Everyone is always very welcome to disagree. But I'm not gonna endlessly argue the reasoning behind our decisions. Especially not after they have taken many hours to get implemented.
In the past years, Pinside has had an increasing problem with spammers abusing the locations and events sections. Scammers abusing the Marketplace. Unverified/new accounts trolling and spreading rumors (mostly in the popular manufacturers sub-forums). We have seen random (new) accounts claiming to be (ex-)employees from various manufacturers and spreading false rumors. People bumping and endorsing their own for sale threads with duplicate accounts. And we've had banned accounts come back under pseudonyms to continue posting as if nothing happened.
I thought about a solution long and hard. One that would not put off legit newcomers to the site. Ultimately it was decided to go for verification. In most cases, it's quick, free and painless. Unless you don't have Paypal (I'm very interested to hear your ideas for alternative verification means).
I have no problem with people who disagree with Pinside decisions. In fact, I welcome any alternative ideas to the solutions that the team and I come up with. In the case of verification, you had 2 months to come up with your alternative ideas to our problem. Now that the decision was made (and time invested in implementing it) it's a bit late to start complaining. Why not be constructive and come up with other means of verification?
As for the accusations that verification is just about making money. Uhm. Verification is free.
Hey, as with all things I launch, this is all "in beta". If it doesn't work like I hope it will, or if it has unwanted side-effects (e.g. fewer newbies signing up) then we will go back to the drawing board. Rethink. Adjust. But so far, verification has been working great in the Market / Map / Events sections. Let's hope it will work just as well for the forums.
From what I remember from last TPF, we shared quite a few laughs at the Pinside booth with you Mr. Beelzeboob. Please don't cry!