Hi Folks,

You might recall that before launching the Forums, I had considered making it a requirement that you have a verified pic in order to be able to post. The idea was to add yet another incentive for people to get verified, while helping to keep the Forums clean from spammers. In the end, I decided against making it a requirement at launch because I felt that sparking up a Forum was already difficult enough as it was without adding hurdles. However, I feel that the Forums have now gotten big enough that they have a life of their own that carries them forward, so it is time to re-visit this issue.

Here are the Pros and Cons of requiring a Verified Pic:

Pros:

• No more fake profiles creating fake friendships.
• Higher quality threads and posts (e.g. less "hit me up" threads) since getting verified means -- in general -- you are a more serious (less casual) dater.
• More verified users on the site since access to the Forums will incentivize it.
• Less trolls since they won't be able to hide behind the veil of anonymity.
• Permanently Banned users will have a very hard time posting again since we'll be able to quickly and easily see it's them again with their new verified pic (assuming we don't catch and ban them during the verification process).

Cons:

• Less threads, posts, and overall activity in the Forums since a smaller % of users will have access to participate (this is a big one to consider).
• Some users don't have a camera phone and won't be able to use the Forums as a result, which won't exactly be fair to them.
• New users won't be able to immediately post and introduce themselves in the first 24 hours, and they could leave and never come back to the site before they even had a chance to get hooked on the Forums.

To be clear, all users would still be able to READ the Forums. This restriction would merely apply to creating Threads, replying to Posts, and voting in Polls.

So I see more Pros than Cons, but the first Con is pretty big since a Forum with less activity always has the risk of fizzling out. Keep in mind that several of you have pointed out that these Forums are already friendlier and "better" than Forums on other sites, so anything that changes the chemistry of the Forums has a risk of changing things drastically and having unforeseen consequences. So keep all that in mind before you vote.

I should also add that upcoming Premium users would never face any requirements since they will be paying for a service, so this restriction would not apply to them. I don't think that would be an issue, though, because almost by definition, a paying user is a more serious dater and has less anonymity (with our without pic) compared to a completely free user.


Anyway, I've created a poll for this and will do whatever you guys vote for. Feel free to discuss (and even add to) the Pros and Cons here before voting.


P.S. I should have clarified that this would NOT affect the Feedback section for obvious reasons.