I just signed up this evening, and was given the option of signing up through Facebook or Reddit. There was mention of an SMS verification option coming soon, and I could ask to be alerted when it was available if I didn't want to use Facebook or Reddit. There was no option to sign up without using one of these methods of verification. Is this a new feature with signing up? Since I'm new to the community, I didn't know about it, or about verifying your identity in posts. Therefore, this post and the comments on it are all useful to me as a new member.