I have finally decided to allow new user registration once again, with new restrictions in place to hopefully keep spammers who slip through the existing safeguards from causing too much trouble.
The new restrictions are applied to the post-count based member group all new users are placed in when they first register, and are as follows:
- Cannot view other users' profiles
- Cannot send PMs
- Cannot post attachments
- Can view the image gallery, but not upload, rate, or comment on images
- Cannot post polls
- Cannot view the member list
In addition, as many of the spammers I've had the "pleasure" of dealing with during the past couple of months have chosen a user name that makes it appear as though they might be an admin here, I have disallowed any username that includes the words "admin" or "moderator" (and various other variations of those titles). Any such account that does slip through will be banned on sight (as I have been doing with all obvious malicious spammers).
I will be keeping an eye on the site, and will make further adjustments as needed. To clarify, these changes are not intended to inconvenience users, but rather to protect them. I have no intention of allowing this site to become overrun by spammers, as I've seen happen too many times before on other sites.
