Reject Convenience Forum

I don't understand why an email is required for registration, is it due to the tech used to create the forum? or is it a deliberate choice?
The former i understand, but for the latter i really cant think of a reason why an email would be needed other than trying to mitigate bot accounts and the like, But even then a stricter verification or more manual process would be better. I mean this is a pretty niche forum so i doubt the need to automate the verification process using email is that necessary.

i just personally don't like giving out my email to every single site. i mean i am using an alias but still.

That email address will be used for password recovery if you were to forget/lose it. I believe it is due to the forum software and not a deliberate choice.

What would stricter or manual verification even look like?

It's bot prevention, as well as for the "forgot password" function. There have been several bots skirted from what I can see on the back end, which is nice. If someone can come up with a solution that doesn't require this, I'm open to it, but I also encourage folks to use email aliases in general, which really should squash any qualms for personal information.

I don't want to do the manual verification because I do want people to be able to join in an easy way. I think the balance is fair, and I express how this information is used on the home page's privacy policy: https://rejectconvenience.com