I wanted to reply to the first topic, but it was locked for some mysterious reason..

how about this for an idea??

In the sticky topic "READ ME FIRST--Registering for the New Interchange"
add something about this spam concern, and say something like:

"If you want to register for this forum, put the following in your subject line:

RYPN - I would like to join

then tell us why, etc etc..

then the mods can simply sort email by subject, DELETE anything and everything that does not have that subject line, then deal with the one out of 300 legit requests.

Spammers will never, ever, actually read the forum to see how to join..its all automated, so no spammer will ever have the correct "code" in the subject line..

If somehow the code was cracked, it could just be changed:

ABCD-RYPN-please sign me up

or whatever..

I think something as simple as this could help the mods sort the real people from the spammers..

Scot