I've also had to change the question on the actual registration form from "What sport is this?" to "What's the most common shoe for footbag freestyle?" It seems that spammers get actual people to go in and figure out the answers and then add them to their scripts since the first question stopped being effective after a couple of weeks at most. Honestly, I've just been ignoring new user applications for the past couple of weeks (yikes!), because I can't keep vetting dozens of email day. If I've neglected to ask for help in doing this, let me rectify this now: PLEASE SOMEONE ELSE BECOME AN ACTIVE ADMIN AND HELP ME! Now that I've changed the question, the torrent has stopped again, but it's only a matter of time before they crack this answer and it starts again.WE'RE CURRENTLY ON LOCK-DOWN BECAUSE OF SPAMMERS!
For the time being, if you want an account on modified.in, you need to continue with this application normally; once you've submitted the form, you then need to separately send an email to allan@footbag.org with a very brief introduction. You need not go into much detail; just say something like: "Hi, I'm Sara from Paris, France. I just registered on modified with the username "sarashreds." I'd like to be part of the modified.in community. Please approve my request."
I think it really sucks that I have to be a gatekeeper to the forum like this, but we're currently getting 60+ applications a day from spammers and I just can't personally verify each one. Most accounts have pretty obvious spammer names; I attempt to contact the non-obvious ones, but even then the task is overly-burdensome. Please be aware that if you create an account with a username like "berry652," your chances of being noticed by me are slim-to-none if you don't also send me an email.
On behalf of the modified community, we're stoked you're here, and really appreciate your patience with this process.
If you can't figure out the answer to the question on the next page, just send me a message at the above address and I'll hook you up.
A) If you have edits to the above text for the registration page, speak up.
B) I need suggestions for new questions to ask that are appropriate (I think the system actually supports multiple questions that rotate randomly); obviously the things need to be short/brief and answerable by newbies. My latest question isn't even a great example, as some newbs may not (probably don't?) know about the shoes yet ...
C) If you know about spammers and phpBB and how to stop them, or have some alternate suggestion rather than going this route, then please do speak up I know enough to do the standard low-hanging fruit stuff (all done), but maybe there's other stuff that could be done ...