Good morning Wendi Turner.
Firstly, I want to point out that regardless of the reasoning, we should be able to disable this requirement. I was forced to modify code that I should not have to modify to achieve the same result requested by Wendi.
Avoid spam and unwanted accounts is simple
Use a global sign-up key. The global sign-up key can be displayed on your website, facebook, or anywhere it is easy for regular students to find it. Spam sign-ups are almost entirely robots, some of which can easily detect recaptcha.
http://gyazo.com/5a3a4ab63262daa872b4a3d1c6996da7
- if the student does not know the Global Key they cannot register
- the global key may be updated as often as you want
This is one way I've completely removed spam from my Moodle deployments.
In the end, email confirmation, should not be a forced requirement. Many of us have found this extremely frustrating over the past few months.