Greetings! The great big spammy fake-user crisis is over. Bogus user count is now ZERO.
I had over 18,000 bogus users, and toiled for days (spread out over weeks) to sift for legitimate new join requests. After going through roughly half of those, I decided that the honor of statistics had been satisfied, and installed a magnificent plugin called WP Bulk Delete, which does exactly what it says. Highly recommend. WHOOSH, 7,679 remaining bogus users gone.
And so we are back to business as usual — anybody can join into an initial status which requires elevation. If I recognize you, I’ll just boost you — otherwise send to the mail address up in the “Join” link in the top menu.
See you, uh, around!