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How does HN get away with not requiring users to verify with an email?
How does HN get away with not requiring users to verify their account with an email address? From what I understand, requiring users to verify accounts with an email address is to minimize the creation of spam accounts and reduce the likelihood of the user engaging in anti-social behavior. From what I can tell, HN never required me to use an email address when making an account. How are they able to avoid the above issues?
- Tomte 3y agoAnother aspect: HN doesn't send you emails. That's the big reason why everyone else needs the opt-in confirmation.
- KomoD 3y agoWhat even is the email used for on HN?
- buffington 3y agoJust a guess, but perhaps password resetting?
- rozenmd 3y agoModeration - both from dang and the community. If you're a pest, you'll be downvoted and folks won't be able to read your replies without highlighting the text.
- mkl 3y ago- Professional moderation: almost no forums have that to the same degree. - Aggressive automatic comment and account killing (if your first comment contains a link, it will probably be dead right away). - Downvotes, flagging, and vouching from established users only.
- dieselgate 3y agoI don't believe to have any email even associated with HN which is quite nice to be honest Edit: to elaborate on others it seems the site has a lot of "internal" or community based resistance to spammers. I would assume the rate limiting efforts help on a techincal level too but these are probably standard
- giantg2 3y ago"I don't believe to have any email even associated with HN" I tried that once, then very quickly forgot my password. Onto account number 2 lol
- dieselgate 3y agoYeah that's happened to me as well but is useful for throwaways
- ipaddr 3y agoSpammers have figured out how to create endless amounts email accounts. Verifying doesn't help. But it does confirm that a password reset would work and you provided a valid email for the site to send you emails. We are in the era of sms where a cell phone number is required.
- endisneigh 3y agoLow traffic and moderation.