In order to differentiate between real users and spam bots, but allowing comments to still be posted right away, FastComments introduces the concept of Unverified Comments.

When a verified user is logged in, or when using SSO, comments and votes are marked as verified right away.

Unverified comments will display with a small "Unverified comment:" tag, and appear slightly faded out.

This can all be customized, see our customization guide.

Unverified comments can be configured to be expired, see our Moderation Settings documentation.

Anonymous comments are always unverified - since the user did not leave an email that could be used for verification.

Allowing Anonymous Commenting does not remove the Unverified label, however this can be removed with styling or configuration.

If anonymous commenting is allowed, unverified votes are applied right away like any other vote.

However, if anonymous commenting is not allowed, unverified votes will remain in limbo until verified - they will not be applied to the comment or shown in any way.

When a user leaves a comment, or vote, and they are not logged in, or their account is unverified, they will receive an email asking them to verify this action.

However, we do our best not to spam your users with emails, and won't send more than one verification email per session. See the Sessions section for more details.

By default, the comment verification emails look like the following:

Comment Verification Email

By default, the vote verification emails look like the following:

Vote Verification Email

By default, FastComments will show its logo and name in the footer of these emails:

Email Footer

If you are on the Flex or Pro tiers, The from name, email, and branding can be customized.

FastComments implements a unique solution to user verification to reduce the number of emails sent to your users we call Verification Sessions.

If a new user leaves ten comments and votes twice on the same page, in the same browser window, there is no need to send them a dozen confirmation emails.

Instead, FastComments will only send one verification email in this scenario.

This does not require cookies.

If the browser window is closed, or the user navigates away, that is considered the end of the verification session.

As soon as comments and votes are verified, no matter the mechanism, the update is immediately published live.

If it's a comment that is verified, and it is already approved, the "Unverified comment" label will be removed for all users viewing that comment thread.

Similarly, if a pending vote is verified, the affected comment's karma will automatically be updated live.