And I thank all of you for your appreciation and understanding as well.

While some of our efforts draw a fair amount of ire and contempt, EVERYTHING we do is really an effort to make this site as awesome as we can for every one of our members - no exceptions. Getting b!tched at is an expected pat of the job but it means a LOT to us when folks let us know we're doing it right.

What most of you are not aware of is that we usually get at least 5 spam accounts creted a day (sometimes up to 15). We can usually catch and ban most of these accounts right away, but sometimes (especially in the wee hours) they get through and post everything they can before we find 'em and stop 'em. I just deleted another thread from our most recent new member/spammer who came to us out of Odintsovo, Russian Federation.

Each time I log in the first thing I do is look through the new members and verify their locations against their IP addresses. This time I found the spammer I mentioned above and another from Singapore (banned). It gets tricky when the spammer is coming from somewhere in the U.S. and their account LOOKS legit. The spambots have gotten wise and will often wait a couple of weeks before the posting storm begins (sneaky little buggers; ain't they?).

Anyway, thanks again for recognizing our efforts and understanding that every once in a while they catch us unprepared.