In case anybody is curious, I got our new registration spams down to zero since I made one change. We'll see how long it lasts.
I added a question to registration that says we manually approve all regs, and we will not allow any spammers... and notice the board has ZERO spam? You then have to pick a choice from a pull down menu that either says, "I'm a spammer and I'm wasting your time" or "I'm a real fan and I can prove it."
Zero regs that say I'm a spammer since the new board is in place. And zero regs that say I'm a fan but the reg doesn't look like a fan.