Hi Brandon,
Please keep in mind that the "identity confirmation" is only used to prevent users from creating multiple accounts and thus cheating the other members of the site and the site itself. A user can still debate without confirming their identity, they just cannot vote. Debate.com does not use your cell phone number to send spam, we don't sell it, we don't send you anything but a confirmation code. If e-mail verification worked perfectly we would have stuck with that, but you likely saw what it did on Version 2.0. Users were creating upwards of 10-20 accounts in some cases.
My response...
I'm supposed to trust you? Why? You obviously don't trust me. How about you give me your cell number. I promise I won't sell it. It's against my policy. Is that reassuring? Of course not. Everyone has their price. Once your database gets large enough someone will make an offer on it, or better yet perhaps someone will steal it. There are countless reasons not to do what you do, and only a handful to do it.
If you knew they were creating false accounts then why not delete them? Whatever mechanism you used to spot them could be used to prevent them from registering.
Forums have been dealing with false identities for years. And you'd be able to avail yourself of their creativity if you'd take your page non-profit open source.
Some of the countless available solutions are as follows. Rating systems. Only users with so many posts are allowed to vote. Or here's another, maybe a user has to be rated by so many other users before they can vote, or maybe only one ID per IP. Or an artful combination. Or two voting sections, one for anonymous, one for "verified", and let the viewer decide which is more "accurate." Or something completely different.
The positions expressed in my debate stand. You say I can debate but I can't vote, how aburd(snicker).
Why bother talking when I don't have a say?
P.S. As at least one other has noted. It's no surprise that I'm "losing" my debate. Those who agree with me would not have registered in the first place, and those who can vote clearly think the invasion is tolerable. It's a miracle I got a vote at all. Each one of my votes represent a disgruntled user. Someone who didn't appreciate being asked to empty their pockets into a tray.
