Around the middle of last year I suspended the normal method of registering as a member of the forum. I did this because we were being inundated by bogus registrations from "spambots". After several months, I tried restoring the registration screen, but the same problem re-appeared almost immediately.
During this time, people have been able to join the forum by sending me an email. While several new forumites have joined in this way, the rate of new membership has been well short of what it was previously.
So I have opened up the registration screen again, but with a new question:
What types of word games do you like most? (This question is to assist in detecting spam operations, so please give a meaningful answer, but only a sentence or so is needed):
Completion of the registration is now dependant on my approval, and I will have a quick look at an applicant's answer to this question, to see if it seems to have been written by a real person. If you're reading this and you're thinking of joining, please do! We don't have any wish to exclude anyone with a genuine interest in participating - you just need to write something vaguely coherent.
Hopefully the new approach will filter out the spam, without discouraging anyone interested in the forum. If anyone has any trouble with the process, please drop me an email about it.
