Mod note: membership requests are now moderated. We hope this obstructs spambots.

[ron_newman]

Because the infestation of comment spambots is getting steadily worse, and the spambots have begun joining this community, a majority of the moderators have voted to at least temporarily change the membership of davis_square from Open to Moderated.

This means that if a new person wants to join davis_square, their request will be e-mailed to all four moderators, rather than taking immediate effect. If we already know who you are, or you have friends we recognize, or you're a regular participant in other LJ communities, we'll probably approve your request quickly. If you are located in a faraway country and have few or no friends, we may message you back to ask how you are connected to Davis Square.

Non-members who want to leave comments (as opposed to making top-level posts) will continue to be presented with a CAPTCHA.

Posts to this community will not be moderated -- only membership requests.

We don't want to be insular or clannish, but we do need to stem the rising tide of spam.

ETA: I've also edited the community profile page to mention moderated membership, with a link to this post.