So I've gotten a few messages about the above two questions. For this weekend in particular, we wanted to make it easy to register so we relaxed the requirements for registration. As a consequence, that makes it easier for bots to register too. I've banned a number of them so far, as have a few other moderators but what keeps that from becoming evident is we have a two post minimum before your activity becomes public. I'm actually surprised at how well that has worked...
So in light of that, if you wish to participate without needing to make two more substantive posts, go ahead and reply to this message twice. Just make it substantive / specific enough that a bot wouldn't write it. That shouldn't be too hard as most of what the bots have written is something to the effect of:
(They weren't advertising for my site though )Я обнаружил, что это действительно крутой угол Интернета, и вы должны присоединиться ко мне ниже по следующей ссылке, с которой я определенно не связан: www.mattkingsbury.com