i am not sure if this is the correct SE site to post this, but ill go on...So at the moment i force my users to activate their account upon registration if they want to sign in.I see some decent sites let their users sign in and use their features even their account is not activated and just show a message on top of the page letting them know that their account is not yet activated and that you need to activate it.So which practice is best? Should i stick with that i have or change it?
force users to activate account before using service?
users;web services;service
Personally I enforce activation as it discourages spammers and trolls (a little, but every little helps). There is a legal side benefit of an additional action being required to access the site - it can be argued that users 'identify themselves' in the process. This has proved beneficial on two occasions for me, once with a copyright claim by the Tolkien estate and once with an infringement claim over user posted content. In both cases the claimants argued that the content was available on the 'open web' or to anyone. This activation process helped me argue that the site was closed web (complete accident mind, but very helpful it turns out).