Before I went back to having an admin activate a new signup we took about two dozen spammers as new members (out of our first 50 signups, almost 50%). Beginning around dawn I went through every member's profile that I did not know and bounced everybody who landed here with a non-North American IP address and those with random letters and digits for an IP or e-mail address that was 'filtered' to mask their nation of origin.
The easiest way to get sent to the cornfield is to join with a non-English sounding user name, a 'gmail.com' e-mail address, and from a network known to spam. There's a bunch from Reston, Virginia and Seattle that get flagged post haste but most come from Russia, the British Virgin Islands, Latvia, and even Belgium.
If you have signed on and have not posted and I do not know you, you are not going to be here beyond 30 days. I have no problems with lurkers that want to stay in touch with New York racing without posting but if I do not know you I begin to to think you are a spam 'sleeper' and cannot allow you to remain a member. As of 6:15 a.m. this morning (Thursday, 5/21) I am up to date with activating accounts.
New signups can e-mail me at
quarterpole@budweiser.com if they're having a problem getting on.
Nobody gets on here without being screened ever again. If you get by me as a spammer with a horsey user name and a yahoo e-mail I'll nail you eventually.
Nobody with a job or a life or any self respect should ever try to run a chat board. Trust me on that one.