Are new Downers getting blocked?

[The Barrow-Wight]

"Too Well Fortified" would be a generous way of describing the actual state of affairs in our admissions office, which would be better characterized as "Absentee Landlord".

I scanned the new applications for years but became weary of approving bots with cleaver names and ignoring well-intentioned recruits with suspicious email addresses. Instead, for the past few years I have often just let things linger in limbo until someone made a special plea. This is obviously not optimal.

There are two possible solutions, as I see it.
(1) Drop the moderation and tolerate the spammers, which are likely to be more active than our membership.
(2) Create a better process for new members to validate their humanity (Elfenticity? Dwarvishness?) [The current question and answer is easily circumvented by clever Goblins.]

Any thoughts on how we can be more welcoming to new wights but less vulernable to pesky marauders?

Thanks!
BW