I've taken these steps:
- Increased the registration captcha difficulty slightly (the visual "word puzzle" that needs to be entered to confirm you're a human)
- Added another anti-spam question to the registration process
- Modified the board program code slightly so an incorrect answer to the question will lock out the registration after 5 tries
If you're trying to register (or know someone who is) and having trouble, have them contact a 1/50th Board member and we'll set it up. Hopefully the registration process isn't too difficult for human beings.
It was just a matter of time before smarter bots were created. Hopefully these changes will keep back the horde for awhile.
We're a couple updated behind on the board software too. The upgrade has even better spam protection, but I'm too busy this month to do a board upgrade. Actually, I do have time, but if something blew up, I wouldn't have time to fix it
. I'll probably try the upgrade in February and will keep you all posted.