I notice that right now among the registered users of the forum are MSN(BOT), Yahoo(BOT) and Google(BOT). I assume they are just playing web spider to index the site. What concerns me is that they have somehow become "registered". Not being a web designer, I don't know if this should be a concern or not... as I know we were filtering out spammers by restricting the registration process. Just pointing it out in case some action may need to be taken.

Its been like that ever since the upgrade to PHPBB3.

Everyone that is on the forums do go through the registration process. New registers are not able to sign on until we know they are legit and their account gets activated. GS George and I go handle the registration process multiple times a day.

Still messing with that? Check this out. Lots of options there, but this one works like a charm and is really easy to set up. A person can get through it, but a bot doesn't stand a chance...yet.

And Marty, nothing to worry about...it's a standard PHPBB3x feature.

Were not on the current version. I am not able to do anything as that is something that Brandon takes care of.

I think most of that stuff, especially the added question, can be added without upgrading. What the added question does is ask something common sense to a human that can be answered easily...like " In which country is Paris?". The answer, while obvious to most walking heads, is baffling to bots. So while it doesn't work on human spammers, it eliminates the bots 'till they get smart enough to figure it out (hasn't happened to me yet). And if they do figure it out (a human does it and programs the bot), you change the question, which takes just a few minutes, and you're cool. It has saved me TONS of time. The downside...you need back end access as you need to add a couple of lines of code.

If they answer "Texas," does that mean that they are bots or does it simply mean they are not human, and what exactly is the difference?

Yes