Dear newbies.
Despite all our efforts there still seem to be some "trolls" around, trying to attack our forums.  The number of registrations is growing at a speed that is too high compared to what we are used to.  Also, very few of newly registered newbies ask for an upgrade so they can post.
Therefore the admins have decided that newbies that do not log in to the forum at least once the first month after they register will be removed.  So please log in if you are indeed a "real" newbie and not a false registration. 
Since there is very little left of this month we will not start this project until the 1st of December.  Then we will remove all that registered in September and October and never logged in.

On another note:

Dear hackers.

Please stop. You're just being annoying.

I was actually thinking a few days a go that the member list needed to be cleaned up

We have removed more than 5000(!) "newbies" this autumn.  All of them registered from the beginning of April 2010 and none of them ever logged in after the registration.

The removal of those newbies, that registered in September and October but never logged in will start after two weeks.

The removal of those newbies, that registered in September and October but never logged in will start after one week.

Well, I hope this login keeps me in good standing on the board. I'm real, I think, but hopelessly lost.

Dave

sailboatslave, you are "Lost One" so you would not qualify for the removal ;)

The removal of those newbies, that registered in September and October but never logged in will start in two days.

The removal of those newbies, that registered in September and October but never logged in will start tomorrow.

The removal of those newbies, that registered in September and October but never logged in will start today.


DONE!

This will be repeated monthly from now on.  We will remove the November trolls after one month.

Have you considered using something like Captcha - I think there's a YABB mod for it, that generates an image with letters/numbers, that users have to extract and add as part of registration to make it more difficult for spam bots to register?

Something like this could still be defeated, but still - it's something...

Thank you for this information.  I thought this was a part of the forumsoftware and since it is not included in YABB I thought it was unavailable.  We will certainly check this.

Found it!  It was there all the time, just located where we, the admins, haven't looked for it.  I have activated it so from now on we should be more or less hacker-free.

Hopefully, this will make a little difference, even if it only slows the rate of growth for these type of accounts. Unfortunately, this whole thing is kind of like an arms race. As tools are developed to defend against spam bots, other tools are created to defeat these defenses.

It's a real shame that things like this are necessary.

Thanks, Rob!  brell, where did you find it?

Security settings.

Why didn't we look?

I thought I did.
::)

8-)