For a while we have been using 'Admin Validation' for users joining the forum. This requires John or I to manually approve registrations. We did this because of the Spam we were getting.
To be honest I was cr@p at the beginning but have recently kept on top of registrations with most getting a response within 12/24 hours.
However I have noticed in the last few months that I have not needed to reject anyone and we have not had any spam.
Therefore I am going to set it back to 'E-mail Validation' which coincides nicely with me being away for 2 weeks (I wonder why?)
Let me know if you notice any spam.
Thanks,
Paul