effort to enable it if it was wanted..

[Stedsm]

Nah, verifying email simply means it's gonna be attached to your identity and hence would kill the privacy you might want to have! Hence in my opinion, its a big no to this suggestion!

Lolz, how can it be "attached to your identity", dude? Are you doing a KYC check here? Be it this forum or the email itself, you can create both for free without even giving your real phone number (go buy a virtual number for verification dude). And I ROFL'd hard when you said that this would kill the privacy we want to have. Wow, so you've got anything better than this to stop those new (but fake) registrations that are just coming here with the sole purpose of making money or scamming? Don't tell me you'd rather ask for a KYC 

[actmyname]

Well, it wouldn't affect EVERYONE just those creating a lot of accounts at once. For the "real" new user it would take an extra 30 seconds to go to their email and click on a link. 99.9% of all websites do it so it probably isn't too much inconvenience for those people since they would only do it once.

You will have the arbitrary number of "lots of accounts being made" in your implementation. The use of mass email creation has been around for years and that will not change any time soon: you essentially make it slightly trickier for account spammers.

What does it prove? What is the intent of the email verification, and how does it resolve the problem? Or does it just merely shift the issue to a different problem?