You should make it so you have to have at least one verified run on the website to post on the forums to stop bots

But what if, as new runner, you want to introduce yourself in the "Introduction" thread, or ask something in the forums which is related to the first run you intend to do?
(Ask for advice, how to set up equipment, how to set up the game, etc)

You can't just lock people from discussions or asking questions.

Plus, you can easily circumvent this by submitting a "run", in one of the few leaderboards that allow to do it with:
- self-verification
- submitting a run without video
- submitting a run without video only up to a certain threshold, and then you will just submit a slower time than this threshold

good point

That would block half the Elo staff from posting in the forums.

So nothing would change?