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Maybe I'm missing something. On Area51, I first logged in with my OpenID (gmail). Attempted to vote, but was told I needed to confirm my email. Then realised I could copy my profile from StackOverflow. And yet I still needed to confirm my email. So:

1) If I'm logging in with a gmail OpenId, surely my email address is already "confirmed". 2) If I'm using the same profile as on StackOverflow, again, surely my email address is already "confirmed".

And finally: the whole process of logging in with an OpenId, then subsequently discovering that you can, after all, use an existing profile from another StackExchange based site is very confusing to people like me - infrequent users of these sites. I suggest the GUI people try this out some time and see the awkward series of steps.

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  • Then to top it off, I had to answer a recaptcha too. Sorry for the rant but: 1) I logged in with OpenId, 2) I copied my profile over, 3) I confirmed my email address - and you're still not sure whether I'm a human being that can be trusted to ask a question. Srsly.
    – Steve Bennett
    Commented Sep 13, 2010 at 5:22
  • (Ok, so I see I'm not logged in on this site, even though in the next tab over I'm logged in on Area51. Wouldn't single single sign-on make life a lot easier...) I'll go away now.
    – Steve Bennett
    Commented Sep 13, 2010 at 5:24
  • you should be logged in. Not sure if Area 51 has the latest global auth code, though blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/global-network-auto-login
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Sep 13, 2010 at 5:41

1 Answer 1

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Area 51 has stricter requirements vis-a-vis confirming email, because we need to be sure the people voting for and supporting site proposals are actual people.

Otherwise, we might launch a site and nobody but sockpuppets would show up!

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  • sockpuppets.stackexchange.com - A Q&A site for professional sockpuppeteers to ask questions related to sockpuppetry.
    – Simon P Stevens
    Commented Sep 13, 2010 at 8:45
  • I guess that's reasonable, but the overall user experience is still very clunky. Also, if the rules are different for area51, a comment to that effect would be useful. Finally, if the OpenId you're logging in with is an email provider, does it still make sense to request email verification? Actually now that I think about it, isn't an OpenId just as good proof that you're an "actual person" as an email address is anyway? Creating email aliases is pretty easy...
    – Steve Bennett
    Commented Sep 17, 2010 at 6:59
  • @SimonPStevens Watch a puppetry proposal get subsumed into a more general one about theatrical performance.
    – Damian Yerrick
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 18:20

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