Of course, you might think "Oh, this is the way of the world, it's the age we live in, it's required for security, etc." Nothing could be further from the truth.
Requiring users to register on your site has never protected anyone from much, and given the low barrier of entry anyhow, all it does is take up time when you only want to do one thing. And why in the heck do they require that much information, anyway? What do they even do with it?!
So, effective now, you do not need an account to use these forums like a regular user. This is being done as a trial for now - if I like how it turns out, this may well stick forever.
You will need to make an account if any of the following become true, however:
- You are involved with a project hosted on DRD Team and need access to private forums
- You wish to send a private message
- You wish to protect your username (please make a post, too, so your account isn't pruned if you do that)
- You want your posts to appear instantly. Posts are entered into a queue to prevent spam until your registered account has reached at least one post to ensure you are not a spam bot.
- You need a user's contact information (info made public, such as email, IM, personal website, etc)
- You will still need to email verify your account - failure to do so will result in it being pruned, eventually
- You will need to make at least one post on your account in order to keep it. Accounts more than a year old with 0 posts are typically removed. Make at least 1 post on your account, and you're good.