BTNG wrote:-
"well apparently fRoots does ban something other than people, the use of a GMail account as an e-mail address, when registering for boards membership, something about a security nightmare".

Not my position to, I realise, but could I try to explain this? GMail is a favoured by the almost unbelievably high number of spammers that try to post their trash adverts etc. on the fRoots forum. (Copies of these attempts to register come to me, so I know). Attempts to join the forum are filtered manually by a volunteer who does this in her spare time. This sometimes does mean that there is a delay between attempts to register to join the forum but genuine posters do get through to join in the end.

So yes, it is a "security nightmare" but the upside of that is that no spam posts appear on that forum....

.... or on this one for that matter, though how the adminstrators here manage to keep them out - especially with the ability to post as GUESTS - I really don't know.
Actually, I don't want to know, because if the persistent spammers found this out, they may find a way around it.

Whatever is wrong with both these forums, they are pretty much 100% spam free. Long may it remain so.