Why haven't signup confirmation emails died yet?
ashleyw: Don't require your users to activate immediately, give them a day to do it, and just don't give them access to anything a spammer would love to use - or limit how many times they can do it before they need to activate.And after they have submitted their details (which should only be critical information — seriously, nobody likes long forms.), don't send them to a dedicated "Thanks for registering" page, its a waste of time for them for them, just take them to the homepage or where ever the magic happens, and present a banner above the content thanking them and giving any info they may need.And overall, don't get too defensive on spammers; Lets face it, your not going to get much spam until your site is popular — so go easy and don't frustrate your users, and then tighten your defenses later down the line if required.Those are my post-signup "rules". I love working out how not to annoy users even slightly — sadly a lot of sites don't do it very well! :)