Sands and I hadn't been paying much attention to this place in the last while, and the spambot problem was getting kind of bad. So, a couple of things.
- I've added stricter registration requirements - in particular, you need to verify emails. Sorry, it's not fun, but it helps.
- I've cleaned up a lot of spambot posting on the forum. They should be all gone. In many cases I bypassed the usual 'move to deleted posts' procedure and deleted things directly; it's just much faster that way.
- I've deactivated (i.e., they will need email activation) accounts in a large time range. If you're a human and you're being told you need to activate your account, that'll be it. Again it's actually just a lot easier to do than banning bots outright.
I'm hoping that these things will keep things a bit cleaner for a while. With that said, I'm not really going to be paying a whole lot more attention than before. If you're interested, I'm sure Sands and I would be amenable to a few people who actually use this place to become moderators and keep things tidy themselves. In the meantime, the best way to reach me on this forum is on IRC - I'm on Rizon, with (currently) the nick nyaffles. You can PM me but I never really check those.