EDIT, JAN. 3 2012: I've now tentatively (possibly temporarily) decided to enable public registration again. However, I've now adopted the same system as described by Grunion Guy in his posts below, in which I pre-validate all members before they are allowed to join. I hence have the power to delete people's applications if they A) seem like obvious spammers or B) seem like total idiots. Take your pick.

Not sure where this'll lead since there still seems to be a ton of spammers out there, but at least I won't have to delete tons of crap posts advertising Viagra or knock-off Rolexes on a daily basis. Always something, I guess.

Sadly, I very much recognize what you're talking about in your post, Jeff. The same thing has happened to me recently as well, with chinamen signing up only to make poorly-written chinglish posts in which they write stuff like "yes ah, love and live and together learn will we hope. hi. is no ni hao yuang sign up say we when. when if now huang hao is kwang. look forward to post forum on very much friendmy. CHEAP VIAGRA 1-2-3 CHEAP VIAGRA 1-2-3." Over and over and over again, day in and day out. The funny part is that, once you block guys (and they most certainly are guys somehow being paid to spam forums, rather than spambots) like these, they just keep on coming back. It's like they are incapable of understanding that they will just be banned again; instad returning over and over in an endless cycle. I mean, no one even reads the stuff they post anyway, so why would they keep on signing up? I love your story of how the same guy tries to sign up over and over again. Apparently, being a professional spammer is no different than suffering from severe mental retardation.

I think what really made me sick to my stomach was when one of these guys started posting phony condoleances (complete with offers for knock-off Rolex watches and WOW gold) in poor Steven Dhuey's obituary thread. Clearly, ethics and morals are something almost as alien to these people as is common sense and intelligence.