How to successfully join the masm forum.

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The MASM forum has in the past, suffered from a variety of 'spam bots', 'spammers' & scammers' from around the world who use IP addresses and email addresses from many different countries to keep trying to join the forum to post a variety of spam like, cheap loans, drug advertising, software of illegal origin for sale and many other variations.
Unfortunately this has mean't a number of mechanisms are now in place to deal with the problem.

To help the admin' determine that you are a human being and not an automated spam bot or a spammer we need new members to do a couple of things to make these decisions easier.

1. Use a human sounding 'Forum' name, not a name that looks like a random word or name generator.
Do NOT use your email address.

2. If possible use your own email address, not a proxy type from free email providers as this is a common technique used by spammers and spam bots.
A 'Valid' email address, is a requirement of membership on the forum.
'Disposable' Web emails and 'Role' emails, such as info@ISPname.com, are not allowed.
(Note: Your email address in your user profile is NOT VISIBLE to other members or the public nor is your IP address.

NB: If using a Gmail account please check in your Spam folder for you Activation email and tell Gmail it is Not Spam (so future Notifications, will arrive in your Inbox).

3. ALWAYS make a posting as soon as you have confirmed your membership by responding to the email that the forum software sends you.
This is the final most reliable method of determining a valid human being and not a spam bot.
Plus introducing yourself, allows the other Members get an idea of Who you are, what your Specific interests are and what brought you to the Forum.

4. Do NOT use a PM to the ADMIN as your posting, you need to make a posting in the Introduction from New Members so that we can determine you are a person and not a spam bot. A PM to ADMIN without an open forum posting will result in account deletion.

Without a clear method of determining if a new member is a real person, we have no choice but to delete a newly created membership to protect our members from the sum total of trash that spammers will post if they can get away with it.