The good news is that sueetie.com continues to see new member registration at a healthy clip. The not-so-good news is that some of these accounts look bogus to me. Maybe they’re authentic, I don’t know, but I hate the idea that the accounts of spammer buttwipes are residing in my precious sueetie.com database.
I also want to implement a more robust bulk email communications service in Sueetie, so valid email addresses are important. And besides, in any community authenticity is important. If you can’t be trusted enough to use a valid email address, then you can’t be trusted in the community. It would be like living next to someone who for the last two years told you his name was Frank Warner when it was actually Harry Holtzapple. You just couldn’t trust that guy.
So I’m implementing Email Verification at Sueetie.com, one of the new Sueetie Registration options. New registrants will now receive an email with a link back to an Activation page where their email is verified and they can login. I added a message to the registration page so people would know what to expect.
A message appears in response to completing the registration form informing them that an email is coming their way. It’s important that the email is sent instantly and not queued. This is what the instant email looks like.
I thought about the importance of branding in the email and that it should look good, but given other Sueetie priorities I'm going with barebones functionality here. The complete lack of style will serve as the function's style.
I'll let you know how the email addresses of new registrants compares to pre-email verified registrants. In particular, I wonder if we'll continue to see so many mail.ru emails? If we do, we can only conclude that Sueetie is really big in Russia.
One final change to Sueetie registration which will be available in Gummy Bear 1.2 is the addition of Hidden Captcha to the Site Registration form. I implemented BlogEngine.NET's rock solid hidden captcha for the registration form. Thanks guys. It has been 100% effective on my blog and contact form, so we're going with a winner. Gummy Bear 1.2+ users will be safeguarded against machine-generated accounts, one of the big community problems I've seen with certain other applications.
I implemented Email Verification here at dbvt.com, too. That could be a good thing, since I'm sure most of you already have a Sueetie account and it’s too late for you to get in on the verification action. If, however, you want to experience Sueetie Email Verification live, you can create an account here at dbvt.com! hee-hee.